The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1879-12-09
The Largest Property Yet
Opened in Montana.
Explorations Proving the Vast
ness and Permanence of
the Ledge.
No Longer a Surface Deposit.
But a Mine that will Produce
Millions from it's Lowest
Levels.

NAAAAAOA1o IL OAIA 4uO AOW .
Levels.
1t is generally conceded that the prosperity
of this camp and the immediate future of
silver mining in Montana is largely dependent
on the success of present operations in the
Alice mine. For years a popular fallacy has
existed in this Territory, and to a large extent
the opinion has become current in outside
mining circles that water may be safely re-
garded as the limit to profitable mining enter
prise. Experts who have visited the country
in the interests Of eastern and western capt.
talists have become converts to this unreason-
able doctrine and after conducting a super
fetal examination with that theory uppermost
in their minds, have invariably reported the
prospects not sufficiently encouraging to war
rant the contemplated investment.
The result has been that unless pay ore
was found at the grass roots, or in some cases
actually discovered projecting above the
surface, the proverbial timidity of capital
prevented the work of prospecting, and many
bonanzas have remained undeveloped for no
other reason than because the groupings did
not extend from one side of the claim to the
other.
Any information, therefore, tending to ex-
plode the absurd theory as to the permanence
of the ore veins below the water level will be
welcomed by all who have any regard for the
future of the mining interest in Montana, and
the surest way to prove that public opinion
has been misled in that particular is to give a
detailed description of a mine in which sue
cessful operations have been pushed far below
a point where president skeptics have declared
the ore could not be found.
With this object in view, therefore, a re-
porter of the MINER was yesterday detailed
to visit the Alice mine, and with the consent
Of Superintendent DAILY, and under the court
eous guidance of Mr.. T. A. Bennett, was
shown through the entire workings of that
splendidly developed and magnificent prop
erty.
The operations which have been prose-
cuted within the last month, have caused an
entire and much improved change in the
aspects of the mine. The ore bodies lately
shown up entirely dwarf all previous discov-
eres, and slopes are now being raised com
pared with which, those that have supplied
the mill for the past two years, sink into insig-
nidcance, extensive ashley were. The old sys-
tenn of timbering has been entirely discarded,
and square sets after the Comstock plan, are
now employed throughout the mine.i The first
cost of square sets is considerably more than
is required for the ordinary stulls, but devel-
opment is so much facilitated by their use,
and life is so much more secure where they
are properly put up, that the slight difference
in expense is an unimportant item. The
Alice is timbered with consumlnate skill, as
by the square sets development can be pushed
in any direction without the delay and dan
ger attandent upon taking out the old and
putting in new stulls.
That the recent discoveries of ore bodies
were not made before is not strange to one
who can form a proper conception of the real
immensely of the ledge, the precise direction
of which has but recently been ascertained.
In the future, however, still other and per-
haps larger deposits will be found as the expe-
rience lately gained regarding the somewhat
whimsical peculiarities of the vein will be
used to advantage in the work of further
exploration. In selecting places to crosscut
from the main shaft, the company has been
somewhat unfortunate, as the vein has often
been tapped in comparatively barren rock.
An instance illustrative of this totally unavoid-
able misfortune may be here recorded. Had the
~crosscut to the second level been run from a
point ten feet higher in the shaft, instead of
nothing a body of ore would have been encoun-
tered fifteen feet wide and carrying 20 ounces
in silver per ton. It was discovered by sub
sequent exploration. Our readers will re-
member with what almost painful anxiety
progress in this the first underwater develop
ment was watched and will understand what a
change it would have made in the immediate
history OF the camp, had the ore body men-
toned been then discovered. Every man in
the district took a personal interest in the
result of running this cut, for if an ore body
was uncovered the question of permanence
was forever placed beyond the pale of doubt,
and the heavy investment of capital would
have followed as a natural consequence.
However, the fates decreed that the deeper
ore should not be found at that time, and the
experts mentioned before received a vindica-
ton, and the district a black eye, from the
effects of which it is but now beginning to
recover.
FIRST LEVEL.
But little work has been prosecuted in this
level since the Howell roasters were put in
the mill. 1t is, however, we'll tlmbered and
i'm excellent shane to extract ore wheu naad