Eureka daily sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1871-1887, 1878-02-24
MINING IN
The Primitive Methods Obtafning
I'm That Country.


A correspondent gives the following
description of the method OF working
silver mines that obtains at chihuahua,
Mexico:
SANTA EULALIA line.
The miners are just emerging from
the mine, bearing on their shoulders
huge raw.hide sacks filed with the ore
mined by their fellow.laborers. We
see it weigbed-two hundred and fifty
pounds. Can this be? The poor fellow
stands by and sees it weighed, and the
entry made, and then, adjusting his
sack by a band placed around the
forehead, and taking in a few breaths
OF the pure out door air, prepares to
again descend into the depths below.
we can not but pity him. Stripped to
the skin, his only clothing being a
band around his lions; we see him come
forth, The sweat pouring from him, his
muscles standing out like
ropes, his breast heaving and his breath
short. Thus is all the ore extracted
from Santa Eulalia. We Involuntary
ask ourselves, can not this be i'm.
proved? We now answer, most as.
suredly it can.
Let us follow him
DOWN INTO THE MINE.
We must be quick, though, or he Is
gone. What! He has sunk from
our sight already, or has his Pickering
candle been blown out? No! He has
only descended one Of the ladders, as
they term the slim poles with notches
cut in them, and is off in the distance,
already lost to view. And does he
bear that enormous burden up those
so called ladders? Yes! Stop! Here
they come now, and SO they do. We
pause and see them come. Stopping
Tor a moments respite, they seize the
pole, and up, up they come, hand over
hand. 1t is almost incredible. 1t is a
novel sight. We cling close to the
rock, a fear creeping over us that they
may drop their burdens and seize us,
exclaiming, "What seek you here?"
Our fears are g~roundless, however, and
soon we are on our way down. 1t is
only those trained to the work from
their early boyhood who are able t %
this awful work, and they very
break down when only in
the prime of life. We wind along, now
down, now across, passing immense
whose vaulted roofs we can
not make out in the dim light of the
our guides are carrying. There
are excavated chambers in this mount
ain, from which the Spaniards took the
loose ore, that might contain the largest
in Chicago. These vast depos.
It's were the nests from which they
their millions after millions of
dollars. We have seer the mode of
elevating the ore.
THE MINING is QUITE AS PRIMITIVE.
When drilling is to be done, an iron
bar, tipped with steel, is the formula
ole weapon used. Four eighteen inch
holes is what a driller calls a days
work, in rock that is not hard by any
How deep are the mines?
They vary from one to six hundred
feet in depth, and the mouths Of all
The mines are on top of the mountain.
The average depth would be about
three hundred feet from the mouth.
How a an improvement be made in
The extraction OF ore? We would go
to the arroyo where we threw
stone from the Negrita hill, and
run a tunnel several hundred feet be.
the mouth of any mine on the
and if the silver did not
drop from the clouds the tunnel would
cut it lower than any of the workings.
the distance of fifty yards run your
diamond drills and prospect your
ground, and wherever you find a de-
posit go after it. One might argue,
80 But suppose you do not find a de-
post, what then 2" Should any one
go I'VE and into Santa Eulalia and
then have any such doubt come into
his mind we give him up as hopeless.
is scarcely a point on the
whole mountain where you can not
find ore of some grade, and thousands
of drill-marks upon its surface show
you where they have blasted it away.
You will ask why has moi this
been done before? We simply an
swer: God alone knows. That it will
be done, and that before long, we can
all rest assured. The day is not far
when the right man must strike
Santa Eulalia. Mr.. John r. Robinson
u iidb0 DutS PiidS HOWh oil ON6I
the commercial world, said, a year ago,
that were he twenty years younger
(he is e 60) he would take the San
ia Eulalis and he would revolutionize
the world On silver mining. Such a
statement from such a man is no idle
boast. Would he had his youth again !
We have seen how they obtain the
ores, now let us return to the mouth
again and follow the "train" of dom
keys with the ore down the mountain
to the village where
THE REDUCTION WORKS
Are situated. AS we pass along we see
miners on the Santa Rita hill, blasting
away in the open day; but as this ore
seldom goes beyond $40 to the ton, they
can not work it in a Mexican furnace
except at a loss. Let me try If 1 can
explain how a Mexican furnace is con.
structed.
You first of all want a thick mud
wall. This is indispensable. You next
want a hole in this wall, and in this
hole you want the mouth of a bellows,
or if you can afford a small fan, and a
mule or two, you put the funnel of
your air-pipe in, which does better
but it is harder on the mules. Now
cut out a space in the mud wall about a
foot square and Law anOther mud wall