The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-08-04

olv," as it was sometimes termed, SEEM
ingIy without just cause. as the company,
by its enterprise and lavish expenditures,
has made the town, and seems TO deal
fairly and literally with its employees and
all with whom it does business.
have heard it said here that there is
just as good ground lying idle as the Utica
company is working. All it needs is capt.
tai for its development. 1t needs some
thing more; it needs men of courage.
brains and experience to use the capital.
Capital has left mining wrecks all over
California. Practical men are to-day max
ing fortunes out of the salvage from these
wrecks.
The Utica company is reaching out with
long arms and grasping with strong hands
immense possibilities. Under its control
most of these possibilities will become GER
tainties What would California become
with a hundred such "monopolies" at
work developing its mining resources
alone?
1t is an advantage to Angels to have the
truth brought home as only a shutdown
could bring 1t. Another advantage, and
great one, is the interest awakened regard
ing the camp and the information dissem-
mated through the agency of the fire. The
magnitude and future possibilities of this
great gold-bel are appreciated by but few
right here at home, and are not dreamed OF
by the world at large. How few, even
among mining men, know that the Utica
vein is veritable Comstock, with slopes
100 feet wide and pay-ore from wall TO
wall2 And the vein is hardly prospected.
1t was gouged out on the surface in early
days for distance OF 1000 feet, but the
deepest level to-day is 1000 feet in the
Utica, and two-thirds of the lode is virgin
ground, so far as deep working is con-
cerned.
The vein is great fissure ranging from
20 TO 100 feet wide, in a country-rock locally
called SlaIe and green stone, but which Is
mostly hard diabase. The ore occurs in
chutes of varying lengths. from 80 to 800
feet. 1t is in the form of punches, veins
and stringers of quartz, and often large
masses of auriferous talcase schists. The
ore is practically free milling, there being
but about per cent of sulphurets, which
assay from from $50 to $50 per ton. The
ore varies in richness in the different
chntes, and that being mined from the
lowest levels of the Utica is the richest. 1t
is said to average between So and $12
throughout, and as the company can work
81 80 ore at profit, the size of this bonanza
can be appreciated. Their resources of ore
on the upper levels would keep their mills
busy for years, and they have Wine sunk
nearly 200 feet below the 1000 level in rich
ore.
But the company is not combining itself
to ground of known richness. They have
bonded the claim adjoining them on the
south and named it the Last Chance"
and are sinking on it the finest three-com-
partment shaft on the lode. They are
sinking on the vein and prospecting by
drifting, and will 60 down 1860 feet if
necessary to prove the vein. On parallel
veins and in outlying districts the COM
pany have also bought and bonded large
number Of claims and their future opera
tons in this county alone promises to be
stupendous.
1t is the general supposition even here
that the Utica Company owns nearlyevery-
thing on the lode at Angels. Such is far
from being the case. By reference to the
accompanying sketch map it will be seen
that between Angels Greek and the north
ern extremity of the Fritz mine which is
the last mine on the lode proper. at the
north end of town, the Utica Company
only owns 1900 feet, or considerably less
than one-third of the ground. The deep
est shaft on any of the other claims $3.50
feet) is on the Angels mine, which is
nearly as large as the consolidated claims
of the Utica. There is no work eeing done
on any of these northern mines except on
the Fritz, where j. G. Mailman is sinking
and drifting under a lease. The lowest
workings on this mine are only sixty feet,
and in the crosscut being run from the
prospect shaft the vein matter is ninety
feet wide and prospects well.
1t Is mystery TO miners and capitalists
alike who visit Angels why this stretch of
practically virgin ground, on the same lode |
and Joining the Utica, should never have |
been developed. Imagine 5000 feet of
ground adjoining the Con. Virginia or any |
of ~the other bonAnzas of the Comstock, /
with hardly pick stuck into it for fifteen |
or twenty years. Yet here, on a vein |
which almost rivals the Comstock in mag
nitude. which paid on the surface from one /
end to the other, with the evidence of uni |
form increase of richness in depth afforded |
by the Utica, nothing has been done but /
waiting for capital' There are evidences
of awakening in Angels. The town needs |
an explosionl
l cannot ind or hear of any map of this |
mining district, or even of the Utica lode. |
From information furnished by Mr.. Lane |
superintendent of the Utica: J. g. Malt |
man, who has lived here all els life, and is !
one of the best-posted men on mining in
the county; Mr.. Adams, the enterprising
Young agent of The CALL and others, | |
have gathered these notes and made a
rough sketch of the Angels mines. 1t is APP
proximately correct, but does not profess |
to be absolutely SO. a map of this district, |
showing the parallel veins of the mother
lode and their concentration in the great |
mountain OF quartz at Carson Hill, would |
be extremely interesting and valuable. 1t
may remain for THE CALL to furnish such |
q map at some future time.
There is nothing new ofimportance at the |
Utica. They are bending every energy to |
getting their big pumps in operation, and |
expect to have them lifting water in two
or three days. They are raising nearly