Mines and Mining Anonymous (1 results)

22.2x14.5 cm (octavo), pp. [1-3] 4-5 [6] 7-349 [350-352: blank], illustrations, original black cloth, lettered in gold and ruled in blind. First edition. The cover title is "GOLD MINING IN CALIFORNIA." This copy, distributed (and/or sponsored or compiled by) the Risdon Iron and Locomotive Works, has their name printed on the front cover and their advertisement printed on a sheet affixed to the front paste-down. San Francisco's Risdon Iron and Locomotive Works (1868-1911) was a major Pacific Coast builder of mining machinery. This comprehensive account of the California gold mining industry was produced to stimulate capital investment during a period when California's "interests and industries" were "depressed and languishing" to increase gold production "from fourteen or fifteen million dollars per annum" to "thirty-five or forty millions, . [so] three times as many men as are now engaged in our gold fields, could then find profitable employment there" (preface, page 5). The work draws "freely on the columns of the MINING AND SCIENTIFIC PRESS, and on several reports of the State Mineralogist of California . [as well as] the newspaper press of both the city and State at large." Cowan (1933), p. 240. Cloth worn at spine ends and corners, some rubbing and spotting, scattered mild foxing to text pages, a very good copy. An important work on California's mining industry. Quite scarce. (#168950).…