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Show 50 IMMIGRANTS' AND SETTLERS' GUIDE VIRGINIA CITY MINES. These mines take their name from Virginia City, the largest town in Eastern Idaho, situate in Fairweather's Gulch upon .Alder Creek, one of the tributaries of the Stinking Water, a small stream that puts into the J efferson Fork about seventy miles north-east of Bannock. "The mines here," says a late writer, "are unsurpassed in richness ; not a claim bas been opened that does. not pay good wages, while many claims yield the precious ore by the pound." Two lines of coaches run between this point and Bannock City. • PRICES OF PROVISIONS, ETC. . As an immigr~nt's success or ill success, particularly If he has. a family dependent upon him for support, depends In a ~e~t ~easure upon the cost of living in a new c~untry, 1t 1s Important to give in this connexion ~he prices of produce, etc., ·at Bannock and at other ~mportant ~rading points in the Territory. The followIng quotations are made up to Dec. 1863 : - Flour, $25 per cwt. ; bacon, SOc. per lb. ; ham, 60c. ; fresh steaks, 15a25c.; potatoes per lb. 25c.; cabbage per lb. 60c.; coffee, SOc .. sugar, 60c.; fresh butter, $1.25; bay, 10c. per lb. or $30 per ton! lumber, $150 per thousand. Wa.ges ruled at $5 per day for miner~ and common laborers, and $6a$8 for mechanics. Female labor ra.n ed from $10 to $15 per week. Washing, from $3 to $6 by ·the dozen~ it Virginia City prices of provisions are higher than at annock. Flour at the same date was $30 per cwt and lumber $400 per. M. T_he latter article is now much lower, several saw-mills having been erected during the ~;:s,~~t seas?.n. ,~t should be borne in mind that these . 1 ~st P11Ces, Greenbacks as currency not being in c1rcu ation. RIVERS, WATER, ETC. The rivers which have their rise or partial flow in and TO THE NEW STATES .AND TERRITORIES. 51 through Idaho are numerous, and many of them important. The following are among the most considerable : The Missouri, Yell ow Stone, Colorado, North Platte, Saskatchewan, Snake, Salmon, Hell Gate, Bitter Root, and Koos Kooskee. The water at Bannock City, being brought a distance of several miles, is sold to the miners, being delivered from horizontal apertures, the openings of which are gradu.a ted to half inches ; and for each inch of., water the miner pays from fifty to seventy-five cents for each day of ten hours. Although many of the remarks on gold-mining con-tained in a previous chapter on Colorado will apply with equal force to Idaho, and, indeed, to all the gold-fields of the Pacific slope, it is proper to insert a few closing practical suggestions for the benefit more particularly of those who may select this as their destined field of labor. QUARTZ MINING. .As usual in new gold regions, gulch-mining, as being the easiest worked, is first resorted to, but this is mere gleaning and surface-scratching compared with the solid and permanent yield of quartz mining when properly carried on. The quartz mines of Idaho were discovered by an old trapper of that country in 1845, and were frequently shown to emigrants going to Oregon, whose fabulous reports of the richness of .these J?ines w~re never f~lly . credited until after the d1scover1es at Bannock C1t y. Indeed even now the yield of these mines does not fully verify the reports that pave been in circulation on the shores of the Pacific for the last 15 years; but that the Idaho quartz-lode is one of the richest ever found, is beyond a doubt. QUARTZ MILLS. The following extract from a private letter written |