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10 MINERAL INDUSTRY OF CALIFORNIA.

The figures of the State Mining Bureau are made up from reports
received direct from the producers of the various minerals. Care is
exercised in avoiding duplication, and any error is likely to be on the
side of under- rather than over-estimation.
California yields commercially a greater number and variety of
mineral products than any state in the United States, and probably
more than any other equal area elsewhere of the earth. The total
annual value of her output is surpassed by not more than four or five
others, and those usually the great coal states of east of the- Mississippi.
California was for many years the sole domestic source of borax,
chromite and magnesite. We lead all other states in the production of
gold, quicksilver, and platinum; and have alternated in the lead with
Colorado in tungsten, and with Oklahoma in petroleum.
Apropos of the importance of hydro-electric power development to
the mining industry in California which has been noted in previous
issues of these mineral statistics reports, the following acknowledg-
ment of the debt owed by the hydro-electric power industry to the
miner is worthy of quotation :^
"The power business in California had its beginning in the mining business.
Miners pioneered the path of the hydro-electric engineers of today. Their methods
of construction, the manner in which they moved heavy machinery and material
into rocky, remote regions, their designs for flumes, dams, and ditches, their
tangential water-wheel, all left a lesson to be learned, and as the hydro-electric
engineers of the new day read the record in the rocks the achievements of the
sturdy men of the mountains took hold of them and inspired the vision that brought
about the wonderful developments of the power industry that have made California
the envy of the world.
"None know the story be-tter than the P. G. and E. This company supplied more
power to gold mines than all other companies in the State combined. Never an
engineer goes over its system but he realizes its debt to the old miners. Ten of
the company's twenty-eight water-power plants were originally initiated to provide
energy for mining operations. Nine of its plants were installed on canals dug to
supply water for mines. Out of that same hunt for gold came ten of the company's
reservoirs. Blindly, perhaps, but like a Titan, the old-time miner builded for the
future. Tonight his reservoirs, feeding power plants on some Sierra slope, will
light homes hundreds of miles away. Some of his canals, blasted out of the rocks
in the old pack-train days of the '50's still wind their rugged way through twenty
miles and more of mountain in the great wheels that in a twinkling create the
spark that spins a thousand factory wheels and makes goods, and work for multi-
tudes, and cargoes for ships, and payrolls, and prosperity.
"It is a stirring tale, a tale too long to be told in a breath. It is a book, a book
not yet written and too vast a work for the modest chronicler. The miner made
California, and it is still his state, for the age of electricity has but sealed his title."
^California's debt to the miner: P. G. & E. Progress, Vol. 1, No. 8, p. 2, July, 1924.