The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-12-28
Professor Lane.

Professor J. II. Lane, of London,
England. has paid the district two
visits, and the result of his investiga-
ton is strongly against the sedimen-
tary theory. He asserts that the for
nation is practically the same as in
the johannesburg region, and has pre-
viously given his views in a number Of
journals in the following language:
1.-THE sedimentary theory, if any
maintain such a theory. as / have been
informed. is amiss in the extreme. In
the first place if such a theory should
be sound, it would be an easy matter
for any one to secure a gold mine who
might be fortunate enough to own q.
claim in the district, by simply doing
work sufficient to come in contact with
the VEIN This would be all that
might be necessary to make the own
erS bonanza kings, and furthermore, in
such a case the vein would be mineral
lied regular and alike, and would carry
values in one place just the same as in
another. Consequently there would
have been no choice as to locations in
any part of the supposed sedimentary
territory, and the thousands of dollars
which have been expended in barren
locations would have been productive
of as many thousands, and every claim
would have been a mine, and such a
mine in Mercur I consider would be a
mint
My opinion is that the vein in that
district is as we'll defined a contact as
l have ever seen, with the exception
that it does not lie as far below the
surface as most veins Of its character,
and for this reason many have called
it a blanket vein which is, in iself, an
erroneous idea. Every hill in the dis
trict has at one time carried it's portion
of that vein, and would today had it
not been secured away by the action of
the elements. Another feature is that
the vein
Is Badly Fauitcd.
and it is possible for claim to have
more than one apex within it's boun-
daries, and this idea has been demon
strated in several of the locations,
some OF which exhibit as many as three
apeXes. In other words, every fault
has its own apex somewhere, and sew
eral of these may occur on one loca-
ton.
I have seen some useless work done
where the vein is evidently fauIted or
broken, and this ] denlore The Camp
Floyd district so much resembles the
| Johannesburg country, where we have
learned where and where not the vein
is m1neraliZed, and its source of values.
that the country in Mercur looks very
natural and familiar to me. 1t may in
terst those who are interested in Mer-
cur to know where we find our source
of values. In Johannesburg we have a
large porphyry dyke cutting the forma-
ton from east to west, and it is from
the overflow or oAshoots from the
porphyry that we find our values, that
! is, in the channels from the porphyry.
These channels are. or were, the chan
nels Of hot sulpho-saline and alec
saline water that formerly contained
the gold in solution, and this accounts
for the naturalization of the lime in
some places. which may penetrate to
a great depth. This should always oc-
cur on the footWall and near the
porphyry dyke, where in South Africa
we find our highest values. Where we
find our values distant from the dyke.
it is nearly always on some feeders
that ultimately lead to the porphyry
MY observations in Mercur leads me
to the conclusion that the conditions
are Identical. with the single excep-
ton that the values here are greater
than in Johannesburg. The states and
tales are similar and in the Mercur
you have the same oXidized arsenicaI
ores that we have in South Africa. In
the basins and near the porphyry is
where you may expect to find your
greatest values, and care should be
taken to avoid leaving the channels. I
may say that these channels and the
general ore zone is much longer and
wider than ours in Johannesburg The
upper part of the vein is porphyry and
tale, the ere lying below the porphyry,
and in many instances being mineral
lied to an extent equaling the values
in the true ores. These conditions have
led some to believe that there are two
veins, but this is q mistaken idea, the
mineralized porphyry having been ac-
copied as vein. In other words, the
vein and the ore bodies may lie distinct
from each other"
Henry Rives Ellis.