The DeLamar nugget. [volume] (DeLamar, Idaho) 1891-1900, 1897-01-08


ton of the direction mining enterprises
are now taking in California. There
are hundreds of old mines in that state
abandoned years ago because they could
not be maze to pay under the crudeI
methods of working them and reducing
the ores which then existed, which will
doubtless again become profitable pro
ducerS.
The reopening of the old Gwin mine
suggests the opportunity which exists
in Owyhee which, when taken advan-
tage of by men of enterprise, as it nc
doubt will be before long, will be the
greatest mining enterprise in Southern
Idaho. We refer to the reopening of
the long string of mines on the east
side of War Eagle mountain, which
were the first mines worked in Owyhee,
and some of them producers whose out
put has never since been equaled by
other mines in Idaho. Here is string
of mines covering several rich veins, all
in one group, which without having
been worked to any considerable depth,
at the most conservative estimate, be-
tween 1865 and 1879, produced bullion
to the value of sT5,0OO,000. They were
none Of them worked out, or work on
them even suspended because they
failed to pay, but the companies oper-
ating them, all running on the high
pressure principle prevailing with Cal
ifornia companies up to the time of the
San Francisco bank crash in 1873. went
down in that crash and the mines were
allowed to fill with water. Even before
that time a scheme was on foot to drain
them all to much greater depth than
they had been opened, by long cross
cut tunnel from South Sinker, and that
enterprise has been much talked of
Since, but never practical to undertake
until within the last few years, on ac-
count of difficulty of securing titles to
all the properties. Now perfect titles
can be secured and the opportunity is
here presented to start one of the best,
and surest paying, enterprises in all of
the mining region. Compared with the
cost of carrying out the California en-
terprise, mentioned in the article we
copy the enterprise we are writing
about would be slight in cost and prom
ises greater results.
The Sinker tunnel scheme, as sur
veyed more than twenty years ago, con-
templatad running crosscut tunnel
less than four thousand feet, which
would cut under the mineral belt at
veys recently made, show that tunnel,
started at better site for a complete
reduction plant, with abundant water
power for large mill, can be made at a
length of little less than six thousand
feet and would cut the veins twenty
one hundred feet in depth. Such tun-
mel would drain one and one-half miles
of the best mineral ground ever found
in Owyhee. 1t would enable owners,
should they so desire, to work from the
surface such famous properties as the
Golden Chariot, the Elmore, innesota,
South Chariot, Mahogany and Orc
Fino.
To work any one of these mines from
the surface now. without this drainage, |
would require an outlay for pumping
which woulI absorb all the profits. But
with the tunnel it would not be neces-
sary to keep up hoisting plants and
raise the ore, because it could all be |
taken through the tunnel and dumped |
at the nearest and most practical water |
power in the vicinity-on the side of
the summit away from deep winter |
SHOWS and nearest to lines of transpor
tation.
The Dewey railroad, which will reach
Snake river within few weeks at most,
will be within less than thirty miles of
this tunnel site and have no interven-
ing summit and no very heavy grades
between the two points.
AS we said in the beginning of this
article, the title to all the properties
which can be consolidated in this great
can now be readily acquired
and the only wonder is that capitalists
have overlooked,up to the present time,
an opportunity such at is rarely pre-
sented.
The publisher of the NUGGET is pre-
pared to give more facts and statistics
the mines which would be
reached by this tunnel:
"The reopening of the old Gwin mine
in Calaveras county is an event worthy
of Snncinl nntn IL hns what iS clnimnd