The Bozeman weekly chronicle. (Bozeman, Mont.) 1883-1889, 1883-08-29

Twenty miles away We find Cooke Cit,
nestled at the base Of Republican noun
tain, as pretty a spot of green earth and
trees as ever laid out of doors. The
smelter built ten years ago, while the
mines were still on the Crow reservation
is still i'll shape to run, and they tell us
it will start up soon. When the smelter
was built the hardy prospectors, who
erected it, made run Of five days, and
the output was $1,000 pounds of lead,
carrying $50 to the ton in silver. The
Indians routed the miners at the close of
the fifth afternoon, and since then the
smelter has stood idle, till now that the
reservation lines have been drawn in,
the hum of business is heard there once
more. You are evidently getting tired,
but we must make the climb of 5000 feet
nearly, to the Black Warrior. Here the
shaft is ninety feet deep, and goes forty
five feet straight through solid galena
ore, assayins all the way from sl1O to
$4,000 to the ton. The vein pitches to
the north, but in the bottom of the shaft
there seems to be another vein coming
in. Think of vein Of pure gslena, silver
and gold forty-five feet thick and already
traced on both sides of the mountain,
running probably 1000 feet and more!
Just across from this mine is the Lake
Superior, with walls coming clear to the
surface, showinga vein of galena and
silver eight feet wide running on the sur
face 1900 feet and no one can guess it's
depth. Two hundred lodes of gold and
silver bearing galena and iron are un-:
covered in the camp, within radius of
about sixty miles, and only two or three
have over few feet Of shafts on them.
The Great Republic has vein ten feet
wide, averaging eight feet thick and 60
ing $500 to the ton in silver, Eaton's
seventy-five-ton smelter we met coming
up on our way back. On Miller noun
tain. just across the valley from the Re-
public, we find the morning Star, Shoe
Fly, Street, Jump, etc, ETC., all showing
immense, inexhaustible bodies of low
grade, soft galena, going from $35 to S75
to the ton. Diagonally across the valley
we find the magnetic iron lode used as
Aux in smelling refractory ores. The
baser ores are smelted with the iron and
twice their weight in carbonate ores,
making bullion that goes. $500 to the
ton IN silver and the ton OF lead is worth
$50 in Chicago, making the ton of bull
lion worth s3O5 in the "city of sin"
while the cost of transportation is SO
per ton, and the cost of mining and
about $50 more. It looks as
though the smelters of the future will
pay profit.
We could stay in Clarke's Fork week
and write columns ON this camp, the
richest in the known world by long odds,
but now that we have seen 1t, we know
its future must be succession Of wonder
ful developments.
Back to Bozeman We shoot and branch
off to the west thirty miles till Red
Bluff looms up, and here we see white
haired old man who owns half dozen
mines. They are all gold quartz mines.
We note one with shaft four feet square,
l34 feet deep, on true fssure vein. The
quartz is free-milllng and goes 1856 to
The ton. Twenty similar good mines are
in sight, and it makes poor man tired
10 see what & few Thousand dollars in |
e''>:s smelter or mill would do for
him in few years.