158 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY.

 

pally in California.: The entire production in 1893 was
7,083,322 pounds. ;

Maple-sugar is produced in Vermont, New York, Ohio,
New Hampshire, Michigan, and Indiana. The total pro-
duction in 1893 amounted to 3,220,000 pounds.

413, Mineral Productions.—The United States
are particularly noted for the richness and variety
of their mineral deposits. Nearly all the import-
ant metals are found in various portions of the
country, some of the deposits extending over
areas of enormous extent.

414, Precious Metals.—Gold, silver, and plati-
num occur.
large.

Gold—tThe principal deposits of gold occur
in the mountainous districts in the eastern and
western portions of the country. The Californian
region, which embraces the entire western coast
and much of the country as far east as the Great
Plains, is the richest. The deposits are especially
valuable in the basins of the Sacramento and San
Joaquin Rivers. Gold is found either in quartz
veins or in alluvial deposits.

Silver is found either in the gold-fields already
mentioned, or in deposits of galena, one of the
most valuable ores of lead. It also occurs pure
or native in the copper regions of Lakes Superior
and Michigan. :

Platinum has been found in small quantities
in both the eastern and western portions of the
country.

415. Ordinary Metals.—Iron, copper, zine, and

‘lead occur in various portions of the eastern, cen-
tral, and western sections of the country.

Iron, which intrinsically is the most valuable
of all the metals, is, perhaps, the most. widely
distributed. Valuable deposits of various iron
ores, mainly oxides and carbonates, occur in
many parts of the country. The deposits are ex-
ceedingly rich in Northern Michigan and Wis-
consin; in the neighborhood of the Adirondacks
in New York; in Pennsylvania; in Missouri,
where the deposits at one time actually formed
two mountains of iron; in the district of Lake
Superior; in Alabama, and elsewhere. The de-
posits in Pennsylvania are the most valuable, from
their vicinity to beds of coal and limestone, which
are necessary for the reduction of the ore.

Copper occurs in large quantities in the east-
ern, western, and central sections of the country.
The ores are principally sulphides or oxides, or
the native or metallic copper. The most valu-
able deposits are found in the neighborhood of

The deposits of gold and silver are

. cury or cinnabar.

 

Keweenaw Point, Lake Superior, where large
beds of the native material occur.

Zine.—The most valuable deposits are found in
Missouri, Wisconsin, and Kansas. It also occurs
in the Atlantic States, from Maine to Virginia. -

Lead.— Valuable deposits are found in the East,
from Maine to North Carolina. The largest and
richest districts, however, are in the interior, in
Colorado and Utah, where it occurs with silver,
and in the Mississippi Valley; in Wisconsin,
Towa, Illinois, and Misscuri.

‘416. Among: other valuable metals, tin, mer-
cury, chromium, nickel, cobalt, antimony, bis-
muth, manganese, are found in small quantities.

Tin occurs in limited quantities both in the East .
and in the West. So far as is known, the deposits
are richest in the Black Hills in Dakota.

Mercury is found either pure or in combina-
tion. The principal ore is the sulphide of mer-
The deposits in California are
the most important.

Chromium is found in moderately large quan-
tities in various portions of the Atlantic States, |
as far south as Virginia.

Nickel, cobalt, antimony, bismuth, and man-
ganese are found in limited quantities.

417. Coal,—The coal-fields of the United States
are the richest in the world. Immense deposits
occur in the eastern, central, and western sections
of the country. So far as is known, the eastern

   

Fig. 137, Coal-Mine,

coal-field, which covers portions of Pennsylvania,
Ohio, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ala-
bama, is the most extensive.