The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-08-15
Active Prospecting Being Done
by the Utica Com
pany.
SOME PAYING so CENT ORE.
Another Big Hill That Ought to Be
Running Through the
Stamps.
Especial Correspondence Of THE CALL

There are veins, seams, StrlngerS, Kidneys,
punches and big and little bonanzas ofevery
conceivable shape and size. Within the
same vein numerous and unusual meta
morphoses seem to have occurred. Quartz,
slate, tale, greensboro, serpentine and half
and-hal stuff that only an expert miner
alogist could classify mix and blend in
bewlldering manner. Sometimes all are
auriferous. Often the quartz is the poor
est stuff of the lot. The gold will some
times favor the slate, sometimes the
tale, and often the undetinable stuff.
Bright metallic, crystalline iron pyrites is
disseminated unevenly through all the vari-
cites of rock. 1t would be condemned on
sight by most miners. 1t is all auriferous,
however, and often goes 500 to the ton,
which goes to prove the wise saying
that ''gold occurs wherever it is found"
A "good Judge of quartz" is lost at once
and soon becomes discreet in his opinions.
There are mill-rock veins hundred feet
wide; pocket veins of an inch or so; placer
ground on the hillsides, and pay ground
on the bottom lands. The big veins are
all supposed to be children of the mother
lode" They are separated from their
parent by "horses" of hundred feet or
may be a mile, but in no case is an abso-
lutte divorce granted. They come together
again occasionally in family reunion. In
this district the reunion occurs at Carson
Hill to the south and in the neighborhood
of San Andreas to the north. The big
children also have numerous offspring,
which separate and reunite at intervals as
do their human prototypes.
~ Lodi or A aIc &C.,
posed to be that locally called the Gold
Cliff. West of it is the Smiths Flat dis
trict, the principal mines of which are the
Blair Consolidated, Eclipse, Gold Hill, Safe
Deposit, Smyth, Star of India, Turner and
Yellowstone. East the principal veins are
the Utica and Dead Horse. All the big
veins seem to split up and meander more
or less going north and consolidate going
south.
My previous letter was principally de-
voted to the Utica vein. In this shall
confine myself mostly to its mother and
sister, the Gold Cliff on the west and Dead
Horse on the east. The Importance of
these veins is appreciated by the Utica
Company at least. 1t has secured thou
sands of feet on both of them, and the re-
turns from its 40stamp mill on the Matson
mine attest the value of the Gold Cliff,
while its Last Chance shaft is said to afford
equally satisfactory evidence that they
have secured a good thing on the Dead
Horse. The company has drift through
the Dead Horse from their Utica workings
and is reported to have found rich ore in
that vein.
The same reasoning applies to the Gold
Cliff and Dead Horse veins as to the Utica.
They are of much the same size and gen.
eral character; they have only been
scratched on the surface, except where the
Utica Company has sunk on them; they
show pay ore at the lowest level. What
other evidence of their value can be ex-
pected without going down to see?
The Matson Hayward & Lane, owners)
is the most important of the Gold Cliff
mines at present. A 40-stamp mill is in
constant operation. 1t has the deepest
workings in the district, being down over
1000 feet. The collar of the shaft is nearly
200 feet lower than the Utica. There are
immense reserves of low-grade ore on the
upper levels, and the ore at the lower levels
is said to be the best. This mine uses the
waste water from the Utica hoists and mill.
The cost of mining and milling is said not
to exceed 81 per ton.
Adjoining the Matson on the north is
the Gold Cliff mine, owned by the same
company. This mine affords the best OBJ
ject lesson in this district of the size and
character of the mother lode, there being
an immense open cut following the vein
several hundred feet long, hundred feet
deep and hundred feet wide in places The
footwall is smooth and well defined, but
shows srringers of quartz making into it
in many places. The hanging wall is
broken and irregular; in fact, at the widest
place it is full of seams and punches of
slate and tale and quartz that pay to mill,
and is not wall at all in the sense of con-
filming the vein matter. To the student of
lode formations or to the practical miner
contemplating prospecting at great depths
in this district some valuable lessons may
be learned in this big open cut. All is ex-
posed here to the light of day and the
problems that might seem insuperable in
dark and narrow drift below are solved at
glance.
The mill is reached by tunnel about
hundred yards long and at right angles
to the cut. The ore is blasted down and
run out in cars holding about ton and a
half of rock. No sorting of rock is at
tempted. All is more or less auriferous,
and it can be worked so cheaply that every
thing is milled from the grass roots down
dirt, quartz, slate. tale and the metamor-
phosed stuff. A force of five men easily
keep twenty-stamp mill running. This
property is leased from Hayward e. Lane
by N. Garrard, an experienced mine and
mill man, and ! have his word that he can
work 50-cent rock at profit. The condi-
tions here are undoubtedly the most favor
able of any in the district, yet there are
the drawbacks of leased ground and water.
Eliminate these drawbacks and the posi-
bilities of working big quantities of low
grade ore can be appreciated.
The Utica, with its deep workings, ex-
pensive timbering and extensive prospect
ing and other unremunerative work, can
mine and mill 50 so rock at profit; it
costs the Matson less than 81 per ton; the
Gold Cliff can make a profit on 50-cent
rock. The highest of these figures is low
enough to insure the working of the big
veins of Angels when capitalists awaken
to their opportunities.