No doubt Colorado is rich, immensely rich, in mineral resources--gold, silver, copper, iron, coal, etc.,--but she was scarcely making much decided headway as a mining community, so far as could be seen, in 1866. Considerable of her population, indeed, had gone off to Montana and Idaho, to the reputed rich gold-fields there, and many of the rest were waiting patiently for the Pacific Railroad and a market. Great results were anticipated from the oncoming of the railroad, and it is to be hoped she has realized them. Her yield of the precious metals in 1862, it was estimated by good authority, amounted to ten millions of dollars; but in 1863 it fell to eight millions, in 1864 to five millions, and in 1865 to four millions. Ross Browne, in 1866, in his report of _Mineral Resources of the United States_, with characteristic exaggeration, estimated her yield for that year at seventeen millions; but more accurate observers regarded this as a California joke, and pronounced his estimate at least four or five times too high. The large yield in 1862 represented the maximum from gulch or placer mining, and the soft outcroppings of the quartz veins. But in 1866 placer mining, as I have said, had mostly ceased, and our quartz-miners had to go down so deep, and then got only the hardest and most refractory sulphurets, that the business greatly languished. Yet, it was plain to be seen, the gold and the silver were all there, in inexhaustible quantities, practically speaking; or as Mr. Lincoln once remarked, in speaking of our western mines, "We there hold the Treasury of the world!" All Colorado wanted, as elsewhere said, was the right "process" to subdue these rebellious sulphurets and compel them to release their imprisoned deities. Science surely holds the key somewhere, and waits only the coming man to hand it over to him. Millions of our countrymen are watching and praying for him. A half a continent calls for him. And when this coming man does come, who shall estimate the untold treasures he will here unlock and outpour upon the world! He will but have to strike the naked rocks, and abundant streams of wealth will gush forth. He will but have to touch the rugged mountain sides, and gold and silver by the million will obey his bidding--enough not only to pay our own National Debt, but the National Debts of the world. Let Colorado, then, be of good courage. The Pacific Railroad will cheapen supplies, and swell the volume of her immigration. The Yankee hand and brain are busily at work, conning over her knotty problem; and we may be sure, that the right hour will bring the necessary man.