The Cheyenne daily leader. [volume] (Cheyenne, Wyo.) 1870-1884, 1876-10-29
OUR NORTHERN Ell DORADO.
What Correspondent of the New York
Sun says Of the Black Hills.

must not omit to mention, says the
Deadwood correspondent Of the New
York Sun, the success which has re-
warded few individuals in the hills,
and to note some of the most important
mines and recent discoveries. As yet
placer mining is almost exclusively en-
gagged in, on account of the absence of
the necessary machinery for obtaining,
crushing and reducing quartz. The
first stamp mill is being set up at Dead
wood. The miners expect to develop
with it some very fine quartz property
in their possession. They also have a
miniature smelling apparatus, capable
of reducing one ton of ore in twelve
hours, with which they are testing num-
erous leads. About six hundred tons
of ore are ready for reduction, which they
propose to ship to Omaha.
A number of ''dirt digging'' claims
have recently been sold at fair rates.
No. 2, Deadwood, which in one day
cleared up two hundred ounces, sold for
three thousand dollars, and No. 5, Gold
Run, for the same amount. Lead City,
adjoining Deadwood, is looming up as
a mining metropolis. A company that
recently left this vicinity with a train
guarded by thirty armed men, are sup
posed to have quit the Hills the happy
possessors of 100000 in gold dust.
Their success is known to have been re-
markable, but their reticence upon the
subject doubtless produces much exag-
geration. Upon almost every creek and
in the vicinity of each settlement gold
has been discovered, in some places very
near the surface while in others it runs
SO low that it cannot be worked to ad-
vantage without more capital and ma
chinery.
Near Golden City an old Swedish
miner obtained from the surface dirt of
hill placers, which he carted to water
and his sluice box, no less than So per
day, while near Castleton. on the south
branch of Rapid creek, two hundred
and fifty men are constantly at work,
and have dug trench over thirty feet
deep and theee miles long. They have
not yet reached ''bed rock" Three shifts
of fifty men each are employed during
the twenty-four hours. each eight hours
at time, the remaining one hundred
washing for what is termed ''grub"
money, which it is said amounts to 500
per week per man. Palmer's gulch
ingly rich. Ophir lode yields $3.50 per
fnn and ifc. hainn civ IN
duced.
At Deadwood, it is claimed, they
have ore consisting of disintegrated
quartz in burnt clay that is very readily
worked. Hill City, which contains 81
or 100 houses, has only three inhabitants
the remainder having gone to better
paying localities. At Golden City your
correspondent himself picked from a
sluice box s'color'' as large and almost
as heavy as the golden quarter of a dol
lar that is occasionally found in circu-
lation. The gold: here is bright and
coarse, on Spring and French creeks it
is much finer, but equally abundant.
At the former place dirt has frequently
yielded one dollar and a half per pan.
Again, the gold in the alluvial depos-
its fluctuates in a most singular manner,
"a set of sluices sometimes averaging
81, 500 per day, while elsewhere and in
vicinity not more than So per man can
be obtained. Near Custer, quartz has
been of late discovered in a rich lode
called the 'sWebfoot,' and the hopeful
inhabitants of this city claim that it
will assay So, 900 per ton. Thompson,
Gardner & G ..,who have taken up some
of the best claims, have sent fer quartz
mill, and will establish reducing works.
The geological formation of the Hills
presents many peculiarities, and suffi-
cient exploration has not yet been made
to determine the position of the deposits
from which is obtained the gold found
in the beds and banks. of the streams.
That these deposits exist is evident
from the richness of the dirt diggings.
As have before stated, the fact that
these people are trespassers has prevent
ed others from entering the Hills, while
those already there cannot make any
extended prospecting tours because Of
the dangerous proximity of the Sioux.
That there is gold and in abundance is
undoubted.