Separated from California by the snowy chain of the Sierra, the State of Nevada has been celebrated, since 1860, for its silver mining. In November, 1859, the news of the discovery of silver mines near Lake Washoe was confirmed at San Francisco; and in June, 1860, the mines of Washoe, the central western portion of the State, had already sent such rich results to Europe, that the French Ministers of Finance and Commerce despatched a mining engineer to Nevada to make a close inspection of these wonderful mines. It seemed as if the world were about to be inundated with silver, as it had been by gold ten years previously; and what would those economists now say, who had only recently counselled that the value of gold coin should be lowered or that gold should be demonetized on account of the disturbed relation of these precious metals--the bases of the standard of payment throughout the world generally. Whilst the French engineer visited Nevada and prepared his report, the miners of Washoe continued working their veins of metal. At the present time, 1881, the mines on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada annually produce about $12,500,000 of silver, chiefly from the Comstock lode; the total yield of gold from the quartz mines of California is about $17,000,000 per annum. The Comstock lode, in the State of Nevada, may be ranked among the most productive metalliferous deposits ever encountered in the history of mining enterprise; its productive capacity, as now being developed, surpassing, if the mass of its ores do not in richness equal, those of the most famous mines of Mexico and Peru.