course of last year is estimated at about one hundred millions of dollars, giving about three and one-third dollars a day to each individual. It is anticipated that the amount produced the ensuing year will not fall short of one hundred and fifty millions. The recent accounts of the lately discovered gold bluffs are encouraging, and promise a large amount of gold from that source. A mine of quicksilver, stated to be the richest in the world, has been discovered about twelve miles from San José. In the case of a slave brought into the State by his master, it has been decided that he can not be removed against his will. A vessel has arrived at San Francisco having on board seventeen Japanese, who were picked up at sea from a wreck. It is supposed that they will be conveyed to their native country in a government vessel. They are thought to be the first Japanese who have ever set foot upon the American continent. A rich coal mine is stated to have been discovered about eight miles from Benicia. The quantity of land under cultivation has greatly increased. Professor FORREST SHEPARD, of New Haven, has made some remarkable discoveries of thermal action. In one place, where there was nothing on the surface to excite attention, on digging down the heat increased so rapidly that at the depth of two feet he could not bear his hand in the earth, and the thermometer indicated a temperature of 130 degrees. At another place, after wandering for four days through dense thickets, he came upon a chasm a thousand feet deep, through which followed a stream, the banks of which, on the 8th of February, were covered with vegetation. Following up the stream, the earth grew so hot as to burn the feet through the boots. There was no appearance of lava, and the rocks were being dissolved by a powerful _catalytic_ action. From innumerable orifices steam was forced to the height of two hundred feet. The number of spouting geysers and boiling springs, on a half mile square, exceeded two hundred. The Professor, in the course of a lecture on the mineral resources of California, delivered in the Senate Chamber at San José, said that he did not doubt that silver, lead, and iron abounded in California. SOUTHERN AMERICA.