CHICAGO AND ALTON RAILROAD. The gross earnings from operations for the two years ending December 31, 1865 and 1866, compare as follows: The earnings, expenses and profits from operations for the last six years Total gross earnings... Total expenses.... Earnings less expenses.. The net earnings have been disposed of in the last three years, as shown The surplus Jan. 1, 1866, amounted to $1,291,397, and Jan. 1, 1867, to $1,497,955. This surplus is represented by Alton and St. Louis Railroad Company Stock... St. Louis, Jacksonville and Chicago Railroad Company bonds.. Joliet and hicago Railroad Company bonds. Chicago and Mis-issippi Interest in Union Stock Depot, Chicago..... Sums due this Company.. Cash on hand-general fund.. Supplies on hand.. Less sums due others $342,917 . $675.000 50,000 The general balance sheets, December 31, 1863-66, exhibits the finan cial condition of the Company thus: Total........ $9,392,742 $9,896,568 $10,008,224 $12,290,904 The increased capital, as shown for 1866, was made by a distribution of stock in February last to the amount of one share of common stock to every two shares of stock, preferred and common alike, then outstanding, This realized to at the uniform price to holders of $30 per $100 share. the company of $632,915, which was set apart as a special fund to be expended in new work and equipment, and to complete the purchase of the Alton and St. Louis Railroad; the sum of $135,614 50, the cost of $135,000 U. S. 7-30 notes being retained for the latter purpose. Deducting this amount, and $339,217 82, expended on additional work and rolling stock, there remains the sum of $158,082 68, as shown in the balance sheet for future exigencies. The distribution as above was made to cover capital expenditures from the income account. Since the re-organization of the company, in October, 1862, the following dividends have been declared and paid: Pref. Com. 32 5 .... 34 6 5 5 September, 1866 1867 1866 Total in four years and a half Stock (worth more than cash) distributed -averaging, together, more than 15 per cent. per annum on the capital invested. The monthly range of prices for the stocks of this company in the New York market, for the last three years, is shown in the table which follows: January.. February July. 1864. -PREFERRED STOCK- August. Septemb'r.. October November 90 @ 95 December..... ... 89 @ 93 104 @106 108 @110 92 @ 95 Year.. 65 @100 80 @106 83 @119 1866. 105 @107 103 @120 94@118 93 @96 100 @101 102 @102 1041@106 105 @109 1064@113 113 @113 1094@112 110@111 93 @120 BOSTON AND NEW YORK BANK DIVIDENDS. Below we give tables showing the dividends of the New York and Boston Banks for a series of years: (Continued from page 224.) The gold veins of Virginia extend through Fairfax, Prince William, Fauquier, Culpeper, Orange, Spottsylvania, Louisa, Fluvana, Goochland, Buckingham, and a few adjoining counties. In 1837 Professor Benjamin Silliman published (Journal of Science, first series, vol. 32, p. 98) the results of a personal examination of mines in the vicinity of Fredericksburg, of which a brief summary will be given. He describes the gold-bearing quartz as embedded in talcose and mica slate, principally the latter. In far the greater number of cases the eye Columbia, 3 per cent. in gold, April, 1856. + North America, 25 per cent. in stock, no cash State, par 100, since May; previously, 60. § Third National, for first dividend, April, 1868. ten months. Pawners' Bank, surplus over 8 per cent given athocrity. detects nothing but quartz, or sometimes metallic sulphurets of iron, zinc, or lead, and the observer, unless previously instructed, would never suspect the presence of gold, either distinct or in the metallic sulphurets. In the vicinity of the quartz veins rich washings occur. In Spottsylvania county, on a branch near the Whiteball mine, $10,000 was taken in a few days from a space twenty feet square, and $7,000 was found near Tinder's mine, in Louisa county in the course of one week. It often bappened that successful alluvial mining preceded the discovery of vein nines. Of the latter several are described. 1. Busty's Mine, situated fifty miles from Richmond and fifty-three miles from Fredericksburg, in solid quartz veins, fifteen to eighteen inches thick, at depth of twenty-two feet; structure of vein coarsely granular, like loaf sugar, free from foreign matter except inherent gold, and so white that even when pulverized it showed no tint of color; yield on one trial $80 per ton; on another trial $240 per ton. 2. Moss mine, near the above; situated in ecomposed slate-rock; surface of vein little else than red clay, but firmer, and stratified below; inclination of rock and included quartz vein about 45°; direction by compass north by east, and south by west; diameter of vein sixteen, eighteen, twenty-four, twenty-seven, and thirty inches, averaging twentyfour inches; quartz laminar, easily broken and separated from slate by blasting, but showing no signs of gold, though examined by a magnifier; three tests returned $100, $140, and $200 per ton, yet in neither case was gold visible in quartz or ore. 3. Walton Mine, situated in Louisa county, forty miles southwest of Fredericksburg; quartz vein firm and compact; one foot wide; occasionally porous and interspersed with iron pyrites and a dark iron ore, probably proceeding from their decomposition; penetrated by two shafts of seventy and forty feet; first trial of pour ore, $80; second trial of average ore, $60; third trial of ore taken at random, $400; fourth trial of specimen, showing gold to the naked eye, $2,660 per ton; average of the series of assays, $820 per ton. 4. Culpepper Mine, situated eighteen miles west of Fredericksburg, upon the Rapidan; a tract of 524 acres; hydraulic power for a twenty-stamp mill; four adits with connecting shafts; main vein ten feet wide, but prone to divide into strings not larger than a finger, nearly parallel and separated only by portions of the slaty rock; gold more abundant in these strings than in larger veins; much iron accompanying the ore; pulverized quartz always ed or brown; iron pyrites in some places fresh and brilliant, else where decomposed; strata nearly perpendicular; specimens from fourteen localities, mixed together, returned $30 per ton; specimen from a vein considered rich, but showing no sign of gold, gave $50 per ton. In the following paragraph, Professor Silliman only anticipates the experience of miners at this day: "Gold is often found in pyritical ores in which the gold is embedded in fine particles. This mass when reduced to fine powder gives a residium of oxidized iron about equal in weight to the fine gold, the latter being malleable or flattened, while the former, being brittle, remains rounded or angular. In washing this mixture in the pan the gold generally remains on the upper side of the mass, and is cherefore more liable to be washed off by the slightest ripple of the w: er. On the other hand, |