The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-04-14

Bingham has long been noted for
Its immense deposits of silver-lead
ores, its copper ores and its gold ores,
long neglected or only partially de-
veloped.
Without doubt the camp of Bingham
contains in its rugged hills and mar
row gulch the greatest extent and
variety of minerals known to exist in
any district in the west Today its ore
shipments, in quantity, compare most
faVorably with that of any mining
camp in Titan, and the stream of
wealth that daily flows from its mines
would astound and surprise the ten
derfoot if the tonnage was given to the
public. Yet, with all this to its credit.
Bingham has another source of reve-
nue.. which. if properly developed and
manipulated, would be a greater sur
prise to the majority Of our citizens,
as well as to those who have never
realized the magnitude of the riches
of the "old reliable"
For many years it has been known
that as placer camp Bingham could.
If it would, give some of the great gold
diggings CARDS and spades ana then
SHOW up larger clean-ups of the pre-
cIous yellow metals, and for many
years placer mining has been carried
on In Bingham canyon in a desultory
manner, with good returns for the
capital and labor invested.
The larger portion of this work,
however, has been done in the foot
hills and on the benches. and even
then fiOnG Il
small scale, as the water supply was
limited; and later on, even with plenty
OF water, obstacles were met with. as
the debris threatened to bury por-
ton of the camp, so that the full vol
ume OF water could not be used with
safety
This was especially the case with the
Argonaut diggings, just back of the
main town of Bingham, on which work
on large scale will have to be in
definitely procrastinated, which is TO be
regretted, as they are very rich and
yield nuggets of gold as large as a
mans thumb
In the channel of the canyon work
cannot be carried on successfully on
account of the great underground flow
OF water on the bed rock, which cannot
be combatted with the most approved
machinery.
This was tried two years ago by
Messrs. e. H. Airs George Mullett
and others, who only succeeded in dem
onstrating the fact that the bed rock
was extremely rich in placer gold.
which went several dollars to the pan.
some of the nuggets being as large as
the end of finger
When work is to be resumed in the
development of these placer deposits. it
is hard to tell But it is the general
opinion, however, that it will be neces-
Sary to tap the underground stream
some distance above. excavate d large
dump, and with powerful pumps divert
the now to the surface, when the golden
sands can be washed without any SER
ious difficulty.
Beginning at the Rio Grande West
ern turn-table in Bingham canyon.
the Walker Bros. and Peter and Dan
Clays own mile of placer ground
down the gulch. This is a rich and
valuable piece of ground. and it was
rumored on the streets yesterday that
the Walker Bros. intended to put in
heavy machinery and thoroughly de-
velop the diggings, but the report was
denied at the bank
Twenty-Five years ago Peter Claws
worked this placer in a limited way,
beginning work on a bench on the
lower portion of the property. At a
depth of from thirty to sixty feet he
found bed rock, and Tor two years he
carried on his mining operations sue
cessfu.ly, clearing about a hundred
dollars a day to the man He then
got off the bed rock on the bench into
the channel, when the great volume
of water caused him to suspend oper-
ations.
Just below the Clays patent comes
the ground owned by Airs, Mullett
and Others which would give up a bar
rel of gold if the flow of water could
be checked or diminished, while still
below is the ground owned by Wat |
son and Chandler, who are running a
tunnel to get down to bed rock so as
TO clean up the gravel.
Should operations on a large scale
be inaugurated on the placer grounds |
of Bingham canyon a large amount of |
the yellow metal would be recovered, |
end it is to be hoped that this will |
soon be done.