The first mining in California by Americans was crude, as it had been in Mexican days — °washing out' the auriferous gravels in the °gold pan.* The first step in advance was the °rocker,* employing two men, and foreshadow ing a certain associative effort. Next came the °Long Tom,' which made also for stability, since it could not be carried. Then came the sluice-box, a small wooden flume with wooden riffles on the bottom, behind which the gold sank and was saved, while the lighter sand and gravel were swept on by the swift current. In 1852, E. E. Matteson, a Connecticut Yankee, invented hydraulic mining, the greatest advance ever made in the placers. Water under high pressure, served through a nozzle called the °monitor,' thrown 200 or 300 feet with such nozzle force that a crowbar could not be thrust into the jet, ate away whole hillsides almost as hot water disintegrates sugar, the detritus pass ing through long riffled sluice-boxes. While this invention was the most essential yet made in mining, it was long disastrous to ultimate development of the State, agriculturally. In 1880 it was proved by engineers' measurements that on the Yuba River alone more than 100,000000 cubic yards of gravel had been washed by hydrauhcs into the bed of the stream, raising it 70 feet, and burying 15,000 acres of farm lands under the debris. After a long and bitter fight, the 'anti-Slickens' campaign ended in 1884 in favor of the agricultural interests, and hydraulic mining in California has never since been on a large scale.
°Quartz mining'—that is, deep mining on the original veins from whose waste the placers derive—began in 1851, but did not take chief rank for many years. Now it is the principal form of gold mining in this State; and • as it requires large capital, experience and time, gold mining no longer attracts the multitude, though the State annuallyproduces three times as much gold as set all the East in a fever three-fourths of a century ago. California is the only ante bellum State in the Union which has never had "soft money) or a depreciation of currency. The largest mint in the world is located in San Francisco.
In the 'sixties, extensive experiments were made by Thomas Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad to develop petroleum in California, even shipping around the Horn barrels for the expected product. For various reasons, chiefly administrative, the experiment failed.
In 1875, J. D. Whitney (of Yale), perhaps the greatest geologist of the United States, and for years State geologist of California, stated that while there "were surface indications of petroleum, it was ge ologically impossible that California should become a great producing petroleum State, and there could not be flowing oil wells like those of Pennsylvania." The enormous surface indications in many parts of the Coast Range tempted further exploration; and within a year after Professor Whitney's prophecy, oil was struck in Los Angeles County at Puente; and soon thereafter in Los Angeles City and also in Ventura County. By 1893, there were about 100 wells in California producing in the year 400,000 barrels. By 1900, the annual prod uct had increased to 4,324,484 barrels, with 1,590 producing wells, and 470 drilling. In February 1918, the total number of producing wells was 8,158. A majority of the California oil wells are flowing when first tapped. The famous "Lake View" spouted about 90,000 barrels a day for a long time, and continued to flow for more than ayear. Other wells have spouted from 30,000 down to 10,000 barrels a day. The life of a flowing well varies from six months to three years. For these great gushers, whole valleys are dammed up as reservoirs are dammed for water; and the petroleum product makes lakes of large size. The oil fields touch 17 counties in a line over 600 miles long. The vast majority of the product is in eight counties in the south in the following order (1916) : Oil wells are from 700 to 4,000 feet deep. In the Summerland district, in Ventura County, most of the production is from wells put down in the bed of the ocean from piers. Thousands of miles of pipe-lines deliver at tide-water the product from Kern River and other districts. In 1916 (except for Oklahoma which has recently outstripped it) California produced nearly 50 per cent of the total petroleum of the United States and over 10 times as much as Pennsylvania.
California locomotives nearly all burn crude petroleum, as do the steamers. Steam and electric roadbeds are "oiled" for thousands of miles. An overwhelming majority'of the manu facturers of the State use it for fuel. It is equivalent to coal at about $3 per ton. There can be no fuel famines in California. The mud road has disappeared from the progressive sections. Farmers drive (mostly by auto and truck) to market over unsurpassed boulevards made by mixing the universal disintegrated granites with crude oil and steam-rolling the surface. The production of natural gas in creased from $34,578 in 1900 to $2,871,751 in 1916—a gain of 82 times in 16 years. Twelve counties produce this commodity but the output is overwhelmingly from Kern (over 60 per cent of total), Santa Barbara, Orange, Fresno, Los Angeles and Ventura counties, in that order. One pipe line (the "Midway") transmits 23, 000,000 cubic feet per 24 hours, and is 107 miles long. In 1916 there were 31 plants in the State making gasoline, having an aggregate capacity of 61,400 gallons per day. The petroleum of California in its varying forms has not only been one of the greatest Industrial and economic factors of the State, but has contributed to Paleozoology the most extraordinary find in history—not even surpassed by the remarkable deposits of actual fossils at Agate Springs, Neb.— the "La Brea Rancho," partly within the city limits of Los Angeles, discovered in 1906, a unique preservative of Pleistocene remains. In a space of about 1,400 feet long, northwest by southeast, and 150 feet wide, thousands of skeletons have been discovered, of which many were before unknown to science. In the same area crude oil is still bubbling up; and jack rabbits, owls and smaller animals are caught in it at night, taking it for water, and being "bogged down." In the Pleistocene period, southern California was a tropical jungle roamed by the largest land mammals. The drying up of the region, the extinction of tropical forests and of lakes and water-courses, brought about the rapid extinction of these ancient species. On the "La Brea" is a little pond of about an acre of asphaltum springs, still bubbling. In Pleistocene days, the Imperial elephant came down here to water, and was caught in this oleaginous quicksand. Sabre-tooth tigers sprang upon their backs and devoured them alive— and other tigers dis puted the prey; and all slowly sank down to be preserved hundreds of thousands of years for science, to-day. The skeletons of 50 species of mammals and 50 of birds have been exhumed here, and new material is constantly coming up. The great bird of 14 feet wing spread — the teratornis — is the largest of the winged creation found here. The sabre-tooth tiger was known to science before, but none with tusks reaching below the lower lip. In this incom parable cemetery have been taken out, already, 630 sabre-tooth tigers with an average length of 10 inches for those great canine teeth, seven inches below the gums. The first complete skeleton of the Imperial elephant was taken out here; and 16 other specimens have been found. Over 700 of the "big wolves"—very much larger than the modern timber wolf ; 7 masto dons; 39 giant ground sloths; 39 bison; 39 horses and 39 camels, and new varieties of the little sloth, the antelope and a cat as large as the jaguar (whereas the puma was before the largest, except the lions and tigers). Other museums have fragments of the giant ground sloth; but the only complete specimen is from here. Of the little sloth, here are the only 11 skulls known. This is the only place known in the world where bones have been preserved in asphalt. They are not fossils, and their dur ability is a matter of surmise, though they are in perfect preservation and not friable as if they had been buried in soil. The Museum of History, Science and Art, in Los Angeles, has a vast quantity of material unmounted, and 15 examples mounted of the most important of these unique prehistoric creatures. The owner of BreaD has donated 32 acres of this waste land, and Los Angeles County will build a park and subsidiary museum on the spot around this death-pit, which attracted these forgotten animals of the Pleistocene period. The petro leum ((traps will be maintained as it has been for so long; except that it will show the modern excavations and some bones in situ.