The skill of the pioneer Californians in every industry stood out preeminently. Everywhere their methods and judgment were held in high esteem. At Orofino they superciliously sneered that the Willamette farmers in the mines did not know how to sift gold from the dirt, but the Oregonians could have retorted that they were not Californian experts at losing their gold in gambling. But placer mining then, in spite of such skill as that of the Californians, was wasteful work. Men mined to make the maximum of money in the minimum of time. The enormous expensiveness of operation and transportation rendered it profitable to work only the richest gravel. In 1868 Ross Browne, who knew mining conditions better than any other American then living, declared that "since the discovery of our mines there has been an unnecessary loss of more than $300,000,000 of precious metals. The question arises whether it is not the duty of government to prevent, so far as may be consistent with individual rights, this waste of a common heritage in which not only ourselves but posterity are interested." The early mining communities whose economic basis was placer mines were unstable, and this is a fact of social importance. For the purpose of overcoming this instability business men, the more substantial miners and governmental authorities everywhere turned their attention to quartz. Working quartz claims and building quartz mills required the use of capital and of corporate methods. The significant development of mining in the Inland Empire during 1860-70 consisted in the supersedure of the surface methods of the placer by quartz mining and in the working of deep placers by corporations. The individual working in informal organization had free play, but his day was passing. Individualism began to become submerged, capital to become foremost and corporate methods to enter.