Average wages of male teachers per month.. $36 45 22 24 $151,816 34 Total amount expended during the year and on hand Aug. 31...$1,055,101 33 During the year covered by this report, there were 2,222 male teachers and 5,310 female teachers employed in the public schools, and 11,948 more pupils in attendance than in 1864. The whole number of pupils was sixty-six per cent. of the whole number of persons over four years and under twenty years of age in the State. The number less than four years of age who had been registered was 1,252. There was raised by tax for school purposes $2.70 for each child over four and under twenty years of age, and $4.07 for each child registered as a member of the public schools. The number of school-houses was 4,388, valued at $1,500,000, and accommodating 241,595 pupils. The Superintendent's report gives the productive portion of the school fund as follows: For the preceding year (1864), the whole amount of the productive school fund was $2,052,353; the amount apportioned to the public schools, $151,010, and the amount of the productive fund of the State University was $157,120. The school fund of the State was originally derived principally from the following sources: Proceeds of the sale of the sixteenth section of each township, and an additional grant by Congress of 500,000 acres of land; 25 per cent. of the proceeds of the sale of swamp and overflowed lands, and lands selected in lieu thereof (25 per cent. to go to the Normal School fund ;) five per cent. of the sales of Government public lands in the State; five per cent. penalty as forfeiture for nonpayment of interest on school land certificates and school fund loans; and the clear proceeds of all fines collected in the several counties for penal offenses and for trespasses on State lands. CALIFORNIA. CALIFORNIA is bounded on the north by Oregon, on the east by Nevada, (from which it is in part separated by the Sierra Nevada Mountains,) on the south-west by Arizona, (from which it is partially separated by the Colorado River,) south by Mexico, and south-west and west by the Pacific Ocean. California is very irregular in shape. It extends from Oregon on the north to Lower California on the south, and from Nevada and Arizona on the east to the Pacific on the west, reaching through nearly ten degrees of latitude in length-from 32° 20′ to 42° north-and through about ten degrees of longitude in its extreme breadth, lying between the meridians of 37° 18′ and 47° 28′ west from Washington. Its area has heretofore usually been set down at 188,982 square miles; but more recent and careful surveys fix the actual area of the State at 158,687 square miles, or 101,659,680 acres. FACE OF THE COUNTRY.-As the voyager sails along the coast of California, he looks upon a low range of mountains, which in many instances approach to the water's edge, and form a bluff, iron-bound coast, through which he enters, by a narrow strait named the Golden Gate, the Bay of San Francisco. Following these low mountains on the coast north of the Golden Gate is a broken and hilly country, to which succeeds the coast range, entering from Oregon and extending nearly parallel with the ocean, at distances varying from 30 to 100 miles, till it reaches the 35th parallel of north latitude, where it unites with the Sierra Nevada and passes into old California. This range varies generally from 500 to 5,000 feet in height. Mount Linn, in latitude 40°, is the highest known peak of this part of the coast range, but its height has not been ascertained. South of the Golden Gate, San Bernardino, in latitude 34°, attains an elevation of about 17,000 feet. In this portion, between the Sierra Morena Mountains (near the Pacific) and the coast range, lie the valleys of the San Juan and of the Buenaventura, which have their outlets in the Pacific Ocean. The latter is 60 miles long and from 15 to 20 wide. The Sierra Morena or Brown Mountains (2,000 feet high,) descend toward the Golden Gate, of which they form the southern wall. The mountains immediately on the coasts bear various local names. Table Hill, on the north side of the strait leading into San Francisco Bay, is 2,569 feet high, and Mount Diabolo, east of San Francisco, is 3,770 feet in height. Near the northern boundary of the State, in a spur of mountains running northeast from the coast range to the Sierra Nevada, is Mount Shasta, having an elevation of 14,400 feet; it is covered with perpetual snow. In Shasta County is also Mount St. Joseph's, 12,000 feet high. The great valley of the Sacramento and San Joaquin extends from north to south about 500 miles, with an average breadth of about 60 miles, bounded by the coast range on the west and by the Sierra Nevada on the east. From a base of about 500 feet above the sea commences the ascent of Sierra Nevada, the acclivities being wooded to about half the mountain's height with oak, succeeded by a forest of gigantic pines, cedars, and cypress; then follows the naked granite, and lastly, the summits crowned with perpetual snow. At the north end of the Sacramento Valley is a second higher valley, of about 100 miles in length and some thousands of feet in elevation, heavily timbered, and containing tracts of arable land along the streams. The Sierra Nevada range may be regarded as a continuation of the Cascade Mountains of Oregon. It extends almost directly south till it unites with the coast range, in latitude 34° north, forming in its course the east boundary of California, as far as the 39th degree of north latitude, near which is Fremont's Pass, 7,200 feet above the level of the sea. There is a volcano in Calaveras County, near the sources of Jackson's River. On the western slope of these mountains, mostly between 37° and 40° north latitude, are the celebrated "gold diggings," toward which the eyes of those "who make haste to be rich" have been so eagerly turned since the first discovery of gold in Sutter's mill-race in 1847. COUNTIES.-The following are the counties in California, with their county towns, and also the population of each county according to the census of 1860: GEOLOGY-According to Mr. Tyson's survey, speaking generally, a section across the State, from Bodkay Bay, bearing from north 80° east to the Sierra Nevada, exhibits first, on the western side, in the coast range, a sandstone formation, with interpositions of leptinite, clays, trachyte, talcose slate, and trap rocks; while the recent sedimentary deposits of the Sacramento Valley rest upon beds of conglomerate sandstone and clay, and the western declivities of the Sierra Nevada consist mainly of talcose and other slates, through which are extruded trappean rocks, leptinite, granite, and serpentine. A similar section across the State from San Francisco Bay, bearing north 70° east, exhibits sandstones, with some fossil deposits east of the bay; on the west slope, conglomerate sandstone, and slates, with trap, volcanic tufa, and porphyry. MINERALS AND MINING.-It is almost superfluous to say that California is one of the most important mineral regions in the world, particularly in its deposits of gold. The great gold diggings lie on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, principally between 37° and 40° north latitude; but the precious mineral has also been found in other quarters in considerable quantities, particularly in Klamath County, in the north-west, and in Shasta County. The gold first discovered was evidently not in place, but the washings from the upper regions; and when that shall have been exhausted, there are large bodies of auriferous quartz, which, (with greater labor and expense) will probably afford large supplies of this metal for generations to come. In addition to the precious metal just noticed, there has been found in Butte County an abundance of quicksilver, platina, iron, lead, and some silver; copper and silver, quicksilver, platina, asphaltum, marble, and granite occur in Marin County; black marble in Shasta; a fine-grained white marble and freestone in Calaveras; a splendid ledge of pure white marble on the middle fork of Feather River; quicksilver in Napa; rich silver-mines and coal in San Luis Obispo; quicksilver in Santa Clara; copious salt springs (sufficient, report says, to supply the State) in Shasta; bituminous springs in many places along the coast, and hot sulphur springs in Santa Barbara; warm soda springs near Benicia, in Solano; bituminous and sulphur springs in San Luis Obispo; and hot, asphaltum, and salt springs in Los Angeles County. According to Professor Trask, "platina is widely distributed; scarcely a section of country where gold has been found, but that this metal has been discovered." Silver has been found in several mines in the southern district, copper is widely distributed, and chromium occurs in large quantities in serpentine rocks. In 1865 a new gold-mining district was opened in the extreme western part of Nevada County, among the high hills of the Sierras, and near the Pacific Railroad. The ores promised to be very rich. It is said that the poorer portions of the ores sold on the spot at forty dollars a ton. The richer ones were taken to a distance to be worked. A single chunk of ore from this mine is reported to have yielded over $3,900 to the ton. GOLD MINING.-The western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, the original gold region, yield no silver ore, but gold only. The gold-mining is of two kinds that which obtains the metal from the solid rock of quartz, and that which separates it from sand, gravel, or soil. The former pro cess usually follows in the wake of the latter, and succeeds when the "Diggings," as they are familiarly called, become exhausted, or fail in their first attractions. In these "Diggings," deposits of gold are found in sand, gravel or soil, supposed to have been ground out of the rock of the hills by the action of the elements, and worked down into the beds of rivers or mountain caverns. These deposits of gold are obtained by one general process-that of washing with water. But the mode of operation is various-from the hand-pan, pick, and shovel of the original miner to large combinations of capital and costly machinery, for changing the course of a river and get at its bed, for running down shafts hundreds of feet to bring up an old river-bed, or for bringing water ten or twenty miles through ditches and pipes, to wash down a whole hill-side at once, to get at the golden dust. The search for gold deposits in the beds of old streams, by means of shafts and tunnels, is called "Deep Diggings," Deep Diggings," or "Bed-rock Diggings." The rocky-bed, along which a river originally ran, is said to yield the richest deposits. These old beds are often followed for miles, the miners digging down many feet below the surface. But a greater amount of capital and labor is required in what is called "hydraulie mining." By this process water is brought from lakes and rivers, and by means of powerful engines, thrown in streams upon or against a bank of earth or a whole hill-side, tearing it into fragments, which are separated into narrow sluices, where the particles of gold are deposited. These mining operations of course lay waste the country. Streams of water are turned out of their natural courses, and others, naturally pure, are made thick with mud. Immense masses of soil are washed down from the diggings above upon the banks of the rivers below. But mining rights are considered superior to all others in California, and it is of little use to complain of the wholesale destruction of property by mining operations. The expense of hydraulic mining is very heavy, yet it often yields a large profit. A company carrying on its operations near Dutch Flat, bring water-power from mountain lakes, twenty miles distant, and turning rivers out of their courses, expended eighty thousand dollars one year in making a new ditch, yet in the same year liquidated that amount, and divided among its stockholders an additional profit of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars. But in these, as in other mining operations, where some meet with splendid success, others signally fail. The gold-washings, however, in their various modifications, are, probably, in proportion to the labor and capital expended, as profitable and yield as fine returns as any other department of mining. Some cases are mentioned where single companies often wash out, each, a thousand dollars a day, and others are spoken of whose washings for weeks average fifty to one hundred dollars a day to the hand. A "clearing up," after a successful run, often produces fifty thousand and sometimes a hundred thousand dollars. Most persons are familiar with the general excitement caused by the discovery of gold in California in the spring of 1848. For years subsequent to that event, a great tide of emigration continued to flow steadily into this new gold region. The scene of operations in mining |