Arizona weekly citizen., 1881-01-15
THE srLvE4 KING.
Interesting Descripts of an ExPlO- ration of PInal County's Wonderful Mine A Dazzling sight.
fPinai DrilIl

Safely slowed into the square iroI
 box, one pull of the wire runs the bel
 and we went down until the heaveI
 above looked like star through tho
 aperture of our descent, and wt
 stopped at @ depth of 40S feet, tho
 lower level Here is the new sta.
 tiOn.' A vault 16 by 20 feet square,
 with an iron floor, from which, armed
 each with a tallOw candle, we fol-
 lowed our conductor along the iron
 tracks, on which ran a number of iron
 cars, each of capacity of 1900 pounds
 of ore, and so we went through the
 drift or tunnel 10 the northeast, turn
 ing nOrtherly towards the stOpe, which
 is about 50 feet from the station. Here
 the hanging wall was plainly in sight
 with clay gouge of about IS inches,
 blue purphyrY clay or tale between | the country rock and mineral. The : stOpe is an open excavation, or space
 50 feet by 36 feet and 20 feet high | timbered solidly by frame work ot | II inches square, Sierra Nevada pine. ! They are working from the hanging : wall and have reached no foot wall
 The wall in this place appeared to lie northeast and southwest. This open room had once been filled with solid ore, and it had grown larger with each blast of tho three shifts of stout mIners who stOpe down about 75 tons per day, working four hammers ID 24 hours all told. l. was ore here, ore there, ore everywhere, wherever we could see, or reach, or touch i; glittering like a fairy castle in the Hickering candle light.
 The wall was syLite and granite While we were there they put off seven shots, and the ore fell from the sides in mighty masses, to be broken into pieces, put into the cars, run on the tracks 10 the station and sent alOft 10 pass from hand to hand of busy man, perhaps as long as human hands shall value silver. The character of the mineral is various in this space. We found Zincblende, galena. native silver, antImOnial silver and other silver ores in white, red and blueish quartz. We handled the ore and 1t was very heavy. What we afterwards saw on the dump averaged nine cubic feet to the ton. The space was cool and comfortable, well ventilated so that the smoke from the giant powder after the seven shots went off in 8 few minutes We followed the course of the smoke and passed to the east through a tuGuel sixty feet long, to the ar shaft that run 10 the next level, fifty feet above. The tunnel run through ore all the way, the direction of the tunnel being towards where the foot wall is supposed Co exist. We looked up the air shaft where the strong current blew out our candles. Vending our way back to the new station, we found the working shaft through which We had descended con- siSting of two compartments, tim bered down all the way, each four feet square We came down in the cage through one Of the compartments and the large ron tub occupied the other. That went down below our platform some sixty feet, where all the water accumulated and was hOisted out lu the tub. so that the mine at this depth was entirely dry. The only water ,hat finds it's way into this mine is surface water from small spring.
 The shaft is being sunk deeper all the time for a new drift and will go down to one hundred feet for another station. To return 10 the ore, that in white quartz is lixiyla;ed; the quartz itself being as heavy as the mineral, it cannot be separated by concentration, containing mostly antimOnial silver, which is light in weight. It also contains much native silver. All the suIphuret ores and native silver arc concentrated except what is pure metal, such as ZIncblende, galena, sulphurets OI silver, etc., which is shipped directly from the mine.
 Then upward was our course, and We were lifted up tO the 3jO-foot level. Here also was a station or vault about the same size as below, with an iron floor, cars and tracks. We followed through the curved tunnel, bending from east tn north. We struck the ledge twenty feet from the station, having passed through pOrphyry, then into ore the same as below all the way, until at seveuty-fve feet we were in a large chamber or st0pe, where the ore was on all sides, above and below, showing all through native silver in abundance. The sills were all laid in orc. ThIs sjOpe was tim bered same as below, and, in fact, all the timbering in the mine was pat ern after the COmstOck. This space was sixty by seventY-five feet and fOrty-eight feet high. Here they had worked for six months before they got the new machinery. The wall here appeared to pitch to the west, the same as below. The scarcity Ot tim Der caused the stoppage of the work here. There were tracks each way in the stope to gather the re. The ore all above this stope Is not coucen- trating ore, but to be lixIviated h. calculable masses of ore were m sight iu every direction.
 From the floor of the great stOpe we climbed up a long ladder among the timbers and reached the top or arched roof, where we found the same ore as below. all dotted and studded through wi.h silver and other metals, and we could see no sign of any change, but ore in masses, all above and in every direction. We saw tale or blue DOT phyTy m streak about eight inches wide, between the hanging wall and the metal, just as below. We followed a drift sixty feet long toward the north, all through white quartz bear ing the same mineral as before de- scribcd.
 The air shaft passes again further up to the 3O0-foOt level. and here again were tunnels or drifts and tracks, over which we passed going north, little east. Here was strong current of air from below. In thIs drift were numerous little cavities, which Fore man Beckwith said he took for ancient water courses or a species of bubbles formed by the cooling of the earth.
 We followed another drift about sixty feet 10 the northwest, through white quartz, lixiviating ore full of mineral. Again we saw the clay