DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 

UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

GEORGE OTIS SMITH, DIRECTOE

4:14:

NOTES ON SOME MINING DISTRICTS 

IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEYADA

BY

FREDERICK LESLIE RANSOME

WASHINGTON

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1909

CONTENTS.

Page.

Introduction.............................................................. 7

Itinerary.................................................................. 9

General history of mining development..................................... 10

Literature................................................................. 13

Seven Troughs district..................................................... 14

Introduction.......................................................... 14

General geology........................................................ 15

Topography....................................................... 15

Early exploration................................................. 16

Pre-Tertiary rocks.................................................. 16

Tertiary volcanic rocks............................................. 18

Distribution and development of the mines............................. 20

Character of the deposits.............................................. 22

Outlook for the district................................................. 25

Rosebud district.......................................................... 25

Situation and history.......................... ; ........................ 25

General geology........................................................ 26

Ore deposits.......................................................... 26

Red Butte district........................................................ 27

Situation and history................................................... 27

General geology........................................................ 28

Copper deposits....................................................... 30

Humboldt Range......................................................... 31

General geology........................................................ 31

Humboldt Queen mine................................................ 33

Fitting and American Canyon......................................... 35

Unionville and vicinity............................................... 38

Star Canyon and vicinity. ............................................. 41

Ryepatch mine ....................................................... 43

Eldorado Canyon...................................................... 45

North end of the Star Peak Range...................................... 46

General features of the ore deposits of the Humboldt Range.............. 46

Pahute Range............................................................ 47

General features....................................................... 47

Chafey and the Sierra district.......................................... 49

Kennedy............................................................. 52

Nickel and cobalt deposits of Cottonwood Canyon........................ 55

Coppereid............................................................ 59

Sonoma Range............................................................. 62

Mineralogy of the ore deposits.............................................. 64

Introductory statement................................................. 64

Amphibole............................................................ 64

Annabergite.......................................................... 64

3
A CONTENTS.

Mineralogy of the ore deposits Continued. ' Page.

Argentite........................................................;..... 64

Arsenopyrite........................................................... 64

Axinite............................................................... 64

Azurite.............................................................. 64

 Barite................................................................. 65

Bornite.............................................................. 65

Brochantite...................................... ; ................... 65

Calcite............................................................... 65

Cerargyrite............................................................. 65

Chalcocite. ...................................................,....:. . 65

Chalcopyrite.......................................................... 65

Chloanthite........................................................... 65

Chrysocolla........................................................... 65

Cinnabar............................................................. 65

Copper...;............................................................ 66

Covellite......................................... .................... 66

Cuprite.............................................................. 66

Diopside............................................................. 66

Epidote...................................:.......................... 66

Erythrite.............................................................. 66

Fluorite..............................:.................-.............. 66

Galena............................................................... 66

Garnet................................................................ 66

Gersdorffite.................................'.......................... 66

Gold................................................................. 66

Hematite.............................................................. 67

Jamesonite........................................................... 67

Jarosite .........'...... ............................................... 67

Magnetite............................................................ 67

Malachite............................................................. 67

Orthoclase............................................'.................. 67

Proustite.............................................................. 67

Pyrrhotite............................................................ 67

Silver................................................................. 67

Sphalerite............................................................. 67

Stibnite............................................................... 68

Sulphur......................:........................................ 68

Tetrahedrite.......................................................... 68

Tourmaline............................................................ 68

Vesuvianite........................................................... 68

Types of deposits represented in the region................................... 68

Basis of classification.................................................... 68

Antimonial silver deposits............................................. 69

Gold-silver deposits.................................................... 69

Copper deposits....................................................... 70

 Antimony and quicksilver deposits...................................... 71

Nickel and cobalt deposits.............................................. 71

Conclusion.......................................................:......1. 71

Index............................................."....................., 73
ILLUSTRATIONS.

Page. 

PLATE I. Outline map of parts of Humboldt, Lander, and Churchill counties,

Nevada........................................................ 7

FIGURE 1. Index map of Nevada, showing area covered in part by,the reconnaissance of 1908...........;.................................. 8

2. Sketch of folded limestone as exposed on the slope of a small hill

north of the Humboldt Queen mine............................. 34

3. Structural details at the Humboldt Queen mine................... 35

4. Sketch plan showing the geologic relations of the Arizona mine.... 39

5. Diagrammatic section of the Sheba ore body....................... 42

6. Diagrammatic section of the Ryepatch ore body.................. 44

7. Sketch section of the Auld Lang Syne vein zone.................. 52

5

U. S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY BULLETIN 414- PLATE I

flWl livfWo Spriny ; 

67-FTrV .' - KfrS FT

agS&fel^

r rKtt^ ^^fi&^^ f ^ ,

; ^^^^^m^^\im 45' 30'

Based on the 40th Parallel Survey OUTLINE MAP OF PARTS OF HUMBOLDT, LANDER, AND CHURCHILL COUNTIES, NEVADA

5 0 5 10 15 Miles

Contour interval approximately 600 feet 

1909
NOTES ON SOME MINING DISTRICTS IN HDMBOLDT 

 COUNTY, NEVADA.

By FKEDEKICK LESLIE RANSOME.

INTRODUCTION.

In the apportionment of my field season in 1908, a period of six 

weeks was allotted to. a reconnaissance examination of that part of 

liumboldt County, Nev., lying between the fortieth and forty-first 

parallels and the one hundred and seventeenth and one hundred and 

nineteenth meridians. Within this area of about 7,000 square miles 

(see fig. 1) are the Seven Troughs, Rosebud, Star, Unionville (Buena 

Vista), Humboldt, Fitting, Chafey (Dun Glen, Sierra), Kennedy, and 

Adelaide (Gold Run) districts,a with many others of less note. North 

of the region particularly investigated is the Red Butte district and 

south of it is Coppereid (White Cloud district). Both of these were 

visited.

Some of the districts examined, such as Seven Troughs, Rosebud, 

and Red Butte, have been prospected only within the last two or three 

years; others, like Star City and Unionville, reached their acme of 

productiveness in the decade beginning with the year 1860 and have 

not yet participated in the recent general revival of mining activity in 

Nevada; one or two, like Chafey, have received new names and are 

being exploited in various ways that modern experience and ingenuity have devised for this purpose; still others, like Adelaide, have 

been intermittently active for over thirty years, oscillating between 

prosperity and decay.

All of the country traversed, with the exception of that adjacent to 

Red Butte, was mapped geologically by the Fortieth Parallel Survey, 

and that map, 6 on a scale of 4 miles to the inch, with a contour interval of 300 feet, is still the best one, although there have been many

a In general the names of districts as here used are those of the principal settlements. Some of the mining 

districts, as originally organized for purposes of record and regulation, embrace large tracts of which the 

names and boundaries have little significance except to local surveyors and official recorders.

>> U. S. Geol. Expl. 40th Par., atlas, Map V, 1876. (The topographic sheets are not contoured, but show the 

relief by shading.)

7
8 MINING DISTRICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA.

changes in place names in the thirty-three years that have elapsed since 

its publication. In general, the "granites" of this region, described 

as Archean in the Fortieth Parallel Survey reports, are intrusive in

FIGURE 1. Index map of Nevada, showing the area covered in part by the reconnaissance of 1908.

Mesozoic rocks; much of the material described as quartzite in the 

Triassic is rhyolite, and thorough study would change many of the 

names applied to the igneous rocks. During the last thirty years 

the mining districts of Humboldt County have received little attention
INTRODUCTION. 9

from geologists, and the present reconnaissance was undertaken in 

the belief that even a hasty review of the region, while not likely to 

yield results of much scientific importance, might serve as the basis 

for a preliminary report that should be of some value to those interested in the mining development of north-central Nevada.

It is a pleasure to acknowledge my indebtedness to the mining men 

of the region for courtesies too numerous to mention, and especially 

to Mr. John T. Keid, of Lovelock, and Mr. W. D. Adamson, of Winnemucca, who gave generously of their time and information.

/ O O 0 J

ITINERARY.

From Lovelock, on the Southern Pacific Railroad (see PI. I), a trip 

of five days' duration was made to the Seven Troughs district, 30 

miles northwest of that town, and return. Two days were next spent 

in visiting Coppereid, in the White Cloud district, Churchill County, 

about 25 miles southeast of Lovelock. A wagon and team were then 

hired at Lovelock, and the Humboldt Range was crossed by way of 

the Humboldt Queen mine and Limerick and American canyons to 

Fitting, or Spring Valley, as it is sometimes called. Thence I drove 

north to Unionville, and from that place turned southeast across the 

East Range to Kennedy, on the west side of Pleasant Valley. From 

Kennedy the route was south, past Sou Springs to Boyer's ranch, on 

the northwest side of Dixie Valley, which was a convenient place from 

which to examine the nickel and cobalt mines of Cottonwood Canyon, 

in the Stillwater Range. From Boyer's ranch the return to Lovelock 

was made over the Stillwater Range by way of Kitten Spring, across 

the "valley of Carson Sink, and through Cole Canyon, east of Oreana, 

which separates the Humboldt Range into two distinct divisions, the 

northern one being. sometimes referred to as the Star Peak Range 

and the southern one as the Humboldt Lake Range. a This trip 

occupied six days.

From Ryepatch, on the Southern Pacific Railroad, a visit was paid 

to the Ryepatch mine and from Humboldt House to a cinnabar 

prospect in Eldorado Canyon, on the west side of Star Peak. Humboldt House also was the starting point for a trip lasting three days 

to the Red Butte and Rosebud districts. The Chafey district and the 

Sheba mine in Star Canyon were reached from Mill City, and a short 

excursion was made from Golconda, 12 miles east of Winnemucca, to 

the Adelaide mine. The Galena and other districts accessible from 

Battle Mountain were not visited, the reconnaissance having already 

taken more time than could well be spared from other duties.

aLouderback, G. D., Basin range structure'of the Humboldt region: Bull. Geol. Soc. America, vol. 

15, 1904, p'. 294.
10 MINING DISTRICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA. 

GENERAL HISTORY OF MINING DEVELOPMENT.

Mining activity began in this part of Nevada about the year 1860 

with the organization of the Humboldt district, on the northwest slope 

of Star Peak. At that time the Central Pacific Railroad Company 

was not yet incorporated, supplies and machinery were hauled 

tediously in wagons from Marysville or Sacramento, and the project 

of a transcontinental railway was little more than a dream. The 

Star and Buena Vista districts were organized in 1861, and during 

the civil war and the recovery from that conflict these isolated desert 

communities attained their greatest prosperity. Mines were opened 

along both flanks of the Humboldt Range, and the settlements of 

Star City and Unionville soon grew to importance. At Oreana, on 

the banks of Humboldt River, smelting works were built to treat ore 

from the Montezuma mine, in the Trinity district, organized in 1863. 

Special interest attaches to this smelter, as it was the first in Nevada 

from which lead was shipped in commercial quantities, and it contests with Argenta, Mont., the honor of being the birthplace of the 

present gigantic silver-lead smelting industry of the United States. 

Its history, however, was brief; after various failures the furnaces 

were at length operated successfully in 1865, but were practically 

abandoned about 1870. The metallurgical processes employed have 

been described by R. W. Raymond ° and James D. Hague.6 The 

fuel was charcoal and the products of the furnace, silver bullion and 

an alloy of lead and antimony, were shipped to San Francisco.

On the east side of the Humboldt Range the discovery of a rich 

body of silver ore in the Sheba mine close to the surface led to the 

rapid growth of Star City from 1861 to 1865. The town had two 

hotels, express and telegraph offices, daily mails, and a population 

estimated at about 1,000. In 1871 Raymond 0 reported the town 

as nearly abandoned, although at that time additional ore had been 

found below the levels from which the original bonanza had been 

stoped. At present only two men are living in the canyon, the mines 

are idle, two or three ruined stone cabins are all that remain of the 

town, aiid the little brook, once foul with tailings and town refuse, 

is now the home of trout and sparkles through diminutive hay 

meadows.

At Unionville the principal mine was the Arizona, owned and operated by Fall & Temple. Other important workings were those of 

the Silver, Pioneer, and Manitowoc mines. The Arizona mine is 

said to have been bought by John C. Fall in 1862 for $5,000. Soon

a Mineral resources of the States and Territories west of the Rocky Mountains, Washington, 1869, 

pp. 130-132.

6 Mining industry, U. S. Geol. Expl. 40th Par., 1870, pp. 300-308. 

c Statistics of mines and mining, etc., Washington, 1872, p. 208.
GENERAL HISTORY OF MINING DEVELOPMENT. 11

afterward he built the 5-stamp Pioneer mill, the machinery and 

materials for which were hauled by ox teams from Marysville, Cal. 

An aerial tramway was later constructed from the north workings of 

the Arizona mine to the mill in the canyon, several hundred feet 

below. Other mills were subsequently built farther down the canyon, 

and in 1870 there were three mills of 10 stamps each in operation. 

Water power was used in the first mill, but it soon became necessary to 

supplement this with steam. . Since the principal mines were opened 

on different parts of a nearly horizontal vein that outcropped in an 

elliptical curve about a hill, litigation was inevitable, and after some, 

controversy the Arizona and Silver companies consolidated in 1870 

as the Arizona Association. The average cost of mining and milling 

at that time was about $24 a ton, having not long before been lowered 

by the introduction of Chinese labor in the mills. Skilled miners were 

paid $4 a day or $3 a day with board. There was almost no gold 

in the ores, which were treated by pan amalgamation, the tailings, 

after standing for a time, being re-treated by the same process. The 

milling ore averaged about $60 a ton, and some ore, shipped crude 

to San Francisco, ranged from $500 a ton upward. One lot of 170 

tons shipped in 1871 is reported by Raymond 0 to have netted 

$78,000, and the total ore mined in that year by the Arizona Association is given as 7,000 tons. In 1873 the output had declined to 

3,915 tons, of which 81 tons of about $330 grade was shipped to San 

Francisco. The mine continued to be worked until 1880, since when 

little has been done with it. It produced in all (including the output 

of the Henning or Wheeler mins, which yielded less than 5 per cent 

of the whole) about $3,000,000 from approximately 80,000 tons of 

ore. In 1899 the property was brought by John Ross and Neal Carmichael, the present owners, who have not, however, resumed work 

on a commercial scale.

From 1860 nearly to 1880 Unionville, although perhaps rivaled or 

surpassed for a short time by Star City, was on the whole the most 

important town in the Humboldt region, and was the local supply 

point for many smaller communities in neighboring mining districts.

There was considerable activity during this period near Dun Glen 

(now known as Chafey), in the Sierra district. The most productive 

mine in the seventies appears to have been the Tallulah, 2 miles northwest of Dun Glen. Afterward the Auld Lang Syne.mine became the 

leading one of the district. The Monroe and Auburn mines also were 

active.

On the west side of the Humboldt Range mining was in progress 

at many places during the period when Unionville flourished. Among

a. Statistics of mines and mining, etc., Washington, 1873, p. 208.
12 MINING DISTRICTS IN HtTMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA.

the noted silver mines on that side of the range are the Humboldt 

Queen and the Ryepatch. The latter, which is reported to have 

produced over $1,000,000, was known before 1872 as the Butte mine. 

It has been idle for over twenty years.

It is to be noted that most of the mines in the Humboldt Range 

were opened and were worked most extensively before the completion of the Central Pacific Railroad. The great improvement in 

mining facilities brought about by railway communication was not 

sufficient to offset the diminution in tenor of the ore bodies, as they 

were followed below their enriched portions, and the decline in the 

price of silver consequent upon the demonetization of that metal.

Although the mines of the Humboldt Range have yielded far more 

silver than gold, placer mining was at one time an important industry, 

especially in American Canyon, 12 miles south of Unionville. Operations began there about 1881 and were prosecuted actively until 

about 1895. The placers were first worked by Americans, who are 

reported to have taken out gold to the value of about $1,000,000. 

The ground, however, soon passed into the possession of Chinese, who 

formed a considerable settlement in American Canyon and mined 

the gravels with skill and assiduity by drifting from countless narrow 

shafts ranging from 40 to 85 feet deep. How much gold they 

obtained is unknown, but some estimates, doubtless much exaggerated, place the total at about $10,000,000.

In Cottonwood Canyon, on the east slope of the Stillwater Range, 

near latitude 40°, are nickel and cobalt mines, which were opened 

about 1882, a car of nickel ore being shipped in that year to Camden, 

N. J. The Nickel mine, owned by the American Nickel Company, was 

worked until about 1890. It was again opened in 1904, but has been

idle since 1907. A small smelter was built and a- little matte, probably not over 50 tons, was produced. Attempts were made also to 

extract nickel salts with sulphuric acid, with what success is not 

known.

The Lovelock mine, a little farther up the canyon, has probably 

shipped about 500 tons of nickel-cobalt ore, which was hauled to 

Lovelock by teams returning from the Bernice silver and antimony 

district in the Augusta Mountains. A diminutive furnace was 

erected but was not successful.

The Kennedy district, also on the east side of the Stillwater Range 

and about 25 miles southeast of Unionville, first attracted attention 

in 1890. Kennedy soon became a flourishing town; mills were built 

and considerable work was done in the Gold Note, Imperial, and other 

mines. After the exhaustion of the oxidized pay shoots the amalgamating mills proved unfit for coping with the complex gold-silverlead ores, and since 1904 the district has sunk into decay. No mining
LITERATURE. 13

was in progress in 1908. The total output of the district probably 

does not exceed $120,000, mostly from ore of shipping grade.

The principal events of the past few years in the Humboldt region 

have been the opening of the Seven Troughs district in 1907 and the 

revival of mining in the vicinity of Dun Glen or Chafey in 1908. The 

Rosebud bubble, which collapsed in 1907, has merely added one more 

to a long list of such failures in Nevada. The various good and evil 

attributes on which mining "booms" depend are as a rule curiously 

blended or contrasted. Energy, hope, cupidity,, credulity, and many 

other qualities all contribute to the local sentiment that applauds the 

"booster," no matter how extravagant his claims, and that defers 

the recognition of truth until the moment of disaster. The fact that 

a mining district is injured, not helped, by misrepresentation is forgotten by those who buy and stay, ignored by those who sell and go.

LITERATURE.

The following are the principal contributions to the geologic and 

mining literature on the Humboldt region:

EMMONS, S. F. From Reese River to Osabb Valley. U. S. Geol. Expl. 40th Par., 

vol. 2,1877, pp. 636-659. (Describes the general geology.)

GABB, W. M. Paleontology, vol. 1, Geol. Survey of California, 1864, pp. 19-35. (Describes Triassic fossils from the Humboldt Range and from near Dun Glen.)

HAGUE, ARNOLD. Fish Creek and Battle Mountains (pp. 660-672); Havillah and 

Pah-'Ute ranges (pp. 673-712); West Humboldt region (pp. 713-750); Montezuma 

Range and Kawsoh Mountains (pp. 751-774). U. S. Geol. ExpL 40th Par., vol. 2, 

1877. (Describes the general geology.)

HAGUE, ARNOLD, and EMMONS, S. F. Region of the mud lakes. U. S. Geol. Expl. 

40th Par., vol. 2, 1877, pp. 775-800. (Describes geology.)

HAGUE, JAMES D. Mining and milling in western Nevada. U. S. Geol. Expl. 40th 

Par., vol. 3, Mining industry, 1870, pp. 296-319. (Describes the Montezuma mine 

in the Trinity district, the smelting works at Oreana, and the mines of the Buena 

Vista, Star, Sierra, Gold Run, and Battle Mountain districts.)

HYATT, ALPHEUS, and SMITH, JAMES PERRIN. Triassic cephalopod genera of America. 

Prof. Paper U. S. Geol. Survey No. 40, 1905, pp. 21-23, 26, Plates XXII-XXV. 

(Describes the Middle and Upper Triassic faunas of the Humboldt Range.)

KING, CLARENCE. Systematic geology, with atlas. U. S. Geol. Expl. 40th Par., Washington, 1878. (A discussion of the structure and geologic history of the whole region 

adjacent to the fortieth parallel from the Rocky Mountains to the Sierra Nevada.)

LQUDERBACK, GEORGE DAVIS. Basin Range structure of the Humboldt region. Bull. 

'Geol. Soc. America, vol. 15, 1904, pp. 289-346. (A full and valuable discussion of 

the general geology with special reference to the structure of the Humboldt Range.)

MEEK, F. B. Paleontology. U. S. Geol. Expl. 40th Par., vol. 4, pt. 1,1877, pp.99-129, 

Plates X and XI. (Describes the fossil fauna of the Humboldt Range as Upper 

Triassic.)

MERRIAM, JOHN C. Triassic Ichthyosauria. Memoirs of the University of California, 

vol. 1, No. 1, Berkeley, Gal., 1908, pp. 18-19. (Describes fossil reptilian remains 

from the Humboldt Range and gives references to earlier publications on the same 

Middle Triassic fauna.)
T

14 MINING DISTRICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY,, NEVADA.

RAYMOND, ROSSITER W. Mineral resources of the States and Territories west of the 

Rocky Mountains. Washington, 1869, pp. 117-133. (Notes on the history and development of the Battle Mountain, Black Rock, Buena Vista, Central, Eldorado, 

Gold Run, Humboldt, Orofino, Sacramento, Sierra, Star, Trinity, and Winnemucca districts.)

 Statistics of mines and mining in the States and Territories west of the Rocky 

Mountains. Washington, 1870-1874. (Contains much information concerning the 

development and working of the mines during the period covered.)

RUSSELL, ISRAEL C. Geological history of Lake Lahontan. Mon. U. S. Geol. Survey, vol. 11, 1885. (Describes the great Quaternary lake that occupied the valleys 

of the Humboldt region.)

SFURR, J. E. Origin and structure of the basin ranges. Bull. Geol. Soc. America, 

vol, 12,1901, pp. 217-270. (Discusses incidentally the structure of some of the ranges 

visited in the course of the present reconnaissance. Mr. Spurr's own field work, 

however, was south of the fortieth parallel.)

[WISKER, A. L.] Chafey, Nev. Min. and Sci. Press, Nov. 7, 1908, pp. 625-626. 

(A good brief sketch of the history of the district and of mining conditions therein 

during the summer of 1908.)

SEVEN TROUGHS DISTRICT. 

INTEODUCTION.

The Seven Troughs district, which is about 30 miles northwest of 

Lovelock, a flourishing town on the main line of the Southern Pacific 

Railroad, lies on the east slope of a minor range designated on the 

Fortieth Parallel Survey map a as the Pah-tson Mountains, but now 

popularly known as the Seven Troughs Mountains. 6 The higher 

parts of the mountains are dotted with junipers and the larger ravines 

contain small perennial streams. Grass flourishes on some slopes and 

for over thirty years the region has been used as a range for sheep 

and cattle. The watering places maintained in connection with this 

pastoral occupancy have given to the new mining district its name.

The road from. Lovelock runs for a few miles through the irrigated 

farming land of Humboldt Valley and then crosses obliquely in a 

northerly direction a broad and relatively low part of the Trinity 

Range consisting of granitic and slaty rocks partly buried under 

rhyolitic and basaltic flows. From the northwest base of this range 

the road stretches straight across the bare and nearly level expanse 

of the northeast arm of Sage Valley for 9 or 10 miles, to the foot of 

the Seven Troughs Mountains. A more unsatisfactory road material 

than the mixture of stones and ashy soil that floors this arid basin 

can hardly be imagined, and the many abandoned deep-rutted tracks 

show that at times no road at all is preferable to one in which the 

depth of the dust-filled chuck holes is a subject for anxious speculation.

«U. S. Geol. Expl. 40th Par., atlas, Map V, west half. 

6 Occasionally referred to also as the Storehouse Range.
SEVEN TROUGHS DISTRICT. 15

Supplies are hauled by teams from Lovelock. Passengers may 

reach the district most conveniently from the same point by the 

ordinary stage line or by automobiles, which meet the transcontinental 

trains and ply over a little better road than is used by horse-drawn 

vehicles.

There are four little towns in the district, three of which, Vernon, 

Mazuma, and Farrell, are situated at the east base of the range. 

Vernon, the southernmost of the three, was the chief settlement in 

the district early in 1908, but had lost its preeminence by August 

 of that year, most of the activity then centering about Mazuma, 2£ 

miles north-northeast of Vernon, and about Seven Troughs, which 

is H miles west-northwest of Mazuma, higher up the same canyon. 

Farrell, 3 or 4 miles north of Mazuma, has at no time been as important 

as the other settlements.

The ravine in which are the towns of Mazuma and Seven Troughs 

is known as Seven Troughs Canyon. North of it in order are Wildhorse, Burnt, and Stonehouse canyons, the latter embouching at 

Farrell. Victor Canyon is a short minor ravine between Burnt and 

Stonehouse canyons. All three of the main ravines contain water 

the year round, part of that from Burnt Canyon being piped to 

Mazuma.

It is difficult to determine when prospecting began in this district, 

but there is little record of any work prior to 1905, and it was not 

until early in 1907 that the veins began to attract-other than local 

attention. The Mazuma Hills mine was opened in that year, and 

its success, with the subsequent discoveries in the Fairview and 

Kindergarten mines and in various leases, soon made Seven Troughs 

a familiar name in the mining press.

GENERAL GEOLOGY. 

TOPOGRAPHY.

The Seven Troughs Mountains have a length of 24 miles and trend 

20° east of north. The greatest width of the range is 8 miles. Its 

crest culminates in a group of three summits, which attain altitudes 

of about 3,000 feet above the desert plains that surround the range 

on all sides but the north. The highest and middle summit is Granite 

Peak. The one southwest of it, of schist, is designated Pahkeah 

Peak on the Fortieth Parallel Survey map. A low, broad pass, 

occupied according to this map by Miocene lake beds belonging to 

the Truckee formation, separates the north end of the Seven Troughs 

Range from the longer Trinity Range and from the Kamma Mountains, a small group within which is the Rosebud mining district 

and the Rabbit Hole sulphur mine.
16 MINING DISTEICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA.

EARLY EXPLORATION.

The Fortieth Parallel Survey map represents the Seven Troughs 

Mountains as consisting of a mass of Archean rocks and granite, 

exposed on the higher summits and over niuch of the west slope, 

but covered in the southern and eastern parts of the range by Tertiary 

rhyolite and subordinate overlying flows of basalt. An area of 

Jurassic rocks, about 5 miles long and 1 mile wide, is also shown on 

the east slope, just north of what is now the central part of the 

Seven Troughs mining district. Hague and Emmons a state that 

these rocks comprise "blue limestone and shales, which, on grounds 

of general probability, but without paleontological or distinct stratigraphical evidence, have been referred to the Jurassic formation."

The Archean rocks are described by the same writers 6 as very fine 

grained micaceous schists, distinctly bedded and standing at high 

angles. These are said to be cut by the granite, which, as Hague and 

Emmons point out, is of basic character, very different from the 

known Archean granites of the region, but closely resembling the 

rocks of the great intrusive masses, supposedly of post-Jurassic age, 

of the Sierra Nevada and of some of the prominent ranges of the 

western part of the Great Basin. They note also some small exposures 

of an older granite, probably Archean, on the west slope of the range..

The volcanic rocks are briefly described by the same explorers,0 

and some of the perlitic varieties were studied and figured by Zirkel.d 

Little information is given concerning the succession and structure 

of the lavas, and the localities particularly described are all outside 

of the district now being prospected.

Apparently no mining whatever was in progress in these mountains 

when Hague and Emmons visited them.

PRE-TERTIARY ROCKS.

The known ore deposits of the Seven Troughs Range are all in the 

Tertiary volcanic rocks, and consequently a small part only of the 

four days spent in the district could be devoted to the older formations. North of Mazuma the so-called Jurassic rocks appear first in 

Burnt .Canyon as a northeast-southwest belt of indurated clay slate 

about half a mile wide. This belt appears to correspond at this place 

to a low ridge, which, after having been completely buried under lava 

flows, has been uncovered again by erosion. The slate extends northeast and forms the rounded foothills just west of Farrell. It was 

found to be exposed westward along Stonehouse Canyon nearly to its 

head, and the belt is thus two or three times as wide as is shown by

oU. S. Geol. Expl. 40th Par., vol. 2, 1877, p. 782.

!>0p. cit.,p. 776.

c Op. cit, pp. 779-786.

d\J, S, Geol Expl. 40th Par., vol. 6,1876, pp. 208-209, Pis. VII, 2; IX, 2 and 3; and XII, 2.
SEVEN TROUGHS DISTRICT. 17

Hague and Emmons, who evidently did not traverse this ravine and, 

naturally enough, mapped only the rhyolitic rocks visible on the 

ridges. At the old stone cabin from which the canyon gets its name, 

a mile or two west of Farrell, the slate is well exposed and dips about 

40° E., bedding and cleavage being paraUel. Farther up the canyon 

the dip varies and the slate is cut by dikes of a light-colored rock, 

presumably rhyolite. Near the head of the ravine the slate is intruded 

and metamorphosed by the "younger granite," described by Hague 

and Emmons. This metamorphosed material was mapped as Archean 

by these observers, and since the main mass of supposed Archean 

west of Pahkeah Peak consists, according to their description, of 

bedded slaty schists, there is a suggestion that these also may be 

metamorphosed post-Archean sediments. There was no opportunity 

in 1908 to investigate this problem; in fact, not having the Fortieth 

Parallel Survey map at hand, I was unaware, while in the field, that 

it had arisen.

The intrusive granitic rock at the head of Stonehduse Canyon is a 

fresh, medium-granular, rather dark gray rock, which evidently is 

not very quartzose and contains a large proportion of plagioclase. 

Only one specimen was collected and the mass undoubtedly contains 

other varieties than the one here described. The microscope shows 

the rock to be a granodiorite, of which the constituents are a plagioclase near andesine, orthoclase, microcline, quartz, hornblende, biotite, 

apatite, and magnetite. The plagioclase is a little more abundant 

than the alkalic fedspars.

The rock from the summit of Granite Peak was analyzed by Prof. 

Thomas M. Drown as follows:

Chemical analysis of granodiorite from Granite Peak.0-

Si02 ........................................................ 64.02 ,'

Al,03 ........................................................ 17. 60

FeO......................................................... 4.03

MgO..................................................:...... 1. 27

CaO......................................................... 4.38

Na20........................................................ 4. 79

K20......................................................... 2. 62

Loss on ignition i ............................................. .80

MnO........................................................ .16

99.67

This specimen is said by Hague and Emmons to be typical of the 

mass, and their suggestion of its similarity to the granodiorite of the 

Sierra Nevada has been fully borne out by later work in that range.

a U. S. Geol. Expl. 40th Par., vol. 2, 1877, p. 779. 

11448 Bull. 414 09 2
18 MINING DISTRICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA. 

TERTIARY VOLCANIC ROCKS.

The prevailing rock of the low, rounded hills on the edge of the Sage 

Valley at Mazuma and for a mile or more up Seven Troughs Canyon 

is a pale reddish-brown lava, much of which shows conspicuous flow 

lamination and a platy fracture. Some varieties are light gray, of 

compact lithoidal texture, and contain minute phenocrysts of feldspar 

and biotite; other lands are brittle perlitic glasses. Although the 

rock is not visibly quartzose, its general appearance is so rhyolitic that 

little doubt of its siliceous character arose in the field, especially since 

it was mapped as rhyolite by the geologists of the Fortieth Parallel 

Survey. The microscope shows., however, that neither quartz nor 

orthoclase is present in identifiable crystals, but that phenocrysts of 

labradorite and biotite lie in a very glassy groundmass containing 

plagioclase microlites. Some ill-defined aggregates of magnetite suggest the former presence of small phenocrysts of hornblende that have 

undergone magmatic resorption. The rock accordingly is not a rhyolite but, pending chemical analysis, must provisionally be classed as a 

mica andesite, unusually poor in femic'constituents. Much of it is a 

mica,'andesite vitrophyre.

Associated with the mica andesite, which appears to occur in several thin flows, is at least one flow of vesicular basalt, some of which is 

exposed on the slope just north of the west end of Mazuma.

The mica andesite, with a general dip r to the east, is the principal 

rock of the ridges on both sides !of the road from Mazuma westward to 

Seven Troughs. Here the canyon expands into a little amphitheater 

formed by two short lateral ravines that open north and south on the 

main east-west gorge. The northern and longer ravine heads in a 

saddle, through which passes the trail from Seven Troughs to Wildliorse Canyon. The southern ravine, which is much shorter and 

steeper, rises to a higher saddle, through which goes the trail to the 

Fairview mine and to Vernon. The length of the amphitheater is 

about a mile and its width about one-fourth mile. Structurally it 

appears to correspond to a sharp north-south anticline, along which 

the mica andesite has been eroded, exposing older and generally 

softer rocks beneath it. Consequently the andesite in general rims 

the basin and the other rocks occupy its lower part.

Directly under the vitrophyric andesite there is, as a rule, a flow of 

basalt. The thickness of this is not known but appears to vary 

greatly,. Much of it is vesicular, and transitions from compact to 

vesicular varieties are in some places abrupt. Some parts of the flow 

are a brittle glass and must have been very quickly cooled. Under 

this basalt and occupying the bottom of the Seven Troughs amphitheater is a volcanic complex of rhyolite, basalt, mica andesite, tuffs, 

arkosic sandstones, and possibly other rocks of which the structural
SEVEN TROUGH^ DISTRICT. 19

relations are as yet very imperfectly known and probably can be ascertained only by careful mapping and detailed microscopic work. 

The oldest rocks appear to be glassy tuffs, in part rhyolitic and in 

part basaltic, and arkosic grits. Interbedded with these is at least 

one flow of glassy amygdaloidal basalt. These are cut by dikes of 

compact basalt and of a light-colored rock which is apparently the 

equivalent of the mica andesite flows already described. One dike of 

this rock extends from Seven Troughs northward nearly to the saddle 

opening into Wildhorse Canyon and forms a little ridge east of the 

principal mines north of town. In places it is from 200 to 300 yards 

wide. Near Seven Troughs it contains masses of obsidian or glass, 

which suggest that this part of the dike must have cooled very near 

the surface. Farther north it has a rude columnar structure, the columns lying horizontally across the dike. It must be said that the 

identification of the mass as a dike rests almost wholly upon its general form and position. The possibility of its being a down-faulted 

strip from the mica andesite flows has not been eliminated.

The tuffs and arkosic sediments are very poorly exposed, and a 

few mine workings, as yet shallow, are the only places where anything can be learned of their attitude and structure. In some of 

these the beds are nearly horizontal; in others they are tilted up to 

45°, the dip in the few openings where it could be observed according generally with the anticlinal structure of the district. In the 

mines changes from tuff to basalt or rhyolite are common and often 

perplexing. This is clue partly to the fact that the basalt occurs 

both as flows and as irregular intrusions, partly to the local and 

variable character of the different formations, and partly to faulting.

Associated with the basalt and tuffaceous deposits are masses of a 

.light-yellowish rhyolite; which in the field, prior to petrographic 

study, was not readily distinguished from the younger mica andesite, 

then thought to be also a rhyolite. It was supposed at the time of 

visit that the yellowish rhyolite might be a lower, slightly altered 

part of the series of flows now known to be andesitic. It proves, 

however, to be a distinct and older rock. Whether it is extrusive 

and rests generally on the tuffs or is intrusive into them is not yet 

known. It is exposed in the bottom of Seven Troughs Canyon, just 

west of the town, where it is apparently separated from the mica 

andesite by a basalt flow. The rock is compact and contains numerous small phenocrysts of quartz, orthoclase (sanidine), and biotite. 

The microscope shows also a few-phenocrysts of plagioclase. The 

groundmass is partly devitrified microlitic glass.

In general it must be said that in detail the structure of the district is obscure and complex; it will require much, more than a reconnaissance examination for its satisfactory interpretation.
20 MINING DISTRICTS IN HTJMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA.

The Fortieth Parallel Survey map shows that a considerable part 

of the range in the vicinity of Aloha Peak, south of Seven Troughs, 

is covered by basalt. Dark scarps, presumably of this rock, are 

visible along the crest of the range from near Vernon, and bowlders 

of hard vesicular basalt are abundant in the wash near that town. 

This flow is probably younger than any of the rocks exposed, near the 

mines.

DISTRIBUTION AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE MINES.

The most important group of mines is at Seven Troughs. Just 

southeast of the town, which lies on the south bank of the arfoyo 

running down to Mazuma, are the Kindergarten and Wihuja mines, 

both on the same vein. The Kindergarten mine, owned by the 

Seven Troughs Kindergarten Mining Company, is developed by a 

tunnel and by an inclined shaft 280 feet deep on the dip. A new 

vertical shaft, being sunk at the time of visit in August, 1908, was 

expected to cut the vein at a depth of about 300 feet. The Wihuja 

is a lease on the ground of the Seven Troughs Therien Gold Mining 

Company, and is opened by an inclined shaft to a vertical depth of 

about 212 feet. The Kindergarten and Wihuja workings are connected. Other leases on Therieh ground, in operation but not productive in 1908, were the Bard ancl Jess (175 feet deep), the Tyler, 

and the Sandifer leases.

On the north side of the canyon, close to town, are the Mazuma 

Hills and Reagan mines, both productive. The Mazuma Hills mine 

is owned and operated by the Mazuma Hills Mining Company; the 

Reagan is a lease on a vein lying east of the Mazuma Hills vein, but 

within the ground of that company.

The Mazuma Hills mine is opened by a main adit 700 feet long.

Winzes from this adit connect with a level 100 feet below and about 

500 feet long. There is also an upper disused adit about 100 feet 

above the main level. The Reagan is worked through a shaft that 

was 165 feet deep at the time of visit. Only the 65-foot level, however, could then be examined, the bottom level being temporarily 

under water, pending the installation of pumps.

South of the Mazuma Hills and Reagan mines is the Sandifer lease 

on Therien ground. Here, in the bottom of the canyon, a shaft is 

being sunk in expectation of finding ore in the southern parts of the 

Mazuma Hills and Reagan veins.

North of the Reagan shaft, on the same fissure zone, are the Chadbourne and Bradley leases, whose shafts are respectively 135 and 165 

feet deep. Neither had been productive up to August, 1908. On 

the hillside a short distance above and north of the Mazuma Hills 

tunnels is the shaft of the Hayes-Mazuma lease. This was being 

sunk through rhyolite at the time of visit and was not in ore.
SEVEN TBOUGHS DISTEICT. . 21

Between the workings mentioned and the head of the ravine north 

of Seven Troughs are the Eclipse shaft, Providence tunnel, and various smaller unproductive openings made by lessees and prospectors. 

On the north side of Seven Troughs Canyon, about a quarter of a 

mile below the town, is the tunnel of the Seven Troughs Tomboy 

Mining Company. This is a crosscut running N. 50° E. At the 

time of visit it was 800 feet long, and the intention of the company 

was to carry it 400 feet farther. The tunnel first penetrates about 

150 feet of rhyolite and then goes through a seam of gouge into soft 

pyritized tuffaceous beds with a general low dip to the northeast. 

These are cut by many faults, probably of small throw, and contain 

some masses of basalt. About 350 feet from the portal the tunnel 

goes through another seam of gouge into rhyolitic (or possibly andesitic) breccia cut by dikes of glass or obsidian. Lower down the 

canyon, near Mazuma, considerable tunneling has been done on the 

Badger group of claims. These workings were not examined.

In Wildhorse Canyon prospecting was in progress in 1908 on the 

Wild Bull, North Pole, and other claims. The Wild Bull showed a 

little ore, but no shipments had been made.

North of this canyon the only active prospecting appeared to be 

on the Snow Squall claim in Victor Canyon, south of Farrell. It 

was reported that lessees had found good ore in sinking their shaft, 

but the workings were not visited.

From the saddle south of Seven Troughs a long ravine runs south 

and then turns southeast, embouchjng at Vernon. In the upper 

part of this ravine is the Dixie Queen shaft 230 feet deep and the 

Cleghorn Consolidated and Signal tunnels from 200 to 300 feet in 

length. Some lessees also were operating in 1908 on property of the 

Signal Peak Mining Company, high up on the ridge south of Seven 

Troughs, but owing to lack of time their shaft was not visited. About 

halfway down the canyon and about 2 miles south of Seven Troughs 

is the Fairview mine, reported at the time of visit to be 650 feet deep. 

This mine is known to have had some bunches of very rich ore in the 

upper levels and is said to have shipped about $65,000. No stoping 

was in progress at the time of visit and the shaft was being carried 

down through hard basalt. The mine is owned by practically the 

same people that control the Kindergarten and Therien properties 

at Seven Troughs. In contrast to the attitude of other mine owners 

in the district they showed disinclination to impart information and 

refused access to the Fairview mine.

Adjoining the Fairview workings on the north is the Harris lease, 

on Fairview ground, with a shaft 185 feet deep. The dump is basalt, 

much of it being vesicular.

There were two mills in operation in the latter part of 1908, one 

belonging to the Kindergarten company and situated at Seven
22 MINING DISTRICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA.

Troughs, the other belonging to the Mazuma Hills company and 

situated at Mazuma. Both are 10-stamp mills with amalgamating 

plates, Wilfleys, and vanners. No attempt is made to cyanide the 

tailings or save them. '

CHARACTER OF THE'DEPOSITS.

Most of the dikes and fissures near Seven Troughs have a nearly 

north-south trend. The veins as a whole consist of soft, crushed 

material and do not outcrop above the .surface. They represent 

zones of brecciation or of small fissures, along which movement has 

continued since the spaces originally formed .were filled with quartz. 

Consequently the typical quartz of .the district is friable or sugary, 

and generally contains or is mingled with many fragments of shattered 

rock. Clear solid masses of quartz, even of small size, are rare. The 

veins on the whole are rather narrow, ranging from a few inches up 

to about 2 feet in width. . It is possible, however, that the average 

working width may be considerably increased when the district has 

better facilities for handling and treating ore.

The valuable constituent of the lodes is native gold containing a 

considerable proportion of silver, and consequently of a rather pale 

color. In most of the rich ore the gold is visible either as clusters of 

small irregular particles or as coarse crystalline aggregates. No complete well-formed crystals were seen, but there is a noticeable ten- . 

dene}7" of the coarser gold to form crystal facets. The Mazunia Hills, 

Reagan, and Fairview mines have afforded some very >showy specimens of bright yellow gold interlaminated with firm quartz or enveloping . fragments of altered country, rock. Loose nugget-like 

masses up to an ounce in weight have been: found in soft crushed vein

matter in the Reagan lease. The rich bunches of gold are not uniformly distributed through the veins, and it is 'difficult in some cases 

to secure clean sorting. .It was found, for example, that material 

thrown over the Reaganadump as waste or as low-grade ore to be 

treated later carried small quartz stringers, -and that some of these, 

when broken across, contained coarse native gold.

The tenor of the ores, as is to be expected, has a wide range. A 

mill run from the Reagan lease in August, 1908, averaged about $130 

a ton. Picked ore1" f torn the Fairview, Mazuma Hills, and Reagan 

mines has yielded at the rate of several thousand dollars a <t£>n. In 

the Kindergarten mine the ratio of gold to silver by weight is said to 

vary from 1: 2 to 1:3 near the surface, but at the bottom of the mine 

to be nearly 1:1. Assay certificates of rich ore from the Reagan; " 

lease, seen in Seven Troughs, showed a ratio of nearly 2 of, gold to 1 of 

silver. At one place on the lower level of the Mazunia'.-Hills mine 

quartz carrying a little chalcopyrite is reported to have yielded on 

assay 200 ounces of silver and 0.3 ounce of gold to the ton.
SEVEN TROUGHS DISTRICT. 23

The three important veins near Seven Troughs are the Mazuma 

Hills, Reagan, and Kindergarten veins. The first two, known only 

on the north side of the canyon, strike about N. 10° E. and dip from 

60° to 65° W. The Reagan vein lies about 40 feet east of the Mazuma 

Hills vein. The Kindergarten vein, on the south side of the canyon, 

strikes N. 639 E. and dips south. The dip varies from 60° near the 

surface to 22° on some parts of the 40-foot'level. The dip at the bottom level is about 35° (vertical depth 212 feet). The stope length of 

the ore shoot is about 130 feet, and the average workable width of ore 

is probably about 2 feet. At the northeast end of the mine the vein 

appears to be cut off by a zone of north-south fissures in which no ore 

had been found at the time of visit.

The country rock varies from place to place in each mine. The 

Kindergarten and Wihuja workings, as seen in 1908, are mainly in 

basalt. Part of this is a soft, altered amygdaloidal variety, evidently 

an extrusive rock. Other parts are a dense, olivinitic variety that 

apparently cuts the amygdaloidal flow rock. Masses of soft, lightcolored rock, either rhyolite or mica andesite, but too decomposed as 

a rule for satisfactory determination, occur at unexpected places on 

both sides of the vein. They probably represent intrusions more or 

less displaced by faulting.

The Mazuma Hills vein follows a basalt dike that varies in width 

from a fraction of an inch to more than 6 feet. The general country 

rock is a nearly white altered rock that the microscope shows to have 

been originally a highly glassy rhyolitic' tuff Or flow breccia. ' It is now 

devitrified into a fine-grained, obscurely crystalline aggregate and contains minute disseminated crystals of pyrite. The best ore is on the 

foot wall or east side of the'dike, and appears to be for the most part 

minutely fissured and silicified rhyolite tuff; but some ore extends into 

the basalt. At one place there is a second vein, about 10 feet east of 

the main fissure zone and with a little lower 'dip. The horse of rhyolite tuff between the two is said to be all low-grade ore. Some of the 

best ore in the mine is reported to occur as small gold-bearing stringers traversing hard rhyolitic tuff. - . The Reagan vein also follows a basaltic dike and shows considerable 

resemblance to the Mazuma Hills vein. The general country rock, 

however, is more varied. Much of it is a highly-altered volcanic glass, 

apparently basaltic, which owing to(."its originally brittle character, 

has been elaborately and minutely 'cracked and .fissured. Many of 

the cracks are microscopic and have a perlitic ^arrangement. This 

rock is generally greenish gray, and much of it ,is so fine grained that 

its mineralogical character can not be ascertained under the microscope. Other varieties show a few microscopic phenqcrysts of plagioclase, -partly altered to calcite, and-a -groundmass in which traces of 

an original microlitic texture'c'an-be detected. ' Much of .the'rich ore
24 MINING DISTRICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA.

of the Reagan lease consists of this altered basaltic glass, in which the 

irregular cracks have been filled with quartz carrying free gold. The 

secondary minerals identified in the glass itself are pyrite, quartz, calcite, and apparently a little chlorite. Calcite is not abundant, which 

is rather surprising in view of the calcic composition of basalt. In 

some places altered glass of the kind described passes into a highly 

amygdaloidal variety that is well exposed in a tunnel on the Sandifer 

lease just south of the Reagan mine and in the Bradley lease to the 

north. In the Sandifer lease the vesicles are only partly filled by clear 

projecting crystals of quartz. In the Bradley lease some are filled 

with quartz and some with calcite. Pyrite is disseminated through 

the light greenish gray altered substance of both varieties, and a few 

vesicles were noted that were first lined with pyrite and then filled 

with quartz. Although pyrite is fairly abundant throughout the 

altered basaltic and tuffaceous rocks near the ores, and occurs with 

quartz in very small, almost.microscopic veinlets, it appears to be rare 

in the generally larger veinlets in which are the visible particles of 

gold. These veinlets, so far as could be seen in 1908, contain little or 

no pyrite. According to Mr. D. H. Skea,ffl some proustite and possibly some stephanite or polybasite were found with the gold in the 

Fairview mine, and a little chalcopyrite and specks of a gray mineral 

resembling bornite were noted in 1908 on the bottom level of the 

Mazuma Hills mine in quartz similar to that elsewhere rich in gold; 

but as a rule the auriferous quartz is notably free from any other mineral than gold. Stibnite occurs in friable lenticular masses of considerable size in soft crushed basalt in the Chadbourne lease, and is said 

to have been found also in the Reagan lease. It does not, however, 

appear to have any intimate connection with rich ore. A little native

silver is said to have been panned from the ore of the Wild Bull mine

in Wildhorse Canyon.

All of the ore visible in 1908 was within the range of oxidation. 

The results of weathering, however, owing to the very small quantity 

of pyrite in the veinlets, are not conspicuous, and there appears to 

be no very definite change from oxidized to sulphide ores. Pyrite 

and stibnite, as has been seen, both occur in connection with the 

ore deposits above the ground-water level. The surface of the 

underground water near Seven Troughs corresponds approximately 

to the bottom of the canyon, in which is some running water, and 

doubtless rises a little higher in the adjacent ridges. In August, 

1908, water was just making its appearance in the bottom of the 

Kindergarten mine at a depth of 212 feet, and the lessees of the 

Reagan, 165 feet deep, were putting in a pump in order to work 

their lower level.

c Oral,communication.
EOSEBUD DISTRICT. 25 

OUTLOOK FOR THE DISTRICT.

Not enough mining or geologic work has been done to enable 

anyone to pass final judgment on the future of the Seven Troughs 

district. The presence of very rich, easily treated gold-silver ore 

in fair abundance at several places within an area some 6 miles in 

length is highly encouraging. On the other hand, it should be noted 

that the veins are not of great size and apparently are not as a rule 

of great length or persistence, and their character at any considerable depth below possible superficial enrichment is yet undetermined. Moreover, it is evident that in most of the mines the country 

rock may be expected to differ at various depths, and it is yet 'to 

be proved that the rocks beneath the tuffs and basalt in which most 

of the known ore occurs will be equally productive. In short, while

the district is a most promising one for prospecting and developing, 

it is yet too early to regard it as one certain to yield largely for a 

period of many years.

ROSEBUD DISTRICT.

 SITUATION AND HISTORY.

The Rosebud district is situated in the Kamma Mountains, a 

minor crescentic ridge lying north of the Seven Troughs Mountains 

and fronting with its concave northwest side the forbidding expanse 

of the Black Rock Desert. The main summits rise from 2,000 to 

3,000 feet above the desert. Like the Seven Troughs Mountains, 

the group is merely a part of the Trinity Range. The town of Rosebud, close to which the mines are situated, is about 28 miles northwest of Humboldt House, a station on the main line of the Southern 

Pacific Railroad, and about 35 miles from Mill City. There is a stage 

from Humboldt House about once a week, but in September, 1908, 

no attempt was being made to maintain a regular schedule.

The Kamma Mountains have long been known as a source of sulphur, the Rabbit Hole sulphur mine having been worked since 1874. 

This deposit, which has been described by G. I. Adams,0 is about 

5 miles north-northeast of'Rosebud and was not visited in the course 

of the present reconnaissance.

Silver ore appears to have been first discovered near the site of 

Rosebud in 1906. This was followed by a senseless "boom," in 

which, as usual, folly played eagerly into the hands of fraud. Consequently, the town, which sprang up before the existence of any 

considerable body of ore was assured, is now nearly deserted, and 

the winds whistle through the unglazed windows of its most pretentious buildings, abandoned before Completion.

a The Rabbit Hole sulphur mines near Humboldt House, Nevada: Bull. U. S. Geol. Survey No. 225, 

1904, pp. 497-500.
26 MINING DISTKICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA.

A year or two ago the Brown Palace mine shipped from 15 to 20 

tons of ore from an open cut about 10 feet deep. This, so far as is 

known, represents the total output of the district up to the end of 

1908. Some prospecting and development were in progress in September of that year, and it is possible that with the opening of the 

Western Pacific Railroad, which passes a few miles north of Rosebud, the district may ultimately prove of some importance.

GENERAL GEOLOGY.

According to the Fortieth Parallel Survey map, the oldest rocks in 

the Kamma Mountains are Triassic and are exposed in the southwest 

part- of the range, associated with a little dacite and diorite. About 

Lander Spring, on the east side of the range, is shown an area of Jurassic 

rocks overlain to the west by rhyolite and andesite that are probably 

Tertiary. The supposed Jurassic slates are the prevailing rocks 

seen on the road from Humboldt House to Rosebud, which crosses 

the Trinity Range north of Antelope Peak, by. way of Willow Spring. 

The veins worked at Rosebud are all in the rhyolite, which occurs 

as laminated flows and flow breccias. These rocks form rounded 

hills, rising about 1,500 feet above the town. The rhyolite is not 

conspicuously porphyritic and as a rule is very fine grained. Most 

of it represents an originally glassy rock that has undergone devitrification and locally a good deal of secondary alteration chiefly 

silicification, with the development of some sericite, kaolin, and 

pyrite. 

ORE DEPOSITS.

The principal zone of mineralization, lies about half a mile north of

Rosebud and strikes nearly east and west. At the west end of the

zone is the White Alps property, on which some lessees have an 

inclined shaft 130 feet deep on a belt of fissuring and alteration that 

dips 70° N. There is very little vein quartz, and that merely in the 

form of small irregular stringers. The mineralized material is a white, 

much-altered rhyolite containing abundant finely disseminated pyrite 

which here and there gathers into small bunches. The individual 

crystals are as a rule almost microscopic. The soft white material 

into which the rock is largely altered and in which the pyrite is 

embedded is kaolinite. The deposit appears to have no definite walls 

and is generally of low grade. A little $50 ore has been found near 

the surface.

East of the White Alps, on'the same general zone of fissuring and 

alteration, is- the Brown Palace mine. Here two tunnels, one 300 feet 

and the other about 500 feet long, have been run into the hill on opposite sides of a small spur. No ore has been found in them. Higher 

up the hill is a small open cut on the fissure zone, whence was obtained
BED BUTTB DISTRICT. 27

the only ore shipped from the district. This occurred as a mass of 

15 to 20 tons, in which the valuable constituent was massive argentite 

associated with kaolin, limonite, yellow pulverulent jarosite, and 

more or less oxidized rhyolitic material. This ore was found at a 

place where a little north-south fissure with a low dip to the west 

joined the main fissure zone on its south side. The ore rested on the 

foot wall of the minor fissure and did not extend over 10 feet from 

the surface.

East of the Brown Palace ground is the Dreamland, with a 100-foot 

vertical shaft and short drifts on two levels. The vein strikes N. 70° 

E. and is about vertical. It consists of hard, dull-white cryptocrys-i, 

talline quartz in pyritized rhyolitic flow breccia. Its maximum width 

is 1 foot, but it is irregular, splits at some places into stringers, and 

apparently is not very persistent. The quartz contains more or less

disseminated argentite, and a little ore has been sorted and saved for 

shipment.

There are a few other prospects in the district at which work was in 

progress at one time or another in 1908, including the Golden Anchor 

east of the Dreamland. t These, however, were not examined.

Although the rocks of the Rosebud district have evidently been 

subjected to the action of solutions similar to those that elsewhere 

have produced important deposits of the precious metals, it is not 

yet apparent that any large or persistent veins have here been formed. 

The little ore thus far discovered is so near the surface and is of such 

a character that it can not be regarded as indicating deep and important ore bodies, although the possible existence of these is not denied.

RED BUTTE DISTRICT. 

SITUATION AND HISTORY.

The small settlement of Red Butte, which consisted in September, 

1908, of about 30 tents, is situated 45 miles north-northwest of Humboldt House, 55 miles a little north of west from Winnemucca, and 

30 miles north of Rosebud. It lies near the south end and on the 

west slope of a rugged ridge, locally known as the Jackson Range, 

but really connected by a broad belt of lower hills with the Trinity 

Range to the south. There is no regular stage to Red Butte, but the 

district may be reached by hired conveyance from Humboldt House 

or Mill City. The camp is attractively situated close to a flowing 

spring, on a gentle slope backed by the dark, partly wooded peaks of 

the Jackson Range and fronting westward on the vast gleaming 

expanse of the Black Rock Desert, broken here and there by lonely 

buttes whose strange and sharply carved forms glow with the ethereal 

colors of a desert landscape.
28 MINING DISTRICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY,, NEVADA.

The Red Butte district was opened by Mr. A. D. Ramel in May, 

1907, his first prospecting being for gold on the Redeemer claim about 

a mile north of the present settlement. Since then work has been 

directed mainly to the exploration of the various copper deposits 

presently to be described. No ore has been shipped, and underground exploration at the time of visit was confined to openings of a 

very superficial character, made for the most part by the original 

locators of the claims. The quiet prospecting here in progress is 

very different from the methods that gaA^e notoriety to Rosebud.

GENERAL GEOLOGY.

For over 15 miles north of Humboldt House the road keeps to the 

middle of a wide, deeply filled desert valley. It then turns northwestward and crosses obliquely a broad, low part of the Trinity Range 

composed principally of dark slates mapped as Jurassic by the geologists of the Fortieth Parallel Survey a from their lithologic resemblance to the Mariposa slate of California and to slates overlying 

Jurassic limestone in the Humboldt Range. The grade for the 

Western Pacific Railroad has now been carried through these hills, 

and the slates have been well exposed in numerous deep cuts, which, 

however, there was no opportunity to examine on this trip.

From these slate hills the ragged pinnacles of the.Jackson Range, 

which appear to rise 2,000 to 3,000 feet above Black Rock Desert, are 

conspicuous to the north. They are composed, so far as could be 

judged from an examination of their lower slopes and from material 

brought down by streams, of a hornblendic and hypersthenic gabbro, 

which also is the prevailing, rock of the Red Butte district. The 

gabbro and related igneous rocks are probably intrusive into the

slates, but no exposure of the contact was seen in the few hours spent 

in the district. Some stratified rock, reported to be limestone, is 

visible from the camp in a subordinate ridge along the edge of Black 

Rock Desert, a few miles to the northwest.

The most abundant gabbroitic rock near Red Butte is dark gray, 

medium grained, and evidently rich in hornblende. The microscope 

shows it to consist of a hypidiomorphic-granular aggregate of labradorite, hornblende, augite, quartz, magnetite, and apatite. The 

hornblende appears to be in part primary, but in part also it has been 

derived from the augite. Most of the quartz is an original constituent,, and fills angular interstices between the feldspar crystals. This 

rock as a rule is more or less altered and contains quartz, sericite, 

chlorite, and a little epidote derived from the other minerals. A 

more coarsely crystalline variety of lighter color was noted about 1 

mil P. north of the camp. This contains crystals (poikilitic anhedrons)

a Described in vol. 2, 1377, pp. 7"5-75<j.
.KED BUTTE DISTRICT. 29

of hornblende up to 2 centimeters in length. Under the microscope 

the rock is seen to be composed of calcic labradorite, augite, hypersthene, biotite, quartz, and much hornblende. The last is in part 

sharply intergrown with the pyroxenes, but a considerable proportion of it appears to have been formed by the alteration of the colorless augite.

Detailed petrographic study would doubtless reveal other varieties 

of basic igneous rocks, but for the purposes of this reconnaissance 

the general country rock of the district is designated with sufficient 

accuracy as gabbro.

Cutting the gabbro are numerous dikes of a light-gray to pink 

aplitic rock that contains practically no dark or femic constituents. 

These dikes vary greatly in size and trend, and some of them are very 

irregular, as may be seen on Anaconda Ridge just southwest of the

settlement. The contacts between the dikes and the gabbro, as 

exposed on this ridge, are close and distinct, but careful inspection 

shows that between the two rocks there is generally a gradational 

zone, less than an inch in width. Along some of the larger dikes the 

zone is wider, and this suggested at first glance that the dikes were 

merely belts of alteration in the gabbro. The dikes probably were 

injected while the gabbro mass was still at a high temperature, so 

that instead of a rapid chilling of the dike magma at its bounding 

walls there was a slight interpenetration and mixture of dike material 

and gabbro. This feature is not uncommon where granitic rocks are 

cut by the aplitic dikes characteristically associated with siliceous 

plutonic intrusives.

Microscopical study shows the pinkish dike rock to consist of alkalic 

feldspars with some sodic oligoclase and considerable interstitial 

quartz. In some varieties the quartz and feldspar are intergrown 

as micropegmatite. Most of the alkalic feldspars are twinned repeatedly and irregularly according to the albite and pericline laws, and 

are intergrowths of both the albite and orthoclase molecules. Specific determination of them was not attempted.

A considerable part of Anaconda Ridge, about 2 miles southwest 

of Red Butte camp, is composed of a compact, minutely porphyritic, 

dark-gray rock, which the microscope shows to be a slightly altered 

andesite. Presumably this rests on or is intruded by the gabbro, 

but its structural relations were not ascertained. Some basaltic 

rocks also were noted along the road a few miles south of the camp, 

between the gabbro and the slates, but they were not closely examined. One kind of these is 'remarkable for the large size of the 

plagioclase phenocrysts, which are tabular parallel to the brachypinacoid and up to 1^ inches (4 centimeters) in length.
30 MINING DISTRICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA.

COPPER DEPOSITS.

The copper deposits at Red Butte are closely associated with the 

aplitic dikes. A few only of the more important prospects could be 

examined. At the Copper Queen and Metallic groups of claims, 

about 1£ miles southeast of the camp, a short tunnel and a few 

shallow pits have been opened on some bunches of oxidized ore 

containing cuprite, covellite, native copper, and chrysocolla, associated with hematite, limonite, and a little barite. The ore is rather 

irregularly distributed through a fine-grained aplitic dike, which in 

part is altered to a rusty jaspery material. Not enough work has 

been done to reveal the extent and trend of the ore. The general 

course of the dike with which it is associated appears to be nearly 

northwest and southeast. Whether the ore occurs throughout the 

dike or is confined to its sides, near the gabbro, was not clear from 

the exposures available at the time of visit. The openings also gave 

no clue to the original mineralogical character of the ore before its 

oxidation.

The Anaconda prospect, situated on the ridge of the same name, 

about a mile southwest of the camp and 400 to 500 feet higher, was 

being developed at the time of visit by open cuts. The workings are 

entirely within a broad north-south aplitic dike, which cuts fairly 

coarse gabbro. The valuable constituent here is native copper, 

which occurs along narrow seams and joints in the dike rock and is 

to some extent disseminated through it. Work had just begun and 

the extent of the ore bod}' had not been ascertained. The rock in 

which the native copper occurs is not much altered and no quartz or 

other vein material is present.

At the Redeemer claim; about a mile north of the settlement, a 

fissure zone in the gabbro carries streaks of chalcocite partly altered 

to chrysocolla, malachite, and azurite.

Not enough prospecting has yet been done to determine the importance of the district as a source of copper. The superficial aspect of 

the deposits does not, however, suggest great size or richness.

Another belt of mineralization, not visited, is said to skirt the 

east base of the Jackson Range and to carry copper and antimony. 

At one place, a few miles southeast of Red Butte, some work was in 

progress at an antimony prospect in September, 1908, and it was 

reported that a shipment of partly oxidized stibnite would soon be 

made. Cinnabar also occurs a few miles southwest of Red Butte, 

west of the road to Rosebud. The- deposit has been very little 

developed and was not examined by me.
MINING DISTBICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA. 31 

HUMBOLDT RANGE. 

GENERAL GEOLOGY.

The Humboldt Range (see PL I) has a total length of about 75 

miles and attains a maximum altitude, in Star Peak, of nearly 

10,000 feet. As all who have written about the range have recognized, it is divisible into two distinct parts, separated by a fault the 

position of which is marked by a low transverse pass known, as Cole 

Canyon. The northern division, called by Louderback 66 the Star 

Peak Range, trends north and south and is about 32 miles long. 

The southern part, called by the same writer the Humboldt Lake 

Range, trends north-northeast and south-southwest and is over 40 

miles long. The course of Cole Canyon is north-northwest.

According to Hague 6 the Humboldt Range consists .of an Archean

nucleus upon which rest Triassic strata of great aggregate thickness.

These are overlain by Jurassic beds. There are also, on the lower slope, 

considerable masses of Tertiary rhyolite and basalt and a few rather 

small exposures of Miocene beds belonging to the Truckee formation.

When it is remembered that the geologists of the Fortieth Parallel 

Survey mapped an enormous area, that many of their lithologic 

determinations -necessarily depended upon the color and. erosional 

forms of rocks as seen from some commanding point of view, that 

their geologic field work was done before the topographic maps were 

available, and that, the science of microscopical petrography was 

then in its infancy, no surprise need be felt that many and important 

changes must be made in their mapping by those who follow in their 

footsteps. Louderback ° has shown that the so-called Archean 

nucleus, exposed in Rocky Canyon, southeast of Ryepatch, consists 

of a mass of post-Triassic intrusive granite with associated contactmetamorphic rocks. The intrusion, as Louderback observes, probably took place during the period of post-Jurassic deformation that 

affected the Great Basin region and the Sierra Nevada.

The Triassic rocks were divided by Hague into two formations. 

The upper or Star Peak formation is described as consisting of the 

following, numbered from the base up:

Tabular section of the Star Peak formation compiledfrom the description by Arnold Hague.

Feet. 

5. Quartzite and overlying limestone...................... 4, 000-5, 000

4. Massive limestone..................................... 1, 800-2,000

3. Black arenaceous slates............................... 200- 300

2. Slaty quartzites alternating with, greenish schistose rocks. 1, 500 

1. Limestones. Dark, almost black at the base, passing up

into gray and blue varieties......................... 1, 200-1, 500

a Basin range structure of the Humboldt region: Bull. Geol. Soc. America, vol. 15, 1904, p. 294. 

6 Descriptive geology, U. S. Geol. Expl. 40th Par., vol. 2, 1877, p. 714.

c Louderback, G. D., Basin structure of the Humboldt region: Bull. Geol. Soc. America, vol. 15,1904, 

p. 318.
32 MINING DISTRICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA.

The total thickness is roughly estimated by Hague at 10,000 feet.

The Star Peak formation is noted for its abundant Middle Triassic 

vertebrate and invertebrate fossils, which have been described by 

Gabb,a Meek, 6 Hyatt and Smith/ and J. C. Merriam. d The stratigraphic section, however, is much in need of detailed study. Less 

hurried work will, I believe, make considerable changes in the sequence 

and lithology as interpreted by Hague and is likely to show some 

duplication of units in his section. Hyatt and Smith e state that 

the Upper Triassic is also represented in the Humboldt Range and 

list half a dozen fossils. The beds containing them are said to be 

unconformably overlain by limestone containing Jurassic forms.

The lower division of the Triassic was called by Hague f the Koipato 

formation, from the Indian name of the Humboldt Range. It is 

described as a series of quartzites and "porphyroids," with a total 

thickness roughly estimated at 6,000 feet. The "porphyroids," 

although recognized as closely resembling eruptive rocks, were regarded by Hague as "metamorphic products of the mixed quartz 

and feldspar rocks of the series of beds underlying the limestone of 

the Star Peak Triassic."

In the light of modern petrographic knowledge, Hague's descriptions and the accompanying chemical analyses of the "porphyroids" 

strongly suggest that they are not metamorphosed sediments, but 

'are for the most part eruptive rocks. The exigencies of a hasty 

reconnaissance did not permit a thorough examination of the 

Koipato formation in 1908. Enough of it was seen, however, to 

leave no doubt of its dominantly igneous character. It consists of 

volcanic flows, mostly rhyolitic but including also andesitic lavas, 

associated with tuffs, conglomerates, grits, and limestones. The 

"porphyroids" are for the most part true igneous porphyries, although 

some of the tuffs may also have been included under this designation. As is to be expected in pre-Tertiafy lavas that have been 

subjected to considerable deformation, the originally more or less 

glassy rocks are devitrified and altered, in some places even to being 

rendered rudely schistose. The extrusive and tuffaceous rocks are 

cut by rhyolitic and dioritic dikes that are also of early Mesozoic 

age, and the Koipato formation as a whole is a volcanic complex, 

of which nonvolcanic sediments, including limestones, form a subordinate part. No true quartzite was observed in the Koipato in the 

course of this reconnaissance.

a. Paleontology, vol. 1, Geol. Survey California, 1864, pp. 19-35.

b Paleontology, U. S. Geol. Expl. 40th Par., vol. 4, pt: 1,1877, pp. 99-129, Pis. X and XI. ' 

c Triassic cephalopod genera of America: Prof. Paper U. S. Geol. Survey No. 40, 1905, pp. 21-23, Pis. 

XXII-XXV.

d Triassic Ichthyosauria: Mem. Univ. California, vol. 1, No. 1, Berkeley, Cal., 1908, pp. 18-19. 

« Triassic cephalopod genera of America: Prof. Paper U. S. Geol. Survey No. 40,1905, p. 26. 

/ Op. Cit., p. 716.
HUMBOLDT RANGE. 33

Hague calls attention to the fact that the division of the Star 

Peak formation that I have numbered 2 on page 31 is very similar 

to the Koipato formation. An examination of these rocks near the 

Sheba mine, in Star Canyon, shows that they comprise andesitic 

and rhyolitic flows and tuffs, with some beds of tuffaceous grit and 

of limestone. All are altered and are slightly schistose parallel with 

the bedding planes. Were it not that these rocks appear to be 

underlain by a considerable thickness of black shaly limestone they 

would naturally be grouped with the Koipato. As it is, their stratigraphic position is a little doubtful. The plane of division between 

the Koipato and Star Peak formations is much in need of close study 

and accurate definition.

The structure of the Humboldt Lake Range has been carefully 

studied by Louderback," who reached the conclusion that it is a 

block of folded pre-Cretaceous rocks elevated and tilted to the east 

in late Tertiary time by a zone of faults along the west front of the 

range. His explanation of the structure of the Star Peak Range is 

similar, and he believes that the main fault along the west base of 

this range curves to the east through Cole Canyon and has thus 

effected the separation of the Humboldt Range into its two distinct 

divisions.

The Humboldt Lake Range contains no important mines, and no 

examination of it was made during this reconnaissance. The older 

structure of the Star Peak Range was found to be broadly anticlinal 

as described by Hague, the axis of the fold trending north-northeastward from Cole Pass and thus crossing the range obliquely. From 

Cole Pass to Unionville is a belt of Koipato rocks 7 to 8 miles in 

breadth. Southeast of it is the Buffalo Peak mass of the Star Peak 

formation. Northwest of the Koipato belt the main ridge, from a 

point southwest of Unionville to the valley of the Humboldt near 

Mill City, is also made up of the Star Peak formation, overlain in 

the vicinity of Humboldt House by Jurassic strata. Thus the northern half of the Star Peak Range has the structure of a monocline dipping a little north of west. If faulting along the west base of the 

range,, as deduced by Louderback, actually occurred, the consequent 

eastward tilting of the whole mountain block must have decreased 

by so much the dip of the older monocline, which is still the most 

conspicuous structural feature of this part of the range.

HUMBOLDT QUEEN MINE.

The Humboldt Queen mine is situated 5 miles northeast of Oreana, 

a now little-used station on the Southern Pacific Railroad, and is be-

« Op. cit. 

11448 Bull. 414 09 3
34 MINING DISTEICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA.

tween the mouths of Sacramento and Limerick 0 canyons, at the west 

base of the Star Peak Range.

Little has been ascertained relating to the history of this mine. It 

is known to have been in operation in 1883, and the aspect of the 

empty buildings indicates that some work has been done during the 

past two or three years. No statement of the total production was 

obtained.

The general country rock of the mine is thin-bedded limestone, 

mapped by Hague as part of the Star Peak formation. It forms at 

this place a narrow north-south belt, bounded on the west by the 

sediments of Lake Lahontan and recent alluvium and on the 

east' by granite porphyry or rhyolite porphyry, which on the Fortieth 

Parallel Survey map is included with the Koipato formation. The 

belt as exposed is from one-third to one-half mile wide and appears on 

the Fortieth Parallel^ Survey map as the narrow southernmost point 

of the area of the Star Peak formation that farther north makes up 

most of the range. The limestone beds are thrown into sharp complex folds trending 

generally about N. 

10° E. A few of 

the folds are overturned, as illusAbout 1000 feet > trated in figure 2.

FIGURE 2. Sketch of folded limestone as exposed on the slope of a C^r^o V,orla QT-O 

small hill north of the Humboldt Queen mine. OUllie UBUb aie

noticeably metamorphosed, but others, especially the shaly ones, show considerable 

alteration, needles of tourmaline and rosettes of a dark-green 

mineral probably belonging to the chlorite group being noticed in 

some loose masses that had rolled down from the slope east of the

mine. The limestone is cut by a north-south dioritic dike, in places 

several hundred feet wide, which passes a short distance east of the 

mine workings. The metamorphism may be due to the intrusion of 

this rock.

The Humboldt Queen mine comprises numerous openings along 

a section, 1,000 feet or more in length, of a complex north-south zone 

of veins in the limestone. The workings are mostly tunnels and 

shallow shafts or pits. At the south end of the explored zone, however, is an old inclined shaft from which most of the stoping appears 

to have been done, and just south of it a newer vertical shaft, apparently 200 feet or more in depth.

The veins are generally parallel with the bedding of the limestone 

and are sharply folded with that rock. In a few places they cut 

across the beds, but this appears to be exceptional. The consequence

a On the Fortieth Parallel Survey maps the name Sacramento is applied to the canyon up which passes 

the road from Humboldt River to Fitting or Spring Valley. This is now locally known as Limerick Canyon, the one north of it being called Sacramento Canyon.
HUMBOLDT EANGE. 35

of this conformity with the bedding is much variation in dip and 

strike, and of course the failure of some veins or parts of veins to extend to great depth. In some places the veins are horizontal, in 

others they are vertical, and the change in dip or strike is in many 

instances very abrupt, as may be seen from figure 3, in which some of 

the structural eccentricities of these veins are diagrammatically illustrated. At the collar of the old inclined shaft the vein stoped dips 

"55°E., but at a depth of 30 feet it curves and a short distance below 

it dips 60° to 70° W.

The topography of the vein zone is irregularly hilly, and as .the 

intricate folding may bring the same vein to the surface at many 

places, it is impossible to say without detailed study how ma,ny bed

W

K-9 feet >)

FIGUBE 3. Structural details at the Humboldt Queen mine.

veins there are in the belt. There appear, however, to be more 

than one. i

The vein faces exposed show various widths up to about 10 feet. 

The filling is milk-white quartz, which in most places is banded 

.parallel with the wall by thin dark seams of argillaceous material. 

The spaces now occupied by the veins were probably opened gradually, 

with successive deposition of quartz after each movement. Some of 

the folding appears to have taken place before all of the quartz was 

deposited, but much of the deformation is later than the veining, as 

the quartz is generally shattered, although not thoroughly crushed, 

and the banding of the quartz conforms as a rule to the folds. Other 

minerals noted in association with the quartz are calcite, pyrite, 

galena, sphalerite, and tetrahedrite.

FITTING AND AMERICAN CANYON.

The limestone belt in which is the Humboldt Queen mine terminates at Limerick Canyon. For about half a mile from its mouth this 

canyon is cut in the granite porphyry already referred to as lying east
36 MINING DISTBICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA.

of the limestone. This rock was not closely examined, but has.the 

appearance of an intrusive mass. East of it the road over Spring 

Valley Pass crosses for more than 6 miles the main belt of the Koipato 

formation, which here appears to be composed mainly of darkweathering siliceous porphyries. The belt is probably wider than as 

shown on the Fortieth Parallel Survey map, which represents the 

spurs between American Canyon and Fitting as composed of the Star 

Peak formation, whereas they appear to be made up largely of 

Koipato volcanic rocks, angular conglomerates, and tuffaceous grits. 

The lower ends of these spurs are capped by basalt, which is not 

shown on the Fortieth Parallel Survey map.

Fitting, still better known by its old name of Spring Valley, and 

the settlement of American Canyon, about 2 miles to the south, were 

flourishing placer camps in the early eighties. The only lode mine of 

importance is the Bonanza King, situated about half a mile south of 

Fitting. This mine, formerly known as the Eagle, shipped ore to 

San Francisco at least as early a3 1884 and milled the lower grades at 

Mill City! Afterward a 15-stamp amalgamating and concentrating 

mill was built at Fitting, but this was not successful. The mine was 

worked by a lessee in the winter of 1907-8, but was idle at the time 

of visit.

The workings comprise a vertical shaft 300 feet deep, with levels 

300 to 400 feet long and of generally rectilinear plan. The 125-foot 

level was the only one examined, as the upper ones are stoped to the 

surface and the lower ones are under water.

The vein strikes generally N. 60° W. and dips 82° SW. It follows 

an altered dioritic dike, which is about 45 feet wide. This cuts the 

rocks of the Koipato formation, represented, in the part of the workings examined, by a porphyritic rhyolite. Other rocks noted in the

vicinity of the mine, and probably cut at various depths by the dike 

and vein, are rather angular conglomerates, grits, and tuffaceous 

beds, all containing much rhyolitic material and some limestone.

The vein consists of firm banded quartz and is generally within 

the diorite, separated by a thin slab of that rock from the foot wall 

of the dike. The old stopes, now open to the surface, are 5 to 6 feet 

wide, with smooth regular walls. On the 125-foot level the stopes 

are in some places 8 feet wide. A notable feature of the vein is its 

displacement by cross faults, of which five or six are known in the 

workings. These strike nearly northeast, dip southeast, and have 

normal throws. The 1 maximum offset effected by any of these faults 

is about 35 feet. They cut the vein sharply and contain some 

crushed vein matter and ore.

The ore is reported to have ranged up to $400 a ton, with a varying 

ratio of gold to silver. It is not susceptible to treatment in the
HUMBOLDT RANGE. 37

present mill, and the lessee stated that in 1907 he was able to recover 

by milling only $8 a ton on what the smelter returns showed to be 

$80 ore. The ordinary ore shows galena, pyrite, and sphalerite in 

milky translucent quartz, which in some places is slightly stained 

with copper carbonates. The richest ore contains in addition argentiferous tetrahedrite.

The placer deposits in Spring Valley are no longer worked. In 

American Canyon, however, about a dozen white people are living in 

the former Chinese village, and the gravels are being explored by 

two or three new shafts. For a distance of fully 2 miles from its 

mouth American Canyon shows signs of former activity in hundreds 

of pits amid piles of gravel. These pits are all that remain of the 

Chinese shafts, which were very small and ranged from 40 to 100 

feet in depth. As little timber as possible was used, and after the

productive gravel layers had been worked by drifting for short distances from a shaft it was abandoned and a new one was sunk. 

According to Mr. W. G. Adamson a the pay streaks were found at 

depths of about 40, 60, and 85 feet. The total alluvial deposit in the 

canyon is in places much thicker, the Midas shaft, put down some 

years ago, being reported to be 200 feet deep and all in gravels and 

clays. No gold, so far as known, has ever been taken from the bed-rock 

surface in the bottom of the canyon, although this appears to have 

been reached in one of the newer shafts estimated to be about 100 

feet deep. The gold is said to have been found mainly at the bottom 

of gravel layers, underlain by seams of clay. The gravel shows 

little rounding and apparently is subangular and imperfectly assorted 

wash from the adjacent hills.

According to Mr. Adamson, particles of cinnabar were often found 

with the gold in the rockers, and some good-sized bowlders of this 

mineral are said to have been taken from the gravels. This led to 

prospecting for cinnabar lodes, and some development work has 

been done at two places on the north side of the canyon. The only 

one of these visited is 2 or 3 miles from the mouth of the canyon, 

upstream from the placer ground. The deposit is a soft, crushed, 

kaolinized zone in porphyritic rhyolite. No walls are exposed and 

the zone is at least 6 feet wide, It dips north into the hill at 15° 

to 20°.. Little specks of cinnabar are scattered through the kaolin, 

but no ore has been found, although an incline 200 feet long has 

been sunk and considerable drifting done.

The second deposit, said to be more promising, is a short distance 

north of the settlement of American Canyon, in limestone, with 

some eruptive rock forming the hanging wall. The vein is said to 

strike northwest and to dip 20° SW. Specimens shown me by Mr.

" a. Oral communication.
38 MINING DISTRICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA.

Adamson contained abundant cinnabar in small irregular fissures in 

dark-gray limestone. The vein is said to have been traced, for a 

length of 3,500 feet and to have been opened to a maximum depth 

of "150 feet.

UNIONVILLE AND VICINITY.

Unionville is situated on the east slope of the Star Peak Range, 

in Buena Vista Canyon. It is about 10 miles north of Fitting and 

15 miles south of Mill City. Although no longer a bustling mining 

town, the quiet little settlement, with its running water, shade trees, 

orchards, and gardens, possesses charms that are the more pleasing 

because unlocked for in so generally arid a region.

The principal mines are a mile or two southwest of Unionville 

and at least 1,000 feet higher up the range. The rocks in the vicinity 

of the town and exposed along the road up to the mines belong to 

the Koipato formation and are conglomerates, grits, and limestones, 

with much siliceous porphyry, most of it probably rhyolite. The 

igneous rocks appear to occur both as flows and intrusions, but no 

careful examination of them could.be made in the time available. 

The topmost member of the Koipato seen on the road to the mines 

is a sheet of porphyritic rhyolite apparently a few hundred feet 

thick. This rock is considerably silicified and extremely hard. In 

most places it shows flow banding, which, while more or less contorted, 

conforms generally to the dip of the mass as a whole and to the beds 

above and below it. In places, also, the rock is spherulitic and the 

microscope shows that it is a partly altered, originally glassy rhyolite 

flow. Much rock of this character appears to have been mistaken 

for quartzite by the Fortieth Parallel Survey geologists from the 

fact that its outcrops, seen from a distance, have some resemblance

to that material. Overlying this rhyolite flow are thin-bedded, 

fossiliferous Middle Triassic (Star Peak) limestones, and it is in these 

that the ore bodies occur. Although generally gray in weathered 

exposures, the limestones are nearly black in underground workings, 

and are in part shaly. They form an elongated spoon-shaped 

synclinal mass, a little more than a mile in length and about 300 

feet in greatest thickness, that occupies the summit of a hill on the 

spur between Buena Vista and Cottonwood canyons. The general 

relations of the limestone and rhyolite are roughly shown in figure 4, 

which is a mere sketch with no claim to accuracy of detail or to conformity to scale. Along part of its east side the limestone is bounded 

by a fault plane, along which it has been dropped against the rhyolite. 

A smaller mass of limestone, southeast of the larger one, is similarly 

faulted down along its west side. This contains the Wheeler mine. 

The Arizona deposit is a bed or blanket vein that conforms with the 

bedding of the limestone and lies approximately 25 feet above the 

base of this rock or the top of the rhyolite. The vein has a maximum
HUMBOLDT RANGE. 39

thickness of about 6 feet and averages about 3 feet. It is remarkably 

regular and persistent and appears to be practically continuous under 

the entire hill. The largest angle of dip observed is about 30°, and 

under the crest of the hill the deposit is nearly horizontal.

The old Arizona workings are at the north end of the hill, overlooking Buena Vista Canyon, and were started on a prominent outcrop 

of white quartz. The old stopes extend south from the surface into 

the hill for over 1,000 feet and have an area of about 18 acres. Practically no timber was used, and the stopes, still in excellent condition, 

constitute a great labyrinth of galleries between the neatly piled 

masses of waste that support the roof. Raymond,® who saw these 

stopes in 1871, noted 

the unusual basin-like 

form of the deposit 

and remarked that

the conditions were 

more suggestive of a 

coal mine than of one 

Worked for precious 

metals. It is a fact 

of some interest that 

deposits of this character were known and 

worked in Nevada at 

the time when our 

mining laws of 1866 

and 1872, apparently 

so little applicable to 

them, Were passed. 

The statement made 

by Shamel, 6 that "it 

is probable that at 

the date of the passage of the statute of 1872 no instance was known 

of a vein which assumed a horizontal or even an approximately 

horizontal direction," is obviously incorrect.

The newer workings, which are developmental, are south of the old 

stopes. There are two tunnels, which connect with extensive exploratory drifts, crosscuts, and winzes or raises.

Although the vein as a whole has the form of a spoon it exhibits i 

some structural complications. Faults, striking N. 20° to 30° W. '; 

and dipping west, step the vein down to the west. The throw is generally greater at the north, the maximum displacement observed being 

about 75 feet. At one place near the south end of the workings there 

is a slight reverse throw on one fault plane that farther north is associated with normal dislocation. The principal faulting is along the

I mile

Limestone Rhyolite

FIGURE 4. Sketch plan showing the geologic relations of the 

Arizona mine.

« Statistics of mines and mining, Washington, 1872, p. 200. 

& Mining, mineral, and geological law, New York, 1907, p. 233.
40 MINING DISTRICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY,, NEVADA.

eastern edge of the syncline, and here the vein has been dropped 

against the rhyolite. In the vicinity'of this fault zone both the vein 

and its inclosing limestones are, as a rule, disturbed. The vein is 

crushed, flexed, and to some extent dragged along the fault planes, 

some of this dragged material being good ore. The limestones are 

crumpled and in some places are mashed and squeezed to a structureless mass. In general, the contact of the vein with its walls is close 

and without gouge. In the vicinity of the faults, however, vein and 

limestone have slipped past each other, and in a few parts of the mine 

the vein disappears and its place is taken by a seam of gouge.

The normal vein material is solid milk-white to light-gray quartz. 

It generally shows more or less banding parallel to its walls and in 

some places is divided by thin partings of limestone. There is no 

evidence of any important replacement, and the quartz has crystallized in open spaces produced by the separation of the limestone along 

one or more bedding planes. The banded structure suggests that the 

separation was effected by successive movements, each followed by 

the deposition of quartz. There is a little calcite with the quartz, 

but it is rare. The recognizable ore constituents are pyrite, galena, 

sphalerite, and tetrahedrite. As a whole the quartz is not particularly rich in sulphides, and the tendency of these is toward fine dissemination along layers parallel with the walls of the vein. Some of 

the gray argentiferous particles, especially where the ore has been 

fractured and secondarily enriched, appear to be argentite; and some 

of the richest ore, yielding on assay up to 1,750 ounces of silver and 

0.5 ounce of gold, contains dull, greenish-black masses that are 

apparently mixtures consisting largely of argentite.

The richest shoots of ore have probably been mined out, but according to Mr. Carmichael a the average of a large number of samples from

all exposed faces of the vein is about 20 ounces of silver and 0.05 

ounce of gold.

At the south end of the hill, and probably on the same vein as the 

Arizona, is the Nevada-Union mine, which produced about $60,000. 

It has been long abandoned and was not visited. Southeast of the 

Nevada-Union is the Wheeler (formerly the Henning) mine, on a 

vein which, although in a block of limestone now .separated by faulting and erosion from the beds containing the Arizona vein, was probably once continuous with that deposit. The Wheeler mine has 

always been under the same ownership as the Arizona. It was worked 

by flat stopes from the surface and produced probably from $100,000 

to $150,000.

In Cottonwood Canyon, 3 miles south of Unionville, is the Manoa 

or Pfluger mine, which has been worked in a small way for many years. 

The principal adit is 800 feet long and connects with several hundred

a Oral statement.
 HUMBOLDT RANGE. 41

feet of drifts. The general country rock is rhyolite, which appears 

to be overlain by a rhyolitic conglomerate with a steep dip to the 

west. Lower down the canyon and stratigraphically below the 

rhyolite are volcanic (largely rhyolitic) conglomerates, grits, and 

shaly limestones. All these rocks were included in the Koipato formation by the Fortieth Parallel Survey geologists. The rhyolite is 

cut by a complex north-south Basalt dike, and both rhyolite and basalt 

are much faulted and sheared along north-south lines. In some 

places this zone of disturbance is fully 400 feet wide. The general 

dip of the zone appears to be about 70° W., but this is not clearly 

shown and it is not known whether this is the same or greater than 

the dip of the associated beds.

The ore occurs irregularly as bunches and streaks in this sheared 

and faulted zone, especially near the basalt, and is for the most part 

a replacement of the crushed rhyolite by galena, sphalerite, tetrahedrite, and possibly some silver sulphantimonite, in a gangue of 

barite and quartz. The mine has never been an important producer.

In Jackson Canyon, between Cottonwood and Buena Vista canyons, is an antimony deposit in rhyolite that is one of the flows in 

the Koipato. The vein strikes N. 35° W. and dips 75° SW. I.t has 

a maximum width of about a foot, but is irregular. It is accompanied by some parallel sheeting and veining of the rhyolite. The 

vein consists of rather vuggy white quartz with unevenly distributed 

bunches of stibnite. Three tunnels have been run on the vein and 

some narrow stopes. opened. No work was in progress in 1908 and 

it is not known whether any shipments have been made.

STAR CANYON AND VICINITY.

The site of the former town of Star City, whose history has already 

been briefly told, is 6 miles north of Unionville and about 12 miles 

southwest of Mill City. When visited in 1908 no mining whatever 

was in progress in the canyon, and although the greater part of the 

Sheba workings was accessible, very little could be seen of the De Soto 

mine, which is south of the Sheba on the opposite side of the ravine.

The rocks in the immediate vicinity of the mines are rather thinbedded gray limestones and tuffaceous sandstones interbedded with 

thin flows of rhyolite and related rocks the porphyroids of the Fortieth Parallel Survey reports. These volcanic rocks are considerably 

altered and are in places partly schistose, so that the original character 

of some of them is not altogether clear. Most of them are rhyolite or 

rhyolite flow breccia. Some, while containing abundant phenocrysts 

of alkali feldspar, have no primary quartz and may be trachytes. No 

glass remains in any of these rocks, and quartz, calcite, sericite, and 

chlorite are common as alteration products. This heterogeneous 

assemblage of sediments and flows is overlain, just above the mines, by
MISTING DlSTKlCfS IN SttJMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA.

the massive gray limestone of Star Peak, and is apparently underlain, 

below the Sheba mill, by dark slaty limestones in which the stream 

has excavated a more open valley than at the mines. All the rocks 

mentioned were placed in the Star Peak formation of the Triassic 

by the geologists of the Fortieth Parallel Survey, although, as noted 

on page 31, the abundance of volcanic material at the Sheba mine 

suggests the possibility of their correlation with the Koipato formation. The general strike of the beds and flows is N. 15° E. They dip 

50° W.

The Sheba bonanza was close to the surface and, as the stopes and 

tunnels were carried into the hill, proved to be large and irregular. It 

consisted in part of several distinct lenticular seams of ore that followed certain bedding planes in the limestone or between the limestone and the associated grits and volcanic rocks. In many places

these seams were connected by a 

network of veinlets across the limestone beds, and where these cross 

veinlets were abundant the whole 

mass was stoped as ore. The limestone was the rock most fractured 

and was the ore bearer. As a rule, 

fissures crossing a bed of limestone 

end at the plane separating this bed 

from grit or rhyolite.

The original pay shoots, which 

ramified through an area over 300

FIGURE 5. Diagrammatic section of the Sheba feet long from north to SOUth and

ore body. 

d, ore.

a, Limestone; 6, tuff; c, porphyry; about 200 feet wide, were soon exhausted, and after vain attempts to

find any deep continuation of the ore the Sheba mine was for a time 

abandoned. About the year 1871, however, it was ascertained that 

the pay shoots first stoped were connected with a well-defined and 

regular fissure vein. It was hoped that a new era of prosperity was 

at hand, but after the vein had been worked to an additional depth 

of rather more than 100 feet below the old stopes operations were 

discontinued. So far as is known, there has been no exploration of 

the vein below the main tunnel. The general structural relations of 

the deposit are diagrammatically shown in figure 5.

The-main tunnel has its portal at the bottom of the canyon and 

runs N. 55° W. for about 800 feet through tuffs and flows to the vein, 

which on this level is in rhyolite. The vein strikes nearly north and 

dips from 65° to 75° W. It is up to 3 feet wide, consists of solid 

quartz with bunches of sulphides, and has been stoped on this level for 

about 160 feet, but apparently was here of low grade. Cutting obliquely across the layers of tuff and volcanic rock, the vein, as shown
HUMBOLDT RANGE. 43

in figure 5, maintains its regularity up to the level above the main 

tunnel, a distance of about 100 feet. A short way above this level it 

enters limestone and at once changes in character. The stopes widen 

to 20 to 30 feet, the vein splits, and the whole deposit becomes more 

irregular and, as indicated in figure 5, has a general dip across the 

bedding to the east.

The Sheba mine produced an antimonial silver ore consisting of 

white quartz carrying argentiferous jamesonite, galena, sphalerite, 

pyrite, and tetrahedrite. Possibly other minerals rich in silver, such 

as stephanite and argentite, were present in the best ore, but these 

were not observed in the material now visible. Jamesonite is particularly abundant. According to B. S. Burton, a who analyzed the 

minerals many years ago, the jamesonite from the Sheba mine contains over 6 per cent of silver and the tetrahedrite from the De Soto 

mine 14.5 per cent of silver.

During the last operation of the mine the ore was carried by an 

aerial tramway about half a mile down the canyon to the mill, which 

is equipped with rolls, Huntingtons, jigs, and concentrating tables.

The De Soto mine, which was worked in 1861 and at various times 

since, is immediately south of the Sheba mine and is on the same zone 

of mineralization. There are two tunnels. The upper one, which is 

very devious, extends about 600 feet into the hill, measured in a 

straight line. The lower one, not safely accessible at present, is about 

900 feet long. The rocks are in general the same as in the Sheba mine, 

and the ore occurs similarly along bedding planes and in fractured 

limestone. Most of the lenses of ore along the bedding planes appear 

to be connected with one or more veins that cut the beds. The bed 

veins have been stoped for distances up to 100 feet from these transverse fissures, which apparently are branches of the now filled channels through which the ore-bearing solutions rose. The ore of the 

De Soto mine is similar in mineralogical character to that of the Sheba.

About a mile down the canyon from the Sheba mine, on the south 

side, is a quartz vein that cuts black shaly limestone and carries stibnite. A tunnel has been run in on the vein, but apparently ' the 

deposit was never productive.

In Bloody Canyon, a mile or two south of the Sheba mine, is another 

stibnite deposit, which has been worked in desultory fashion for many 

years and from which some shipments of good antimony ore have 

been made. It was not visited.

RYEPATCH MINE.

On the west slope of the Star Peak Range, 5 miles west of Unionville and 4 miles east of Ryepatch' station, is the old Ryepatch mine, 

which after producing ore of the currently reported total value of

a Contributions to mineralogy: Am. Jour. Bel., 2d ser., vol. 45, 1868, pp. 30-38.
44 MINING DISTBICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA.

over $1,000,000 has lain idle for more than twenty years. Originally 

known as the Alpha or Butte mine, the property was sold about 1872 

for $80,000, and took its present name at the time of that transaction.®

The workings, comprising several tunnels and extensive stopes, are 

on the north side of Panther Canyon, in thin-bedded, more or less 

altered limestones supposed to belong to the Star Peak formation. 

The metamorphism, probably due to the granitic intrusion of Rocky 

Canyon referred to on page 31, is not here very conspicuous, consisting chiefly of the development of one or more species of fibrous 

silicates, probably belonging to the amphibole group, and in some 

beds of a white mica in almost microscopic scales.

The structural features of the deposit, which are unusual, may be 

most easily understood by reference to figure 6.

, Alpha vein >i

W

imestone

Diabase 

'Black is ore

~ Ryepatch vein

FIGURE 6. Diagrammatic section of the Ryepatch ore body.

The Ryepatch vein, which follows the bedding of the limestone, has 

no recognized outcrop. Originally a shaft was sunk on a fault fissure

that showed obscurely along the west side of a little lateral ravine 

eroded along a decomposed basic .dike. (See fig.. 6.) At a depth of 

30 to 40 feet ore was found in a bed vein that strikes about N. 15° W. 

and dips 25° W. On the east this vein is cut off by the fault; on the 

west, at a distance of about 250 feet from the original discovery, it is 

joined by a fissure that strikes N. 25° E., dips 75° SE., and is known 

as the Alpha vein. All of the ore stoped came from the block of 

limestone between the two fissures. This mass is fissured in all directions and much of it is shattered to fragments. The ore, consisting 

of shattered limestone full of bunches and branching stringers of 

quartz and calcite, occurred as great irregular masses bounded in 

part by definite fissures but grading on most sides into country rock. 

The total length of the ore-bearing ground, from north to south, was 

about 600 feet and the total width about 250 feet.

a Raymond, R. W., Statistics of mines and mining, etc., for 1872, Washington, 1873, p. 156.
HUMBOLDT RANGE. 45

The Alpha vein itself is merely a fissure that bounds the ore on the 

west. It has a smooth slickensided hanging wall with practically no 

gouge, and is not itself continuously filled with quartz. The Ryepatch vein, on the other hand, carried quartz and ore almost continuously from the point where it was first opened down to the junction with the Alpha fissure. In places this ore was narrow and had a 

definite hanging wall; elsewhere the ore extended from the foot wall 

for long distances and in very irregular fashion into the broken limestone, as roughly indicated in figure 6. The Alpha fissure, so far as 

known, does not extend below the Ryepatch vein. The Ryepatch 

vein continues westward beyond the Alpha fissure, but becomes 

smaller, more regular, and of much lower grade beyond the junction. 

A lower tunnel, some distance down the canyon from the main workings, has been run with the hope of cutting the Ryepatch vein. The

vein, however, has not been identified at this depth. The tunnel 

follows a strong nearly north-south fissure zone, which suggests the 

possibility of considerable displacement of the Ryepatch vein by this 

or similar fissures west of the Alpha vein.

The vein material of the Ryepatch mine consists of quartz, calcite, 

pyrite, galena, sphalerite, tetrahedrite, and perhaps stephanite and 

argentite. The best ore is said to contain little or no calcite, galena, 

or sphalerite. No first-class ore was visible in the stopes at the time 

of visit.

ELDOEADO CANYON.

The chief interest in Eldorado Canyon at present is derived from a 

deposit of cinnabar that was being prospected in' 1908. The Ruby 

Cinnabar mine is about 6 miles southeast of Humboldt House (8 

miles by road), on the northwest slope of Star Peak.

The ore occurs in a dark limestone, presumably belonging to the 

Star Peak Triassic, and has been opened by superficial tunneling. 

The beds in the vicinity dip generally west, but at the mine they are 

much disturbed and little was learned of their detailed structure at 

that place. The cinnabar is irregularly distributed through the fractured limestone, and the deposit as at present developed is a rolling, 

nearly horizontal mass about 80 feet long, 40 feet wide, and 6 feet 

thick. According to Mr. W. G. Adamson, the average tenor of the 

whole body is about 2 per cent of quicksilver. The cinnabar occurs 

as little branching veinlets, small bunches, and minute specks throughout the mass. In part it has filled fractures, but in part it has replaced crushed limestone. Some of the material through which the 

veinlets of cinnabar ramify is nearly black, earthy in appearance, and 

of noticeably, high density. A lens shows that this material is crowded 

with minute specks of cinnabar and of pyrite or marcasite. The
46 MINING DISTRICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA.

weight and dark color suggest also the presence of metacinnabarite, 

but verification of this supposition is not practicable in so fine 

grained a mixture of sulphides. The limestone adjacent to the ore is 

minutely fissured and faulted and contains many open crevices, especially under the ore body. Evidently there has been considerable 

removal of calcareous material by solution, and much of the fracturing 

associated with the deposit is probably due to the collapse of solution 

cavities and a settling down of the overlying rock. The workings 

have not exposed any vein or fissure that can be accepted as a probable main channel through which the ore constituents reached their 

present position.

NORTH END OF THE STAR PEAK RANGE.

North of Star Peak and Eldorado Canyon there has in the past 

been considerable mining activity in Humboldt, Prince Royal, 

Garden, Santa Clara, and other canyons. None of these old workings was visited. The Imlay (formerly the Morrison) mine, about 6 

miles east of Humboldt House, is reported to be 300 feet deep with 

two levels. Work was in progress here in 1908 and the company was 

fitting up a mill near the mine.

On the crest of the range, at the head of Antelope Canyon, is the 

Thornton prospect, apparently in pre-Tertiary rhyolite. This was 

being developed in 1908, and a little rich ore was found containing free 

gold, associated with pyrite, sphalerite, galena, and a mineral resembling 

tetrahedrite, in a gangue of white quartz. Prospecting was going on 

also, in 1908, in Black Canyon, where the finding of some rich bunches 

of free gold ore in similar veins in the Triassic porphyries was causing 

a small influx of miners and speculators.

GENERAL FEATURES OF THE ORE DEPOSITS OF THE HUMBOLDT

KANGE.

The ore deposits of the Humboldt Range, especially of the Star 

Peak Range, have certain common characteristics that mark their 

provincial unity or coherence. They occur in Triassic rocks, especially in the limestones of the Middle Triassic. Their age is not definitely known, but inasmuch as they appear to have been closely 

connected in origin with the folding, of the Triassic and Jurassic beds 

it is probable that, like the gold veins of the Mother Lode belt in the 

Sierra Nevada, they date from early Cretaceous time. Mineralogically and structurally, however, they differ very widely from the 

California veins.

The ores, as a rule, are antimonial and contain much more silver 

than gold, with relatively little lead and zinc. Stibnite (or the 

.similar lead sulphantimonite, jamesonite) is rather abundant, both
PAHUTE RANGE. 47

with the silver ores and in deposits not containing notable quantities 

of the precious metals.

The tendency of the ores to deposit as bonanzas in certain structurally favorable places is noteworthy. It is exemplified by the bed 

veins of the Humboldt Queen, Arizona, and Wheeler mines and by 

the remarkable ore bodies of the Sheba, De Soto, and Ryepatch 

mines. In this connection also may be noted the'close physical 

relation between the character of the ore body and the kind of wall 

rock .and the fact that none of the deposits in the limestone has maintained its size and tenor when followed down into the underlying rocks. 

The absence of persistent veins at all comparable in richness with the 

masses worked within a short distance of the surface is one of the 

disappointing features of the region. The bonanzas apparently 

represent continued accumulation or enrichmentj in favorable spots, 

of material that came in through channels insignificant in size or 

unsuited for the precipitation of rich ore.

PAHUTE RANGE. 

GENERAL FEATURES.

The range east and south of the Humboldt Range is designated on the Fortieth Parallel Survey maps and on Spurr's 0 map as 

the Pahute b Range. Although this name is not in common use by 

the inhabitants of the region, it is here retained as a convenient term 

for the entire range, since the various names locally employed apply 

only to parts of the whole. Thus the northern part, east of the 

Humboldt Range, is commonly spoken of as the East Range; farther 

south it is the Table Mountain Range; and still farther south it 

appears on the Land Office maps as the Silver Range or the Stillwater 

Mountains.

From Humboldt River on the north the Pahute Range extends 

south for 50 miles, past Granite Peak, to the fortieth parallel. Here 

it bends and sweeps southwest for another 50 miles across the course 

of the Humboldt Range, and then again turning south continues 

to the vicinity of Wonder and Fairview, where it merges with other 

mountain groups.

The rocks of the Pahute Range are generally similar to those of 

the Humboldt Range. The two divisions of the Triassic are well 

represented, and the geologists of the Fortieth Parallel Survey have 

mapped some Jurassic beds along the west flank of the north end of 

the uplift. Exposed at several places over considerable areas, notably 

near. Granite Peak, are masses of granite rocks, which, although 

referred to the Archean in the Fortieth Parallel Survey reports, are

a Bull. U. S. Geol. Survey No. 208,1903, PI. I. 6 Or Pah Ute.
48 MINING DISTRICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA.

at least in part post-Triassic. It is doubtful whether any Archean 

rocks occur in the range. Large areas, especially southeast of Spaulding Pass, north of Sou Springs, and in the vicinity of Table Mountain, 

are covered by Tertiary volcanic flows and tuffs. In the course of 

the present reconnaissance the range was crossed at only two places, 

and it is consequently impossible to add anything of value to what 

has already been published on the general structure. The Mesozoic 

rocks are much folded and the axes of the folds are not related in any 

regular manner to the topographic axis. As Louderback a has 

shown, the form of at least a part of the range has a much closer 

dependence upon late Tertiary faulting than upon the post-Jurassic 

folding.

The mining districts are more sparse than in the Star Peak Range, 

and the country, especially south of Granite Peak, is less frequented 

and is roamed by herds of mustangs or wild horses. At the north 

end, about 10 miles northeast of Mill City and just south of Dun Glen 

Peak, is Chafey, formerly Dun Glen, in the Sierra district. Tiptop, 

a new camp that had not attained any importance in 1908, is just 

south of Chafey. South of Natchez Pass is Orofino Canyon, where 

some mining was done thirty to forty years ago, and Rock Hill Canyon, where are old worked-out placers. Gold Banks, not visited, is 

apparently situated close to the divide between Grass and Pleasant 

valleys, whether in the Pahute or Sonoma Range was not ascertained. 

It was reported that the camp, after a brief period of activity, had 

become very, quiet in 1908.

In French ~Boys Canyon, north of Granite Peak, a little prospecting 

is going on in rocks shown on the Fortieth Parallel Survey map as 

Koipato Triassic. They are conspicuously metamorphosed to slates 

and schists, contain abundant epidote, and show very plainly the 

influence of the granitic intrusion to the south.

Kennedy, at the east base of the range, east of Granite Peak, is 

practically deserted and no work of consequence was in progress in 

1908.

About 30 miles a little west of south from Kennedy, in Cottonwood 

Canyon near Table Mountain, are nickel and cobalt veins, and a few 

miles south of them some copper deposits. No work was being done 

at any of these'in 1908.

Still farther south, on the west side of the range, is Coppereid, in 

the White Cloud district, where a long crosscut tunnel is being driven 

by the Nevada United Mining Company. The exact position of this 

camp, owing to the general topographic and geologic inaccuracy of 

the Fortieth Parallel Survey map in its vicinity, remains in doubt. 

It is in T. 23 N., R. 34 E., and is apparently near the place indicated

o Op. cit., pp. 322-327.
PAHUTB RANGE. 49

in Plate I. About 2£ miles north of it is Copper Kettle, where, it is 

reported, are some promising copper prospects, and 6 to 7 miles 

farther north, at the end of a low spur projecting into the valley west 

of Chataya Peak, is a deposit of magnetite, said to occur in greenstone, although the Fortieth Parallel Survey map, probably in error, 

shows Tertiary basalt at this place. According to Mr. John T. Reid, 

about .1,000 tons of this ore was shipped to San Francisco in 1893-4. 

A few miles south of Coppereid is a new prospecting camp called 

Shady Run.

CHAFEY AND THE SIERRA DISTRICT.

The new town of Chafey, which in the late summer of 1908 was 

rapidly covering the old site of Dun Glen, is 10 miles northeast of 

Mill City and about 20 miles southwest of Winnemucca. After the 

closing of the Auld Lang Syne mine many years ago a little desultory 

work continued near Dun Glen, especially on Munroe Hill, where the 

veins carry free gold near the surface. According to the excellent 

article by Wisker in the Mining and Scientific Press, referred to on 

page 14, what was known as the Hendra group of claims was bonded 

to H. W. Kent in 1905 for $10,000. Under his direction a vein that 

assayed well was cut in a short tunnel, but the discovery appears not 

to have been followed up. The ground was next bonded to Charles 

Haiiowe for $30,000. He interested E. S. Chafey in the prospect, 

and the latter undertook to raise the necessary money to develop it. 

Mr. Chafey began work about June, 1908, and by September of the 

same year is said to have shipped enough ore to purchase the mine. 

When the camp was visited in September, 1908, it presented a scene 

of brisk activity. Buildings were going up on all sides, and freight 

teams and stages, almost buried in dust, were plying back and forth 

between the new town and Mill City.

The ravine to which the name Dun Glen appears to have been 

originally given runs northeast and southwest, and 2 miles south of 

the summit of Dun Glen Peak heads in a pass through which goes 

the road to Winnemucca. The length of the glen is about 4 miles, 

and the claims about which the present activity centers are all on 

the southeast side. At the northeast end of the line, just south of 

the pass, is the Auburn mine. About a mile southwest of it is the 

Auld Lang Syne mine. Both had been long idle at the time of visit. 

A mile southwest of the Auld Lang Syne is Chafey's mine, on the 

Mayflower claim, locally called the Black Hole. About half a mile 

southwest of this is the Golden Bell tunnel. South of the tunnel, 

across a small east-west ravine that opens just below the town of 

Chafey, is a spur known as Munroe Hill. Here are many small veins, 

upon which lessees were busily at work in 1908. 

11448 Bull. 414 09 4
50 MINING DISTEICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA.

The rocks in the vicinity of the mines mentioned were mapped as 

Star Peak Triassic by the Fortieth Parallel Survey geologists, and 

the few hours spent in the district were not sufficient for critical 

revision of their stratigraphy. West of the town are dark slaty 

rocks supposed to be Jurassic. Similar slates underlie the town of 

Chafey and occupy most of the bottom of the glen, so that it is not 

clear from a brief examination of the district why the line separating 

the Jurassic and Triassic on the Fortieth Parallel Survey map should 

have been drawn west of Dun Glen so as to divide rocks so alike in 

general appearance.

As the visitor goes east from Chafey and climbs the slope to tne 

mines, he crosses the strike of the beds and passes first over dark clay 

slates that strike N. 15° E. and dip 80° W. Lenses of limestone 

appear in the slates as the mines are approached, and along the 

mineralized zone itself the slate and limestone are succeeded by a 

belt of altered igneous rocks that are for the most part flows and flow 

breccias more or less interleaved with the sedimentary rocks. The 

width of this predominantly igneous belt was not ascertained, but 

was reported to be about half a mile.

The prevalent kinds of igneous rock are rather dark gray and show 

small dull phenocrysts of plagioclase in a fine-grained groundmass. 

Many are mottled and suggest squeezed flow breccias; others appear 

to be glassy (vitrophyric) lavas that have been rendered partially 

schistose. The microscope shows that the plagioclase phenocrysts 

are the only original minerals now recognizable. The groundmass is 

made up of an aggregate of quartz, calcite, sericite, kaolin, and other 

secondary minerals, of which the proportions vary in different flows 

or facies. The rocks represent vitrophyric andesite flows and flow 

breccias that have been folded and compressed with the slates and 

have developed incipient schistosity. Cutting all the rocks mentioned 

are dikes of normal olivine diabase (dolerite) with typical ophitic 

texture. In the diabase the plagioclase and the augite, which is 

brownish red in transmitted light, are fresh, but the olivine. is more 

or less serpentinized. These dikes show no evidence of compression 

subsequent to their solidification, and were probably injected after 

the folding.

The Black Hole workings, which are about 1 mile east of Chafey 

and at over 1,000 feet greater elevation, consisted early in September, 

1908, of a tunnel about 200 feet long, partly on the vein, with stopes 

extending about 25 feet up to the surface. Exploration was in 

progress also through a new inclined shaft, 60 feet deep, with short 

drifts.

The vein, which is of solid banded quartz up to 6 feet wide, strikes 

N. 50° E. and dips 45° to 50° SE. It accompanies a diabase dike
PAHUTE EANGE. 51

and cuts obliquely across the volcanic flows and associated slates. 

As almost no crosscutting has been done little could be learned of 

the character of the wall rock. At one place the foot wall is limestone.

The vein minerals are quartz, galena, pyrite, sphalerite, and native 

gold, some of the gold being partly embedded in the galena. The 

gold, seen is pale and probably contains a good deal of silver; according 

to Mr. Chafey the ratio of silver to gold in the ore is generally as 2 to 1, 

by weight. The richest ore occurred in the oxidized part of the vein, 

but this is very superficial. A short distance northeast of the Black 

Hole tunnel the vein passes into one of the andesite flows and splits 

up into a zone of stringers. At one place an open cut shows such a 

zone over 16 feet wide, with slate on the foot wall. The richest ore 

from the Black Hole is hauled to Mill City and shipped. The lower 

grades are treated (1908) in an old 3-stamp mill at Chafey.

The Golden Bell tunnel, about 600 feet long, follows a regular vein, 

with an average width of approximately 4 feet. It resembles the 

vein at the Black Hole workings and is presumably the same, although 

no accompanying dike was noted. The foot-wall rock was not exposed at the time of visit, but the hanging wall is altered andesitic flow 

breccia. Some stopes have been opened above the tunnel and evidently some ore was shipped or milled. No work, however, was in 

progress in 1908.

The veins of Munroe Hill strike nearly north and south and are 

almost vertical. They are in partly schistose andesite and andesitic 

flow breccia, and one of them, at least, accompanies a diabase dike. 

The entire zone of veins is at least 300 feet wide and appears to represent a southern extension and splitting up of the vein worked at the 

Black Hole. At the Bishop lease on the May Muller claim some highgrade ore was being taken in 1908 from a vein on the east side of the 

zone. ' The vein is from 1 to 2 feet wide, strikes north, and dips 80° E. 

It has a diabase dike along the hanging-wall side. The ore, which 

was being taken from an open cut near the top of the hill, was oxidized 

and contained free gold, with probably halogen compounds of silver. 

A blue-green material occurring as specks in the ore and supposed by 

the miners to be bromide of silver proves to be chrysocolla. At 

another lease, distinct from the former, although known as the Bishop 

& Co. lease, a tunnel was being driven on the north side of the hill to 

cut some ore discovered above, and at many other places on the 

Munroe Hill lessees were sinking shafts or beginning tunnels. The 

ore thus far found on the hill occurs near the surface and is probably 

considerably richer in gold than that below the limit of oxidation.

The Auld Lang Syne mine was worked through three tunnels down 

to water level, and the quantity of material on the dumps and at the 

site of the old mill about a mile above Chafey indicates that large and
52 MINING DISTKICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA.

productive stopes were opened. Where the stopes come to the surface an excellent section of the vein is exposed, which is illustrated 

in figure 7.

The vein zone is about 100 feet wide and contains a number of 

nearly parallel quartz veins and stringers, separated by silicified 

andesite. The strike of the lode is N. 5° W. and it dips,"as a whole, 

65° E. On the hanging-wall side is a regular diabase dike 25 feet 

wide. The principal vein stoped is, as shown in figure 7, near the 

hanging wall of the zone. This dike, notwithstanding its proximity 

to the veins, is not generally altered and contains considerable olivine 

that has escaped serpentinization. The principal mineralogical 

change in the andesite, as elsewhere in this district, is the development of secondary quartz and sericite, the resulting rock outcropping 

and weathering much like a hard siliceous rhyolite.

The mine being quite deserted, I was able to procure no information concerning the character of the Auld Lang Syne ore. Some of 

the material last thrown out on the dump shows much arsenopyrite,

with some pyrite arranged 

in depositional bands in 

quartz.

Some of the veins near 

Chafey appear to be unusually persistent and reg- 

,00 FEET ular. That they become

FIGURE 7. Sketch section of the Auld Lang Syne vein zone. lean Within a moderate disa, Silicified andesite; 6, diabase; c, vein, stoped to surface; tance of the SUrf ace IS

d, vein; e, slates. , i t_ vi ±1 i. '

suggested by all that can 

be learned of the history of the district; but one looking at the

croppings of the Auld Lang Syne vein and at the work accomplished

there finds it difficult to believe that the old mine will not some day 

be reopened, especially as its nearness to the railroad gives it and 

other mines in Dun Glen a great advantage over many in Humboldt 

County as, for example, those at Kennedy, next to be described.

KENNEDY.

The almost deserted town of Kennedy lies at the east base of 

Granite (or Cinnabar) Mountain, about 30 miles by road southeast of 

Unionville and about 45 miles from the railroad at Mil City.

The distribution of the rocks in this vicinity is rather different 

from that represented on the Fortieth Parallel Survey map. The 

"granite" of Granite Mountain, supposed by the early geologic 

explorers to be Archean, is, at least locally, a diorite and is intrusive 

into Triassic rocks. Its outline, therefore, is undoubtedly much more 

irregular than they supposed. The bottom of the canyon from the
PAHUTE RANGE. 53

crest of the range down to Kennedy is all in the diorite, and the 

rock appears to extend farther north in the vicinity of Kennedy 

than is shown on the Fortieth Parallel Survey map. On the other 

hand, the hills directly southwest of Kennedy, shown as "granite," 

are for some miles in that direction made up of altered pre-Tertiary 

(probably Triassic) volcanic rocks,'with perhaps some sedimentary 

beds.

The diorite in the Vicinity of Kennedy is, as usual in such intrusive 

bodies, not altogether uniform, and it is possible that much of the 

Granite Mountain stock may be granodiorite or some quartz-bearing 

granular rock near that type.® The rock in the pass west of Kennedy 

appears to be fairly representative of so much of the mass as was 

seen at close range. This is a bright gray, medium-grained rock

showing abundant hornblende and biotite in a feldspathic base whose

individual crystals are not distinct to the naked eye. As seen in 

hand specimens, the diorite is not noticeably quartzose.

The microscope shows that the feldspars are mainly oligoclase and 

mottled intergrowths of oligoclase or albite with orthoclase, the 

whole forming a rather intricately interlocking mosaic. Green hornblende is abundant, and the larger individuals as a rule inclose and 

are more or less intergrown with augite that is pale green in thin 

section. Both these minerals are intergrown with biotite and with 

magnetite, apatite, and titanite. A noteworthy feature of the 

diorite is the generally alkalic nature of the feldspars in association 

with rather abundant augite, hornblende, and apatite in a rock free 

from quartz. It is probably near monzonite in composition, and 

a chemical analysis would doubtless show less lime and more alkalies 

than in typical diorite.

The principal mine near Kennedy is the Gold Note, credited with 

a production of $60,000 to $70,000, but .now idle, like all others in 

the district, where the only active industry in 1908 Was the catching 

of wild horses for shipment to Oregon. It is situated on the south 

side of the canyon, about a mile west of town, and is opened by two 

crosscut tunnels. The lower and main adit runs S. 33° W. and is 

about 700 feet long. It cuts the vein, which strikes N. 65° W. and 

dips 25° (or less) S., about 375 feet from the portal. The general 

country rock is rhyolite, which is intruded rather irregularly by 

sheets and dikes of basalt. The rhyolite apparently forms thin 

flows, and the vein and part of the basalt have followed stratigraphic planes in the series of rhyolitic lavas. Associated with the 

rhyolite in some parts of the workings is a dark greenish-gray rock,

a Hague (U. S. Geol. Expl. 40th Par., vol. 2,1877, p. 691) indeed describes the crystalline granitic rocks 

of Granite Mountain as made up chiefly of quartz and orthoclase, with scarcely any mica or hornblende 

(alaskite of Spurr). This suggests greater variation in the character of the rock than was evident from 

my own brief and limited observations.
54 MINING DISTEICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA.

evidently much altered, which was at first supposed to be metamorphosed limestone. The microscope shows, however, that it is 

an altered volcanic rock, probably andesite, and is composed chiefly 

of chlorite, calcite, and secondary quartz.

The basalt is a partly glassy, ordinary variety, in which some ser-. 

pentinous material suggests the former presence of a small proportion of olivine. Its appearance under the microscope is that of an 

extrusive rock, whereas its relations underground indicate at least 

some intrusion. Clearly it was not intruded at any great depth.

The vein is from 1 to 3 feet wide and is composed generally of 

quartz and abundant pyrite. Associated with these minerals in the 

parts of the vein stoped are galena, sphalerite, tetrahedrite, and a 

little chalcopyrite. Along most of its course the vein is in rhyolite, 

but in some places it traverses basalt.

From the main adit drifts have been run in opposite directions. 

The west drift, apparently not very productive, follows the vein for 

about 90 feet to a zone of faulting that steps the gently inclined 

vein down below the level of the drift. These faults strike N. 20° W., 

dip west, and are normal. The first one drops the vein about 4 feet, 

and the second, 6 feet farther along the drift, carries the western 

continuation of the vein out of sight. Along the east drift the 

vein, at first in rhyolite,- passes into basalt, becomes rather irregular, 

and at about 120 feet from the tunnel splits into two branches that 

diverge at a small angle. The north branch contains only bunches 

of ore. The south branch, which passes into rhyolite, has been 

stoped at intervals and apparently contained the principal ore 

bodies of the mine. At a distance of 500 feet from the adit the two 

branches of the vein are about 100 feet apart.

There was no one at hand in 1908 to give information about the

mode of occurrence of the ore in the abandoned stopes, but it may be 

surmised that the pyritic parts of the vein are of low grade and that 

the richer ore is bunchy, difficult to mine on account of the low dip 

of the vein, and not amenable to treatment in ordinary mills.

The Borlasca mine lies southeast of the Gold Note and is apparently 

on the same vein or vein zone. The workings, which have not been 

productive, are all in the oxidized part of the vein and are shallow. 

The vein material is chiefly quartz and specular hematite, and as the 

unoxidized vein in the Gold Note mine is chiefly quartz and pyrite 

it is probable that the specularite was derived from the pyrite by 

weathering, although unfortunately the present workings afford no 

opportunity for observing the actual passage from pyrite to specularite.

In the bottom of the canyon, about half a mile above Kennedy, is 

the abandoned Hidden Treasure or K. and B. mine, in a rather basic 

facies of the diorite. An open cut exposes two veins about 18 inches
PAHUTE RANGE. 55

wide separated by a foot or two of decomposed diorite. The veins 

strike northwest and dip about 50 ° SW. The vein material, as indicated by the dump of the closed main tunnel, contains very abundant 

pyrite and some sphalerite, with a subordinate quantity of quartz 

and calcite.

Half a mile north of Kennedy is the Imperial mine, which is credited 

with a production of about $10,000. .It was not visited, but is said 

to be in the diorite and to have yielded lead-silver ore containing some 

gold. Some specimens of galena seen in Kennedy were stated to have 

come from this mine. Attempts were made to work this ore in a 

20-stamp plate-amalgamation mill with cyanide tanks, now owned 

by the Borlasca Company. This and the various smaller mills in the 

district appear to have been designed without any regard whatever 

to the character of the ores to be treated.

NICKEL AND COBALT DEPOSITS OF COTTONWOOD CANYON.

From Kennedy to Boyer's ranch at the mouth of Cotton wood 

Canyon the distance by road is about 30 miles. a The usual route is 

through Pleasant Yalley past the volcanic Sou Hills and Sou Springs, 

the latter being about halfway in the journey. These springs consist of six or seven circular pools, 40 to 50 feet in diameter, with funnel-shaped bottoms, distributed along the crest of a calcareous tufa 

mound that rises from 50 to 60 feet above the alluvium of the valley. 

The pools differ in temperature, some being cold and some at about 

85° C. A description of these springs with a good illustration (looking south toward Boyer's ranch) and some chemical analyses are 

given by Hague. 6 From Sou Springs south the road skirts the east 

face of the Stillwater Range, which is here very precipitous and is 

notched by narrow ravines, many of which have not cut down to the 

main valley, but have built up high-angle alluvial cones at their 

mouths. The rocks in this part of the range appear to be mainly 

Triassic (Star Peak) limestones cut by masses of some light-colored 

intrusive rock.

The topography and geology in the vicinity of Cottonwood Canyon 

are very inadequately represented on the Fortieth Parallel Survey 

map, which shows the Triassic rocks ending at the canyon, with 

Tertiary rhyolite south of them, all being capped to the west by basalt.

The canyon for about half a mile from its mouth is cut through 

dark-gray and reddish indurated clay shales, overlain by gray limestone, and this in turn by several hundred feet of light-colored thinbedded quartzite. All three rocks are intricately intruded and contorted by tongues, dikes, and irregular masses of dioritic rock, whose

<j Boyer post-office is on most maps of Nevada erroneously placed at the south end of the great salt playa 

of Osabb (Dixie) Valley, whereas it is really north of it. 

6 TJ. S. Qeol. Expl. 40th Par., vol. 2,1877, pp. 704-705, PI. XX.
56 MINING DISTRICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA.

complex relations to the sedimentary beds are impressively displayed 

in the steep bare front of the range northwest of Boyer's ranch. West 

of these beds, which are supposedly Triassic, the canyon for several 

miles is in a dioritic rock that shows considerable variation in texture 

and composition from place to place. Probably the most widespread 

variety is a medium to fine grained diorite consisting originally of 

plagioclase, hornblende, and perhaps augite, with considerable titanite 

and .some apatite and magnetite. As a rule the diorite is much 

altered. The plagioclase is partly changed to calcite and sericite and 

the hornblende to epidote, calcite, chlorite, and a pale-green secondary 

amphibole. Other facies observed are darker and contain more 

hornblende, with some biotite. Still others are coarsely crystalline, 

are roughly foliated, and have a mottled appearance due to poikilitic 

development of the feldspar.

In the upper part of the canyon, in the vicinity of the nickel 

deposits, the diorite is intrusive into andesite and andesite breccia, 

much of which is so altered that its original character is scarcely 

recognizable. Near the diorite the andesite is silicified, qarries disseminated particles and bunches of hematite with streaks of copper 

ore, and weathers in craggy rusty outcrops. Farther from the contact 

the rock is dark purplish gray and shows in places a suggestion of a 

tuffaceous or breccial structure and the outlines of feldspar phenocrysts. The microscope shows that the plagioclases, partly altered to 

sericite and calcite, are the only original minerals recognizable. The 

femic minerals have been changed to calcite, and particles of hematite 

are disseminated thickly through the groundmass.

Both the andesitic rock and the diorite are cut by dikes and by 

small irregular masses of a white feldspathic rock in which rutile in

minute scattered crystals and grains is the only dark constituent. 

The grain of these dikes varies from that of an ordinary granite to 

that of a rather fine quartzite. The microscope shows that the 

plagioclase is chiefly sodic oligoclase, with a little orthoclase and 

probably some albite. The sharply angular spaces between the subhedral crystals of feldspar are occupied in part by calcite and in part 

by fine granular, microscopically radial aggregates of a mineral supposed to be quartz. The calcite is presumably secondary, as some of ' 

it has formed at the expense of the feldspars. Most of it, however, 

appears to have filled empty spaces by infiltration, the feldspars that 

inclose it preserving their original crystal outlines. The accessory 

minerals are rather abundant rutile with apatite and zircon. The 

rock is of Uncommon character and will probably be briefly described 

in a separate publication when a chemical analysis of it is completed.. 

The work of the Fortieth Parallel Survey indicates that the sedimentary rocks and andesitic rocks described are probably Triassic
PAHUTE RANGE. 57

and that the diorite and white dikes are late Mesozoic. No additional 

information was obtained in the course of the present reconnaissance.

Resting upon these rocks at the head of the canyon is a thick series 

of nearly horizontal Tertiary volcanic rocks. Near their base is at 

least 300 feet of andesitic breccia with some intercalated vesicular 

basalt. The actual base of this series was not observed. Overlying 

the andesite tuffs is about 200 feet of rhyolite, covered in turn by a 

succession of thin volcanic flows, which, as seen from a distance, 

apparently include both andesite and basalt. Table Mountain is 

capped by these flows.

Among the many interesting geologic features of Cottonwood Canyon to which but scant attention could be given in so hasty a- visit 

may be especially mentioned an extinct hot-spring deposit 2 or 3 

miles above Boyer's ranch and about half a mile below the Nickel

mine. This is a great mound of siliceous sinter surmounted by a 

crater-like orifice fully 200 feet above the present stream, which has 

cut deeply into the mound and has exposed its steep quaquaversal 

stratification. The deposit rests on diorite and was formed at a time 

when the canyon had not attained its present depth.

The Nickel mine is situated on the north side of Cottonwood Creek, 

from 3 to 4 miles above Boyer's ranch. It was opened about 1882, 

when, it is reported, a car of 26 per cent nickel ore was shipped to 

Camden, N. J., and was worked for eight years. It was then closed 

in consequence of litigation. Work was resumed in 1904'but ceased 

again in 1907.

The workings are on a contact between diorite and andesite or 

andesite breccia, the rock being too much altered for certain identification. The contact, which is here more regular than elsewhere 

and may be due to local faulting, strikes N. 50° E. and dips 35° NW., 

the diorite forming the foot wall. The ore, which is all in the andesitic rock, has been exploited by cuts, tunnels, and an inclined shaft 

about 200 feet deep. It occurs in narrow fissures that make various 

angles with the contact and are not individually persistent. Some 

ore has been followed for a distance of 100 feet from the contact, 

measured perpendicularly to that plane.. The diorite in the foot wall 

shows fissuring and disturbance and carries stringers of quartz, but 

no ore.

The seams of nickel ore are rarely over 3 or 4 inches in width, and all 

the material seen was more or less oxidized. The original filling, of 

which some residual masses remain, is partly a sulpharsenide of nickel, 

probably gersdorffite, according to Mr. W. T. Schaller, who tested the 

material in the Geological Survey laboratory. It is probable that 

chloanthite and other nickel minerals are also present, as the original 

ore has the appearance of being in part a mixture of arsenides or
58 MINING DISTRICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA.

sulpharsenides of nickel. The residual kernels of sulpharsenide are 

veined and coated with a bright green hydrous.nickel arsenate, probably annabergite, as determined by Mr. Schaller. This constitutes 

most of the ore. No quartz or other distinctive gangue mineral was 

noted in the veinlets. The nickel minerals are not confined to the 

major fissures, but have penetrated the rock in their vicinity for 

several inches along joints and microscopic cracks, forming a lowgrade ore which the company has attempted to treat by leaching with 

sulphuric acid.

The Lovelock mine, about half a mile west of the Nickel mine, is 

reported to have shipped a total of about 500 tons of high-grade nickelcobalt ore, but has long been idle. The workings comprise a Iab3^rinth 

of superficial burrowings, by which the miners have followed or 

sought for the small erratic veinlets of ore, and a precarious shaft that 

no attempt was made to explore. This shaft is said to have been 

sunk to water and to be connected with exploratory drifts just above 

the water level. It apparently is not much more than 100 feet deep. 

The country rock is altered andesite like that at the Nickel mine. 

No diorite was seen, but it would probably be cut in deep workings.

The seams or veinlets of ore run in practically all directions and 

have no definite walls. The ore, all of which is partly or wholly 

oxidized, is more complex than that of the Nickel mine and contains 

copper and cobalt as well as nickel. The minerals recognized are 

tetrahedrite, erythrite (cobalt bloom), azurite, and green crusts that 

according to Mr. Schaller contain copper and nickel arsenates and 

sulphates and consequently may be a mixture of annabergite and 

brochantite.

A few miles south of Cottonwood Canyon, high on the east slope

of the range, is a copper prospect which is now known as the Treasure Box, but which appears to have formerly been called the Bell 

Mare or Cornish mine. The ore, in the form of pyrite and chalcopyrite, is disseminated through andesitic tuff in the lower part of the 

Tertiary volcanic series. This impregnation extends through a belt 

at least a mile long and several hundred yards wide, which trends 

about N. 70° E. The most abundant sulphide is pyrite, the chalcopyrite occurring only here and there in bunches. The pyritization is by 

no means uniform and fades out indefinitely into the surrounding 

rock. Apparently there is no vein and no master fissure whence the 

miner ah'zation has emanated.

At the east end of the deposit some oxidized copper ore has been 

taken from open cuts and a shaft has been sunk, apparently without 

the discovery of workable ore. A water-jacket furnace was erected 

at this place, the highest point at which the deposit outcrops, but 

was never used. Two tunnels, one of them about 400 feet long, have 

been run near the west end of the pyritic zone.
PAHUTE &ANGE. 59 

COPPERED).

Coppereid, in the White Cloud district, on the west slope of the 

Stillwater Range, was the most southern locality visited in the course 

of the reconnaissance. The only work in progress in 1908 was by the 

Nevada United Mining Company, which is driving a tunnel into the 

south side of White Cloud Canyon at an elevation of about 1,000 feet 

above the valley of Carson Sink.

The lower part of the canyon is a narrow, steep gorge cut through a 

moderately coarse, slightly micaceous granite, intruded by many dikes 

of granite porphyry and by a few of diorite porphyry. Farther up 

the granite appears to grade into granite porphyry (although this was 

not established with certainty) and the porphyry is succeeded .to the 

east by a series of limestones and calcareous shales, with a few beds of

gypsum, into which it is plainly intrusive.

These sediments are overlain to the east by volcanic flows and tuffs 

that form the crest of the range, although on the Fortieth Parallel 

Survey map this is represented as being made up of the Star Peak 

Triassic. No fossils are known from the sedimentary rocks in White 

Cloud Canyon, but they are presumably Middle Triassic. They are 

metamorphosed by the granite porphyry intrusion, the purer limestones being marmorized and others being altered throughout by the 

development of garnet, epidote, fluorite, quartz, axinite, specularite, 

and metallic sulphides.

The workings of the Nevada United Mining Company comprise a 

main crosscut tunnel near the bottom of the canyon. The course of 

this is S. 37° E., and its length at the time of visit was 2,000 feet. 

On the steep hillside, above the tunnel are old shallow workings that 

were operated about fifteen years ago for oxidized copper ore, which 

was reduced in a small smelter at the mouth of the canyon. Still 

higher, about 850 feet vertically a'bove the main tunnel, are two tun- 

' nels known as the Twin tunnels. Both are at the same elevation, 

have their portals near together, and run nearly in the same general 

direction, so that they apparently represent an effort to explore the 

ground with as much labor as possible. One of these penetrates 

the hill for 700 feet.

About 350 feet above these tunnels is the summit of the ridge 

separating White Cloud Canyon from the next ravine to the south. 

Here is a large outcrop of specularite, which carries in places a little 

oxidized copper ore. There is probably from 100,000 to 200,000- 

tons of this material actually exposed on the hilltop and in the shallow exploratory workings that have been run into the mass. Much 

of it is .practically pure 'specularite, ranging in texture from soft, 

greasy, rougehke varieties to coarsely foliated kinds. The copper is 

rather sparingly distributed through some parts of the iron ore as
60 MINING DISTRICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA.

malachite. There are several of these masses of iron ore on the 

ridge. They appear to occur as pods, lenses, and irregular bodies 

associated with considerable fluorite and distributed through a broad 

mineralized zone that strikes east and west and dips about 45° N. 

The masses themselves strike and dip in various directions. On the 

west the zone, which is in limestone, ends at the intrusive "contact of 

this rock with the granite porphyry a few hundred yards from the 

great hematite outcrop on the crest of the ridge.

The Twin tunnels were run under the supposition that the hematite on the ridge is the gossan of a great vein. They penetrated a 

little oxidized ore consisting of chrysocolla, specularite, limonite, 

calcite, colorless fluorite, and epidote, but disclosed nothing of value 

and did not cut any mass of specularite comparable with that above.

A similar expectation led to the driving of the main tunnel. The 

portal of this is in white to buff crystalline limestone carrying small 

bunches of specularite and in places much garnet and some pyrite. 

The beds appear to strike southeast and dip northeast, but the structure is very indistinct. At 400 feet from the portal a crosscut was 

driven east for 600 feet, and from this, about 200 feet in, a branch 

was run north to a broad zone of marmorized limestone heavily 

impregnated with slightly cupriferous pyrite. In places this is so 

abundant as to form nearly solid masses. This is probably the same 

zone that carries specularite near the mouth of the main tunnel and 

the one from which some of the oxidized copper ore was mined near 

the surface fifteen years ago. There is no recognizable vein; the 

pyrite has formed in the limestone by metasomatic replacement and 

is without definite boundaries. Beyond the branch the east crosscut continues for 400 feet through much broken and disturbed linlestone, with many open crevices partly filled with soft, earthy limonite. 

The material suggests active solution by oxidizing waters, the formation of cavities, and the subsequent collapse of the cavernous rock 

into a mass of coarse, angular rubble.

The greater part of the main tunnel is in fine-grained dark limestone and originally calcareous shales that have been converted into 

dense siliceous hornstones. These are cut by many small veinlets 

carrying calcite, axinite, sphalerite, pyrite, and chalcopyrite. In 

some places they contain round or ellipsoidal concretions up to 6 inches 

in diameter, which when broken open show a septarian structure and 

a kernel of silicates, quartz, calcite, pyrite, pyrrhotite, chalcopyrite, 

and sphalerite. Among the silicates epidote, in short prisms and 

grains thickly embedded in calcite, is most abundant. It is associated with brushes of capillary crystals that have not been certainly 

identified but may be an amphibole possibly tremolite.

According to a letter from Mr. John T. Keid, manager of the mine, 

the tunnel on January 18, 1909, was 2,750 feet in length and was
PAHUTE EANGE. 61

making so much water from the face (1,250,000 gallons in twentyfour hours) that work had been temporarily suspended. Prior to 

tapping this water the tunnel passed through a number of small fissures carrying some c.halcopyrite, and about 100 feet from the face, 

according to Mr. Reid, went through 3 feet of vein material containing 

chalcopyrite and pyrrhotite.

The conclusion reached from the short examination made of the 

main tunnel and the old workings, supplemented by a general survey 

of the surface, is that all the workings are in a zone of pronounced 

 contact metamorphism, within which bunches of lean sulphides and 

of specular iron of irregular shape are rather erratically distributed. 

These show a decided tendency to form thick pods or lenses of 

indefinite outline, rather than distinct and persistent veins of which 

the positions could be calculated for depths far below their outcrops. 

Thus deep crosscutting involves more than the usual hazard of such

a mode of exploration. While one would be rash to assert that no 

profitable vein will be cut in the tunnel, there is nothing on the surface 

or in the old workings that demonstrates the existence of any but 

isolated masses of ore throughout a contact zone.

The small quantity of primary ore thus far found, consisting of 

pyrite, pyrrhotite, and chalcopyrite, is of low grade, as is to be 

expected in deposits of contact-metamorphic type. The old stopes 

near the surface, from which ore was formerly obtained for the 

smelter at the mouth of the canyon, show considerable migration 

and concentration of oxidized copper ore, and solutions that extracted 

their copper from lean sulphides (or possibly from sulphides previously enriched) have deposited chrysocolla by direct replacement of 

crystalline limestone. The steps of this process, from narrow veinlets of chrysocolla widened by replacement, through rounded kernels 

of limestone inclosed in the copper silicate, to solid masses of tfye 

latter, are beautifully, shown in the old stopes.

The occurrence of great masses of specularite on the top of the 

ridge and of large bodies of pyrite far below in the main tunnel suggested at first that the specularite was derived from pyrite by oxidation. Specularite is present, however, although not so far as known 

in large masses, in the lower tunnel, where it has crystallized with 

sulphides and garnet as a primary contact mineral. No material 

could be found that showed the passage of sulphides into specularite, 

and the evidence at this locality, while not conclusive, rather favors 

the view that all of the specularite is of direct contact-metamorphic 

origin. a

a Since this was written considerable masses of specularite intimately associated with pyrite have 

been cut in the tunnel 2,800 feet from the portal and about 1,000 feet below the surface. This places 

the contact-metamorphic origin of the specularite beyond reasonable doubt.
62 MINING DISTRICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA.

SONOMA RANGE.

The Gold Run district, in which the most important property is 

the Adelaide mine, 11 miles nearly due south of Golconda, is on the 

east slope of the northern part of the Sonoma Range.* The rocks 

of this part of the range are generally similar to those of the Pahute 

and Humboldt ranges. No attempt was made in this reconnaissance 

to study their lithology or structure, except at the Adelaide mine, 

where they have been mapped as Star Peak Triassic by the geologists of the Fortieth Parallel Survey.

The district was organized in 1866. Development apparently was 

slow, for in 1870 the principal shaft, the Golconda, was only 80 feet 

deep. South of this were the Cumberland, 50 feet deep, and the 

Jefferson, with still shallower workings. There were some small 

mills in the district, and desultory attempts were made to wprk the 

partly oxidized ores up to about 1897, when the Glasgow and Western 

Exploration Company acquired the mines and 15 claims along the 

ore-bearing zone. This company built 12 miles of narrow-gage railway from Golconda to the mine and erected a smelter and concentrating mill at the junction of its road with the Southern Pacific Railroad. This plant, consisting of two roasting furnaces and three reverberatory smelting furnaces, with the ordinary arrangement of crushing 

and concentrating machinery, was operated for a time on ores from 

Battle Mountain and from Adelaide, and some matte was shipped. 

The process, however, proved unsuited to the Adelaide ore and was 

abandoned. A few years ago the mill was remodeled and 120 concentrating tubes of the Macquisten type were installed. An interesting description of this remarkable plant has been given by W. R. 

Ingalls, 6 and from this the reader may obtain some idea of the

ingenuity, simplicity, and effectiveness of this novel process, in which 

the heavy sulphides are floated off while the gangue minerals sink. 

Some improvements in 'the first installation were in contemplation 

in 1908, and the mill was in use by Mr. Macquisten solely for experimental purpose. Its total capacity was given as 120 tons in twentyfour hours. It produced when in full operation a 20 per cent concentrate from 2.7 per cent copper ore, leaving about 0.2 per cent in 

the tailings. The weakest point in the process appears to be in the 

relatively' low recovery from the slimes.

The main shaft of the Adelaide mine, 300 feet deep, is situated on 

the south side of Gold Run Creek, close to the site of the old settlement of Cumberland. The general country rock is dark calcareous 

slate, within which is a layer or series of beds of limestone from 50 

to 75 feet in total thickness. This bed strikes north and dips 65° E.

a The Havallah Range of the Fortieth Parallel Survey reports.

6 Concentration upside down: Eng. and Min. Jour., vol. 84, 1907, pp. 765-770.
SONOMA RANGE. 63

This limestone layer carries the ore, which in some places occupies 

the full width from one slate wall to the other, although as a rule the 

zone contains horses of altered limestone that is nearly free from sulphides. The ore body is undoubtedly large an4 has been extensively 

stoped above the 100-foot level for 400 feet without any indication 

of a diminution in size. Below this level, which is approximately at 

the bottom of the zone of partial oxidation, exploratory drifts have 

been run at vertical intervals of about 50 feet, revealing abundant 

ore. The bottom level was under water at the time of visit.

The ore is a metasomatic replacement of the limestone and consists 

of pyrrhotite, chalcopyrite, sphalerite, and a little galena, in a gangue 

of garnet, vesuvianite, diopside, calcite, orthoclase, and a very little 

quartz. Common pyrite is probably not altogether absent, although 

it does not appear in the specimens of ore collected. The presence of

orthoclase is uncommon in this mineralogic association, but adularia 

has been noted by Spurr and Garrey a in the altered limestones of the 

Velardena contact zone. At Adelaide the orthoclase is poikilitic and 

contains inclusions of vesuvianite, garnet, diopside, and quartz. 

The ore is definitely bounded only where it is in contact with the 

slates. Elsewhere it. merges gradually and irregularly into limestone containing silicates but very little of the sulphide constituents. 

A banding of the limestone, due to alternations of silicate and calcite 

layers, is common, particularly near the ore, and the bands in places 

are contorted and crumpled. As a whole the ore is of low grade, 

averaging about 3 per cent of copper; but the quantity available 

appears to be large, and the difficulties in the way of its successful 

concentration and treatment will probably soon be overcome.

The present workings do not afford much evidence of secondary 

enrichment. The old stopes between the 100-foot level and the surface were in mixed sulphide and oxidized ore, but whether chalcocite 

was present in quantity is not known.

About 600 feet north of the main shaft, on the opposite side of tne 

little creek, is a tunnel that runs north in the ore zone for 2,000 feet. 

For a distance of 500 to 600 feet from the portal the tunnel is in ore. 

Beyond this the limestone zone is generally lean or barren, although 

there are a few bunches of ore near the face and some stopes above 

the tunnel were formerly worked from a now abandoned shaft on the 

hilltop.

A notable feature of the Adelaide ore bodies, in view of the fact that 

the nearest area of eruptive rock (mapped as granite on the Fortieth 

Parallel Survey map) is fully a mile east of the mine, is their close 

correspondence to ores of typical contact-metamorphic deposits. 

The granitic rock was not examined in 1908. For at least a quarter 

of a mile east of the mine the rocks are dark clay slates alternating

a Ore deposits of the Velardena district, Mexico: Econ. Geology, vol. 3, 1908, p. 708.
64 MINING DISTEICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA.

with thin-bedded limestones. All are much crumpled but maintain a generally east dip and are on the whole much less metamorphosed than the limestone beds in which the ore occurs. It is probable that an intrusive mass underlies the sedimentary rocks at the 

Adelaide mine, and that the hot mineralizing solutions rose along 

what is now the ore zone, in consequence of favorable fissuring in 

this particular belt of limestone.

West of the mine the slopes, seen from a distance, show many outcrops suggestive of rhyolitic porphyries, which accord in general with 

the mapping of the higher part of the range by the geologists of the 

Fortieth Parallel Survey as Koipato Triassic. Within these a number of prospectors are developing veins that carry some gold and 

silver. None of these prospects w.as visited.

MINERALOGY OF THE ORE DEPOSITS.

Introductory statement. For convenience of reference the minerals 

noted in the ores or closely associated with them are here given in 

alphabetic order, with brief notes on their occurrence. The list is 

obviously not an exhaustive one for the region, which contains many 

deposits not visited.

Amphilole. A fibrous mineral, not certainly identified, but closely 

resembling tremolite, occurs with epidote, vesuvianite, garnet, and 

sulphides in the metamorphosed calcareous rocks at Coppereid. A 

similar fibrous mineral was noted in some of the altered limestone at 

the Ryepatch mine.

Annabergite. A bright-green, hydrous nickel arsenate, probably 

annabergite, is an important constituent of the ore of the Nickel 

mine in Cottonwood Canyon, west of Boyer post-office.

Argentite. Sulphide of silver has been found in shallow workings 

in rhyolite at Rosebud, associated with kaolinite, limonite, and 

jarosite. Presumably it was present also in some of the rich silver 

ores mined in former days near the surface in the Humboldt Range. 

A specimen of ore seen in Unionville and said to have come from the 

Arizona mine apparently contains argentite.

Arsenopyrite. The sulpharsenide of iron was noted only in material 

on the dump of the Auld Lang Syne mine, near Chafey, associated 

with pyrite and quartz.

Axinite. Axinite, a complex borosilicate of calcium, aluminum, 

and other bases, occurs in the altered calcareous shales of the Coppereid contact zone.

Azurite. The blue hydrous copper carbonate is nowhere abundant 

in the region examined, but is present in small quantity in the Red 

Butte copper district and at the Lovelock cobalt-nickel mine, in Cottonwood Canyon.
MINERALOGY OF THE ORE DEPOSITS. 65

Barite. Sulphate of barium was noted as a gangue mineral in ore 

from a prospect near Fitting; with galena, sphalerite, tetrahedrite, 

and quartz in the Manoa or Pfluger mine, near Unionville; and in 

some of the copper prospects at Red Butte.

Bornite. Minute specks of a mineral resembling bornite were 

noted with chalcopyrite in quartz at the Mazuma Hills mine, in the 

Seven Troughs district. Not enough of the material was obtained, 

however, for a satisfactoiy determination.

Brochantite. Brochantite, a green basic sulphate of copper resembling malachite, probably occurs in the cobalt-nickel ore of the Lovelock mine.

Oalcite. Calcite is sparingly present with quartz in the ores of the 

Humboldt Queen and Arizona mines, in the Humboldt Range, in 

some of the veins near Kennedy, and in the deposits of contactmetamorphic type at Coppereid and Adelaide.

Cerargyrite. Cerargyrite, or horn silver, is generally an inconspicuous mineral and probably occurred in many of the rich silver deposits 

formerly worked in the Humboldt Range.

Chalcocite. Copper glance, cuprous sulphide, was noted only at 

Red Butte, in a vein in gabbro. It is probably present also in the 

upper parts of the ore bodies at Adelaide.

Chalcopyrite. Copper pyrite is an important constituent of the 

Adelaide ore,' associated with garnet, vesuvianite, epidote, .diopside, 

calcite, quartz, orthoclase, pyrrhotite, sphalerite, galena, and pyrite. 

It is present also in the cobalt-nickel ore of the Lovelock mine; in 

the disseminated pyritic deposits of the Treasure Box mine; southwest 

of Boyer's ranch; in some of the veins near Kennedy; and sparingly 

in the Mazuma Hills mine, at Seven Troughs. Close search would 

probably show it to be present in small quantities also in most of the 

mines of the Humboldt Range.

Chloanthite. A mineral of the smaltite-chloanthite group is perhaps 

present with gersdorffite at the Nickel mine, in Cottonwood Canyon, 

but it has not been definitely identified.

Chrysocolla. The hydrous silicate of copper occurs in the oxidized 

zone of the Copperoid contact deposits, where to some extent it has 

metasomatically replaced limestone. It is sparingly present at Red 

Butte and is found in minute, specks in some of the oxidized ore of 

Munroe Hill in the Chafey district.

Cinnabar. The red sulphide of mercury occurs in fractured limestone in Eldorado Canyon, in the Humboldt Range; in a vein in 

limestone and in kaolinized rhyolite in American Canyon, in the 

Pahute Range; and at an unvisited prospect on the edge of the 

Black Rock Desert, a few miles south of Red Butte. It has also 

been found in the gold-bearing gravels of American Canyon.

11448 Bull. 414 09 5
66 MINING DISTRICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY; NEVADA.

Copper. Native copper was noted only near Red Butte, where 

it is disseminated through aplitic dikes that cut gabbro.

Covellite. The deep blue cupric sulphide occurs sparingly as a 

product of weathering in the superficially opened copper prospects 

of Red Butte.

Cuprite. Earthy cuprite occurs with covellite, chrysocolla, and 

iron oxides at Red Butte.

Diopside. Monoclinic calcium-magnesium pyroxene occurs with 

garnet, vesuvianite, orthoclase, and sulphides in the ore of the 

Adelaide mine.

Epidote. Epidote, a basic orthosilicate of calcium, iron, and 

aluminum, is fairly abundant in the contact zone at Coppereid, 

associated with garnet, specularite, axinite, and sulphides.

Erythrite. Cobalt bloom, a hydrous cobalt arsenate, is.an important constituent of the ore of the Lovelock mine in Cottonwood 

Canyon. It is associated with tetrahedrite, azurite, and arsenates 

and sulphates of nickel and copper (probably annabergite and 

brochantite).

Fluorite. Fluorspar is fairly-abundant in the contact zone at 

Coppereid and is especially associated with specularite.

Galena. Galena is widely distributed in the Humboldt region, 

and is found in the ores of nearly all of the districts visited. None' 

was seen, however, in the Seven Troughs district. Specimens from 

the Imperial mine near Kennedy showed enough galena to constitute 

a lead ore, but as a rule, the mineral is disseminated rather sparingly 

through quartz with sphalerite, pyrite, and tetrahedrite. At Chafey 

free gold and galena are directly associated. In Star .Canyon galena 

and jamesonite occur together.

Garnet Brown garnet is abundant at both Coppereid and Adelaide,

where it occurs with other silicates and with sulphides in altered 

limestone.

Gersdorffite. The principal unoxidized constituent of the ore of 

the Nickel mine, in Cottonwood Canyon, is, according to Mr. W. T. 

Schaller, probably gersdorffite, a sulpharsenide of nickel. It is associated with a green alteration product, which he has determined 

as annabergite.

Gold. Native gold occurs in visible masses, some of them of unusual 

size, in the quartz veins of the Seven Troughs district. It is also 

found associated with quartz and galena in the Chafey district and 

in .various prospects in the Humboldt Range near Star Peak. 

Specimens of free gold have been found also in rhyolite just south 

of Golconda, but not in such form or quantity as to'induce deep 

mining.

The principal placer localities of the region are American Canyon 

and Spring Valley (Fitting), on the east side of the Star Peak Range,
MINERALOGY OF THE OEE DEPOSITS. 67

and Rock Hill Canyon, in the East Range. Several other canyons, 

especially in the northern part of the Star Peak division of the Hiimboldt Range, also yielded some placer gold.

Hematite. Large masses of specularite occur in the contact-metamorphic zone at Coppereid, and the same mineral is abundant in 

the superficial workings of the Borlasca mine, near Kennedy. In the 

latter place the specularite is possibly gossan material derived from 

the oxidation of pyrite. Some cryptocrystalline siliceous hematite 

occurs in the Red Butte district, associated with the copper ores. 

The material, which is in part jasperoid, appears to have been formed 

by alteration of parts of the aplitic dikes.

Jamesomte.-^Jamesonite, a sulphantimonite of lead with considerable resemblance to stibnite, is an abundant constituent of the 

ore of the Sheba and De Soto mines, in Star Canyon. It is associated 

with galena, sphalerite, tetrahedrite, and pyrite in quartz. Both 

the jamesonite and the tetrahedrite, as shown by Burton,0 are silver 

bearing.

Jarosite. Jarosite, a hydrous sulphate of alkalies and iron analogous in its formula with alunite, was identified microscopically as 

minute yellow crystals associated with kaolinite and limonite at the 

Brown Palace mine, near Rosebud.

Magnetite. Masses of iron ore, chiefly magnetite, occur about 20 

miles southeast of Lovelock, at the northwest base of the Pahute 

Range. The deposits, said to be in "greenstone/' were not visited.

Malachite. The green hydrous carbonate of copper is present 

in small quantities at Red Butte, Coppereid, Adelaide, Cottonwood 

Canyon (Stillwater Range), and probably at other localities where 

ores containing copper 'minerals have undergone oxidation.

Orthoclase. The potassium feldspar orthoclase occurs with garnet, 

vesuvianite, diopside, calcite, and sulphides in the ore of the Adelaide 

mine. The mineral is xenomorphic and poikilitic, containing inclusions of the minerals associated with it.

Proustite. Ruby silver has been reported from the Seven Troughs 

district. None was seen in 1908.

Pyrrhotite. Magnetic pyrite is an abundant constituent of the 

ore of the Adelaide mine and occurs also in the contact zone at 

Coppereid.

Silver. Native silver is said to have been found in Wildhorse 

Canyon, in the Seven Troughs district.

Sphalerite. Zinc blende is a very widely distributed mineral in the 

Humboldt region and occurs in nearly all of the districts visited. It 

was not observed, however, at.Seven Troughs. It is not as a rule 

abundant at any one place, but, like galena, is disseminated rather 

sparingly through the various ores.

a Contributions to mineralogy: Am. Jour. Sci., 2d ser., vol. 45, 1868, pp. 36-38.
68 MINING DISTEICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY,, NEVADA. .

Stibnite. The widespread distribution of stibnite, or antimony 

glance, is characteristic of the region covered by this reconnaissance. 

Deposits of stibnite have been worked in the Trinity or Antelope 

Range, southeast of Red Butte; in the Humboldt Range, southeast 

of Lovelock; in Star Canyon; in Bloody Canyon, 2 miles south of 

Star Canyon; in Jackson Canyon, about a mile south of Unionville; 

and in the Bernice district, about 16 miles south of Boyer's ranch, 

where there was at one time considerable activity. The Bernice 

district is south of the area studied in 1908. Stibnite occurs also 

associated with some of the gold ores at Seven Troughs, and is 

undoubtedly present at many localities not examined in the course 

of this preliminary investigation. The mineral occurs generally 

in fissure veins with quartz, although at Seven Troughs it forms 

bunches in soft, crushed rock or gouge.

Sulphur. Native sulphur is extensively mined at the Rabbit Hole 

sulphur mine, about 5 miles northwest of Rosebud.

Tetrahedrite. Gray copper, or tetrahedrite, like sphalerite and 

galena, occurs in most of the silver-gold deposits of the Humboldt 

and Pahute ranges. It is nowhere very abundant nor in large 

masses, but is disseminated in specks or small bunches through the 

predominant quartz gangue. As a rule it is argentiferous (freibergite) and its presence indicates an ore rich in silver. The tetrahedrite of the De Soto mine, according to Burton,a contains 14.5 per 

cent of silver.

The mineral was noted in the ores of the Humboldt Queen mine; 

of the Arizona, Wheeler, and Manoa mines, near Unionville; of the 

Sheba and De Soto mines, in Star Canyon; of the Ryepatch mine; 

and of the Gold Note mine, near Kennedy. It also occurs with cobalt, 

minerals at the Lovelock mine.

Tourmaline. Tourmaline was not observed in close association 

with ores, but occurs as an abundant microscopic constituent of 

altered limestone or calcareous shale near the Humboldt Queen 

mine. »

Vesuvianite. The characteristic contact-metamorphic mineral 

vesuvianite, a basic calcium-aluminum silicate of uncertain formula, 

occurs abundantly with garnet, diopside, calcite, quartz, orthoclase, 

and sulphides at the Adelaide mine. It was identified by its optical 

properties as seen under the microscope.'

TYPES OF DEPOSITS REPRESENTED IN THE REGION.

Basis of classification. The ore deposits of a given region may be 

classified in many different ways, as, for example, (1) by geologic age, 

(2) by form, (3) by supposed origin, (4) by mineralogic character, or 

(5) by essential metallic contents. In the present paper an attempt
TYPES OF DEPOSITS REPRESENTED. 69

will be made to group the deposits primarily with reference to the 

closely related fourth and fifth bases of comparison. The grouping 

thus effected will to some extent coincide with classifications dependent upon genetic or morphologic features.

Antimonial silver deposits. A large proportion of the deposits of 

southern Humboldt County consist essentially of silver ores carrying 

varying minor quantities of gold. These ores are prevailingly antimonial, the silver being combined chiefly in tetrahedrite or j amesonite. 

They generally contain in addition a little galena (probably argentiferous) and sphalerite, with of course some pyrite. The gangue is 

quartz, and as a rule the sulphides are subordinate to the gangue and 

are rather finely disseminated through it. Argentite and other rich 

silver-bearing minerals may-occur in the upper parts of some of these 

deposits.

To this class belong the deposits of the Sheba and De Soto mines, in 

Star Canj^on; of the Arizona, Wheeler, and other mines near Unionville; of the Humboldt Queen and Ryepatch mines; of the principal 

mines at Kennedy and Fitting; and of a number of unvisited mines 

and prospects in the Humboldt Range. Possibly the deposits of the 

Rosebud district belong in this group, but too little ore has yet been 

found there to furnish a safe basis for comparison.

With the exception of the doubtful ores at Rosebud, all of these 

deposits are in Triassic rocks and most of them are in the Star Peak 

formation. Beyond the fact that the ores are post-Triassic their age 

is unknown, but it is thought probable that they are pre-Tertiary and 

were deposited during or after the post-Jurassic intrusions and folding that affected the whole Great Basin region and the Sierra Nevada.

The antimonial silver ores generally fill fissures, but they show 

'much variety in form. Some deposits, as that of the Bonanza King 

jnine at Fitting, are comparatively simple, nearly vertical veins. 

Some, while generally of simple tabular form, have a low angle of dip, 

as in the Gold Note mine, at Kennedy, or are nearly horizontal, as at 

the Arizona mine, near Unionville. Others are of irregular shape and 

are related in special ways to fissuring and bedding, as in Star Canyon 

and at the Ryepatch mine. Still others, such as the Humboldt Queen 

deposits, are sharply folded bed veins.

None of these deposits has been worked ,to great depth, and the 

rich ores appear to form bonanzas within short distances from the surface. As a rule, the deeper workings show a decrease both in the size 

and tenor of the deposits. At present there is no production from 

any mine in ore of this type, although many of them were extensively 

and profitably worked in the sixties.

Gold-silver deposits. The deposits that owe their value chiefly to 

gold are those at Seven Troughs and at Chafey. There are marked 

differences, however, between the ores of the two districts. Those at
70 MINING DISTRICTS IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY, NEVADA.

Seven Troughs are in Tertiary volcanic rocks; those at Chafey are in 

Mesozoic volcanic and sedimentary rocks, probably Triassic. At 

Seven Troughs the gold is coarse, occurs in lodes made up of many 

small irregular quartz veinlets, and is accompanied by comparatively 

little pyrite, with as a rule no other sulphides. Stibnite, it is true, 

occurs in some of the mines, but not, according to my observation, as 

a constituent of actual ore. At Chafey the native gold is in smaller 

particles and occurs in well-defined solid veins in which the quartz carries 

considerable galena, less sphalerite, and comparatively little pyrite. 

Whether the veins of the Auld Lang Syne and other abandoned mines 

exhibit the same character is not known, although arsenopyrite 

appears to have been the principal sulphide in the lower levels of the 

Auld Lang Syne. Neither at Seven Troughs nor at Chafey were the 

accessible workings deep enough in 1908 for a thoroughly satisfactory 

comparison of the two kinds of deposits.

Gold prospects, of which the ores resemble the Chafey ore, in that 

the gold is associated with galena and sphalerite in quartz veins 

traversing Triassic rocks, have been opened at various places in the 

region, particularly in the vicinity of Star Peak.

Copper deposits. Like the gold deposits, the copper deposits of 

the region fall into two classes. One of these is exemplified by the 

deposits southwest of Boyer's ranch, .in Tertiary andesite, and by 

those at Red' Butte, which are in igneous rocks doubtfully regarded 

as of Tertiary age. The deposits near Boyer's ranch are diffuse 

pyritic disseminations. Nothing is known of the Red Butte deposits 

beyond what may be seen from very shallow workings in oxidized 

material; the greater part of the copper appears to be disseminated 

through altered aplitic dikes in gabbro, and the native metal may be 

expected to give place in depth to some sulphide, perhaps to chalcopyrite.

The deposits at Coppereid and Adelaide, on the other hand, are in 

calcareous sedimentary rocks, probably belonging to the Triassic. 

They have the mineralogical characteristics of contact-metamorphic 

deposits, although at Coppereid only is there visible relation between 

the metamorphism and a mass of intrusive rock that effected the 

alteration. Garnet, chalcopyrite, pyrrhotite, sphalerite, and pyrite 

are common to both localities, although no sulphide ore bodies have 

yet been opened at Coppereid. Axinite, fluorite, epidote, and specularite occur in the contact zone at Coppereid, but were not noted at 

Adelaide. At the latter place, on the other hand, the altered limestone contains vesuvianite, diopside, and orthoclase. Doubtless a 

more thorough study would increase the lists of silicate minerals present at each locality. The deposit at Adelaide, like those at Yering- 

, 0 . shows that ore bodies of essentially contact-metamorphic type

a Raiisome, F. L., The Yerington copper district, Nevada: Bull. U. S. Geol. Survey No. 380/1909, pp. 

99-119.
CONCLUSION". 71

are not necessarily in direct contact with igneous rocks near the 

surface.

Antimony and quicksilver deposits. The general character and distribution of the deposits of stibnite and cinnabar have been briefly 

outlined in the preceding section on the mineralogy of the ore deposits. The occurrence of both kinds of ores at a number of widely separated localities is one of the noteworthy features of this part of 

Nevada, and indicates that the ore deposition, in spite of its varied 

local manifestations, has had some ultimate dependence upon conditions regional in their ^prevalence. In other words, the ores show a 

general provincial relationship.

The antimony and quicksilver deposits, with the exception of the 

stibnite at Seven Troughs, are all, so far as is known, in Triassic or 

Jurassic rocks and are supposedly of the same age as the antimonial 

silver-gold ores. No facts are known, however, that absolutely rule 

out a Tertiary age for some of these deposits.

Nickel and cobalt deposits. The nickel and cobalt deposits in Cottonwood Canyon consist of sulpharsenides of nickel (gersdprffite in 

part), tetrahedrite, and some compound of cobalt with sulphur, 

arsenic, or antimony, with the various oxidation products of these 

minerals. The ores fill small fissures in much-altered andesite or 

andesite breccia cut by diorite and may be genetically related to the 

intrusion of the latter rock. The age of the diorite is probably late 

Mesozoic. The age of the nickel and cobalt ores is not definitely 

determinable. If their deposition followed closely the intrusion of 

the diorite they are probably pre-Tertiary. On the other hand, the 

occurrence of copper both with the nickel and cobalt ores and in Tertiary andesite at the Treasure Box mine, a few miles south of Cottonwood Canyon, suggests that the nickel and cobalt deposits may be 

Tertiary.

CONCLUSION.

The southern portion of Humboldt County is part of a metallogenetic province characterized chiefly by the prevalence of antimonial ores of silver with numerous and widely scattered deposits of 

stibnite and cinnabar. There are in addition some deposits of goldsilver, copper, and nickel-cobalt ores. Ore deposition probably began 

immediately after the intrusion of the Triassic and Jurassic sediments in late Mesozoic time by a magma of generally granodioritic 

composition, comparable with that which invaded the rocks of the 

Sierra Nevada at the same period, and continued into the Tertiary. 

The known Tertiary deposits are essentially gold-silver ores and copper ores, but it is possible that some of the other types are also 

Tertiary.

INDEX.

A.

Page. 

Acknowledgments to those aiding........... 9

Adams, G. I., on Rabbit Hole sulphur mine.. 25 

Adamson, W. G., on mines.................. 37.45

Adelaide mine, description of............... 62-64

Alpha mine. See Ryepatch mine.

American Canyon, mines in................. 37-38

Amphibole, occurrence and character of..... 64

Anaconda prospect, description of........... 30

Anaconda Ridge, rocks of................... 29

Andesite, occurrence and character of........ .18

Annabergite, occurrence and character of.... 64

Antelope Canyon, mine in................... 46

Antimonial silver deposits, occurrence and

, character of...................... 69

Antimony, occurrence of.................... 30,41

See also Stibnite. 

Antimony-quicksilver deposits, occurrence

and character of................. 71

Archean rocks, occurrence and character of.. 17,31 

Argentite, occurrence and character of........ 64

Arizona mine, description of................. 38-40

history of................................ 10-11

plan of, figure showing.................. 39

production of............................ 11

Arkose, occurrence and character of.......... 19

Arsenopyrite, occurrence and character of.... 64

Auburn mine, location of.................... 49

>uld Lang Syne mine, description of..... 49,51-52

section of, figure showing................ 52

Axinite, occurrence and character of......... 64

Azurite, occurrence and character of......... 64

B.

Badger claims, location of................... 21

Bard and Jess mine, location of.............. 20

Barite, occurrence and character of.......... 65

Basalt, occurrence and character of.......... 18-20

Bell Mare mine, description of............... 58

Bibliography of region....................... 13-14

Bishop lease, description of.................. 51

Black Canyon, ore in........................ 46

Black Hole mine, description of............. 50-51

Bloody Canyon, stibnite in.................. 43

Bonanza King mine, description of.......... 36-37

Booms, injury due to ....................... 13,25

Borlasca mine, description of................ 54

Bornite, occurrence and character of......... 65

Bradley mine, description of................. 20

Brochantite, occurrence and character of..... . 65

Brown Palace mine, description of........... 26-27

output of................................ 26

Buena Vista Canyon, mines in............... 38-41

Burton, B. S., on Star Canyon minerals...... 43

Butte mine. See, Ryepatch mine.

C.

Page. 

Calcite, occurrence and character of.......... 05

Carmichael, Neil, on ore of Arizona mine..... 40

Cerargyrite, occurrence and character of..... 65

Chadbourne mine, description of............. 20

_Chafey, description of........................ 49

location of............................... 48

mines at.............................. 11,49-52

rocks near............................... 50

Chalcocite, occurrence and character of...... 65

Chalcopyrite, occurrence and character of.... 65

Chloanthite, occurrence and character of..... 65

Chrysocolla, occurrence and character of..... 65

Cinnabar, occurrence and character of.. 30,37,45,65

See also Quicksilver.

Cleghorn Consolidated tunnel, description of. 21 

Cobalt, deposits of.................. 12,48,55-58,71

Copper, occurrence and character of.......... 66

Copper deposits, occurrence and character 

of...................................... 30,70-71

Coppereid, location of..................... 48-49,59

mines of................................. 59-01

Coppereid district, description of............ 59

geology of............................... 59

Copper Kettle, location of................... 49

Copper Queen claims, description of......... 30

Cornish mine, description of................. 58

Cottonwood Canyon, mines in......... 40,48,56-58

rocks In.................................. 55-56

Covellite, occurrence and character of........ 66

Cumberland shaft, location of................ 62

Cuprite, occurrence and character of......... 66

D. 

De Soto mine, description of................. 43

Dikes, occurrence and character of.......... 19,22

Dlopside, occurrence and character of.....:.. 66

Diorite, occurrence of....................... 52-53

Dixie Queen mine, description of............ 21

Dreamland mine, description of.............. 27

Drown, T. M., analysis by................... 17

Dun Glen. See Chafey.

Eagle mine. See Bonanza King mine.

East Range, location of...................... 47

Eclipse shaft, location of..................... 21

Eldorado Canyon, mines In.................. 45-46

Emmons, S. F., and Hague, A., on geology of

region........................... 16,17

Epidote, occurrence and character of......... 66

Erythrite, occurrence and character of....... 66

F.

Fairview mine, description of................ 21

ores of................................... 22

73
74 INDEX.

Page. 

Farrell, mines at and near................... 15,21

Field work, extent of........................ 7-8,9

Pitting, mines at and near................... 36-37

Fluorite, occurrence and character of........ 66

French. Boys Canyon, mining in.............. 48

G.

Gabbro, occurrence and character of......... 28-29

Galena, occurrence and character of.......... -66

Garnet, occurrence and character of.......... 66

Geology. See particular districts.

Gersdorffite, occurrence and character of.. 57-58,66

Golconda shaft, location of................... C2

Gold, occurrence and character of............ 66-G7

See also particular mines. 

Gold Banks, location of...................... 48

Golden Anchor claim, location of............ 27

Golden Bell tunnel, description of........... 49,31

Gold Note mine, description of.............. 53-54

Gold placers, yield of........................ 12

Gold-silver deposits, occurrence and character

of................................ 69-70

Granite Mountain, rock from................ 52

rock from, analysis of................... 17

Granodiorite, occurrence and character of... 17

H.

Hague, A., on Granite Mountain............ 53

on Humboldt Range.................... 31-33

Hague, A., and Emmons, S. F., on geology of

region........................... 16

Hague, J. D., on smelting................... 10

Harris lease, location of...................... 21

Hayes-Mazuma mine, description of......... 20

Hematite, occurrence and character of....... 67

Hendra group, history of.................... 49

Hidden Treasure mine, description of........ 54-55

Hot springs, deposits of...................... 57

Humboldt County, investigation in ......... 7

Humboldt district, organization of........... 10

Humboldt Lake Range, location of.......... 31

rocks of.................................. 33

Humboldt Queen mine, description of.;..... 33-35

rocks at, sections of, figures showing...... 34,35

Humboldt Range, geology of................ 31-33

mines of................................. 33-46

ores of................................... 46-47

Hyatt, A., and Smith, J. P., on Humboldt

Range........................... 32

I.

Imlay mine, description of.................. 46

Imperial mine, description of................ 55

Index map of Nevada........................ 8

Itinerary, description of..................... 9

J.

Jackson Canyon, mines in................... 41

Jamesonite, occurrence and character of..... 67

Jarosite, occurrence and character of......... 67

Jurassic rocks, occurrence and character of.. 16,26, 

28,31,32,33,47,50 

K.

Kamma Mountains, mines of................ 25

K. and R. mine, description of............... 54-55

Page. 

Kennedy district, geology of................. 52-53

history of............................. 12-13,48

location of............................... 52

mines of................................. 53-55

Kindergarten mine, description of........ 20,23-24

Koipato formation, occurrence and character

of................................ 32-33

Lead, output of.............................. 10

Limerick Canyon, location of................ 34,35

Literature, list of............................ 13-14

Louderback, G. D., on Humboldt Range.... 31,33

on Pahute Range........................ 48

Lovelock mine, description of................ 58

ore of.................................... 12,58

M.

Magnetite, occurrence and character of....... 67

Malachite, occurrence and character of....... 67

Manoa mine, description of.................. 40-41

Map, index, of Nevada...................... 8

Maps of region............................... 7

description of............................ 7-8

Mazuma, mill at............................. 21

mines at and near....................... 15

Mazuma Hills mine, description of........ 20,23-24

ores of-................................... '22

Metallic group, description of................ 30

Minerals, occurrence and character of........ 64

Mines, distribution and development of. See

-particular districts, mines, etc. 

Mining, development of, history of.......... 10-13

Mining districts, names of................... 7

Morrison mine. See Imlay mine.

Munroe Hill, mines on...................... 49,51

N.

Nevada-Union mine, description of.......... 40

Nickel, deposits of.................. 12,48,57-58,71

Nickel mine, description of.................. 57-58

North Pole claim, location of................ 21

0.

Obsidian, occurrence and character of........ 19

Oreana,smelters at.......................... 10

Ore deposits, mineralogy of.................. 64-68

.types of,................................ 68-71

See also particular districts. 

Oroflno Canyon, location of.................. 48

Orthoclase, occurrence and character of...... 67

P.

Pahute Range, description of................ 47-49

geology of............................... 47-48

mining in............................... 48-49

Panther Canyon, mine in.................... 44

Pfluger mine, description of................. 40-41

Placers, gold, importance of................. 12

Pre-Tertiary rocks, occurrence and character

of............................... 16-17

Proustite, occurrence and character of....... 67

Providence tunnel, location of............... 21

Pyrrhotite, occurrence and character of...... .67
INDEX. 75

Q. Page.

Quicksilver. See also Cinnabar. 

Quicksilver-antimony deposits, occurrence

and character of................. 71

Raymond, R. W., on Arizona mine ......... 39

on smelting... . .......................... 10

on Star City . . ........................... 10

Reagan mine, description of .. ; ........... 20, 23-24

ores of ................................... 22

RedButte, description of.................... 27

Red Butte district, copper ores of............ . 30

description of. ........................... 27

geology of ............................... 28-29

history of.. .............................. 28

Redeemer claim, rocks at. ................... 30

Reid, J. T., on Coppereid mine. . ............ 60-61

on Copper Kettle ores. .................. 49

Rhyolite, occurrence and character of. ....... 19, 26

Rock Hill Canyon, location of ............... 48

Rocks, nomenclature of, changes in. ......... 8

Rosebud, description of ..................... 25

Rosebud district, description of. ............. 25-26

future of. ................................ 26

geology of ............................... 26

history of. ............................... 25

ores of ................................... 26-27

Ruby Cinnabar mine, description of ......... 45-46

Ryepatch mine, description of. .............. 43-45

production of. ........................... 12, 44

section of, figure showing ............... 44

S.

Sacramento Canyon, location of ............. 34

Saridifer mine, .location of .................... 20

Schaller, W. T., on nickel ore. ............... 57-58

Seven Troughs, mills at ..................... 21-22

mines at. ................................ 15, 20

ores near. ............................... 22-23

Seven Troughs district, description of ....... 14-15

future of.. ............................... 25

geology of ............................... 15-20

history of. ............................... 15

mines of. .........................'....... 20-22

ores of ................................... 22-25

topography of ........................... 15

towns of. ................................ 15

Seven Troughs Mountains, description of. ... 15

Seven Troughs Tomboy Co. mine, description

of................................ 21

Shady Run, location of ...................... 49

Shamcl, C. H., on mining law. .............. 39

Sheba mine, description of ................... 42-43

history of. ............................... 10

rocks near. : ............................. 33

section of, figure showing. . .............. 42

Signal Peak Mining Co., claim of ............ 21

Signal tunnel, description of ................. 21

Page. 

Silver, occurrence and character of........... 67

See also particular mines; Antimonial silver; Gold-silver deposits. 

Silver Range, location of..................... 47

Skea, D. H., on Fairview ores............... 24

Smelters, building of........................ 10

Smith, J. P., and Hyatt, A., on Humboldt

Range........................... 32

Sonoma Range, description of............... 62-64

history of................................ 62

mines of................................. 62-64

Sou Springs, description of.................. 55

Sphalerite, occurrence and character of....... 67

Spring Valley. See'Fitting.

Star Canyon, mines in and near ............. 41-43

Star City, history of......................... 10

Star Peak, altitude of........................ 31

Star Peak formation, occurrence and character of................... 31-33,41-42,50

section of................................ 31

Star Peak Range, end of, mines at........... 4G

structure of.............................. 33

Stibnite, occurrence and character of..... 43,46,68 

Sen also Antimony.

Stillwater Range, location of................. . j7_..

Sulphur, mines of........................... 25

occurrence and character of.............. 68

Table Mountain Range, location of.......... 47

Tertiary rocks, occurrence and character

of............................ 18-20,57

Tetrahedrite, occurrence and character of.... 68

Thornton prospect, description of........... 46

Tiptop, location of..........:............... 48

Topography. Set particular districts. 

Tourmaline, occurrence and character of..... 68

Treasure Box mine, description of........... 58

Triassic rocks, occurrence and character of... 20,

31-32,46.47,53,55,59

Tufls, occurrence and character of........... 19

Tyler mine, location of...................... 20

U. 

Unionville, mines at and near......... 10-11,38-41

V.

Vernon, mines at and near.................. 15,21

Vesuvianite, occurrence and character of.... 68

Volcanic rocks, occurrence and character of.. 18

Wheeler mine, location of................... 38,40

White Alps claim, description of............ 26

White Cloud Canyon, mine in............... 59

Wild Bull claim, description of.............. 21

Wlhuja mine, description of................. 20

Wiskcr, A. L., on Hendra group............ 49

o