The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1899-01-05

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stone Veins of this nature are apt to be
rich, as the ignecus rock has come from
great depth.
A popularity is that while these f1anking
veins are often exceedingly rich in gold.
the great central core is barren, or nearly
so. for 1t assays but an average of fifty
cents to the ton. Nor are all the side veins
rich; they show inexpltcable eccentricities
in the values of their metallic contents.
Some of them will give mill-tests of $500
to the ton, while others Immediately be-
side the richest will contain hardly a trace
of the precious metals. All along this zone
] of veins there have been. made mineral
locations, upwards of 800 patents being is
sued upon it, while the unpatented though
| recorded claims number into the thousands
! and from one end to the other there are
J thousands of shafts of varying depths,
| hundreds of mills are champing ore, and
/ every seasonable day in the year there are
hundreds of men roaming over it, pick on
! shoulder and burro pack beside them pros
pecting the states for yet undiscovered
groupings Of veins. It is beyond parallel
in the knowledge of minerologsts as gold
hearing district.
Just as the great uplift was about 70 oc-
cur, and possibly while it was in process
nf ascension, the interior molten mass.
which was being thus squeezed up beneath
the hard exterior, broke out at the tops
Of the mountains and, as lava tufa, and
such. ran down the slopes and into the
channels Of the streams. In those stream
channels was all the precious gold which
infinite centuries of natures hydraulic
mining Of the vein matter of these noun
tains had sluiced and left in the rock rifles
Of their beds.
The old cinders lay there beneath the
hard sooria Of their waxy surface, and
these frothy quotations, having been emit
ted, there followed some substance Of their
interior structure. There, like stark
tongues or else, protruding yet hardened
and still, stand the eruptive GRANTEES. Very
early they took on hoods of snow, which
they have been wearing ever since. From
their frozen sides there trickled and gath
cred force the torrents which hunted the
old channels of the erstwhile streams but
they sought in vain, for those channels,
which being closed by the obdurate ce-
ments, shed the assailing waters and
turned them upon the adjacent rock, where
chiseled out steep canons thousands of
feet deep.
In the early stages of these incisions the
new streams sometimes turned across the
surfaces of the old lava-flled channels.
and sometimes met the latter nearly at
right angles; they would sweep along the
opposite side for a while, then come back
and strike across the lava-streak again.
When this serpentine movement became
the settled conduct of the stream, and it
began to shape its. bed in accordance with
its eccentricity, it wore down the rock
upon which it rolled, and the lavas and
adjacent material were cut through. So |
it is that we find these ancient river beds |
now high up upon separate knobs or hills |
with great canons between, the hills SEEM |
ingly bearing no relation. and apparently |
never having been united. But it was |
through this prosecuting action of the |
Cretaceous or Tertiary streams that there |
were dragged down from their concealment |
and strewn along the beds and bars below
the gold particles which gave the miners
Of 1852 their clues as to the source whencs
had come the aluring object of their
quest.
But there IS one great channel which
seems to parallel the Sierra Nevadcs and
to run for hundred miles along the noun
tains in the same general course and direc-
ton as the Mother Lode. This is called
by miners the Blue Lead, by reason of the
pigment which distinguishes its gravels.
For sixty-five miles, from Little Grizzly
in Sierra county, to Forest Hill in Placer
county, it may be distinctly traced at a
general elevation Of |
feet above the levels of the live rivers
which cross it. 1t is a great channel, pos
sibly a mile or more in width, filed with
boulders and gravel Of quartz, the slate
fragments having long since disintegrated
into dust. 1t is capped by basalt. by pipe
clay, and the volcanic conglomerate, banks
of which rise from its bedrock three hun
dred feet high.
In the changed relief Of the region. the
gashed and hidden state of the ancient |
it is exceedingly difficult. even
for one trained in the field, to map their
several trends; and the very existence of
the Blue Lead. as a distinct and contin-
nous channel of an ancient stream lying in
longitudinal line beside the mountains,
was for a long time the subject of serious
dispute. 1t was recognized that many of
the old streams flowed in practically the
same courses as the new ones This fact
IS very apparent in the southern part of
the range where eruptions did not occur
and where it IS plain that the new chan
1els ara merely a contraction of the old
streams cutting down the centre of their
beds and ploughing out deep canons, Ieav-
ing the ancient gravels high up on either
side
The color which the Blue Lead gravels
bear is not due 10 an original hue of thu
rock measures or deposits from which
nese flints were quarried. but is owing 70
he action of chemical reagents operating
within the laboratory Of the channel The |
5iue Lead stones have been saturated with
, mordant Of ferrous sulphate. which. dis
solved by water and excluded from air
would yield the blue which has dyed the
over sediments. Exposed 70 the oxidiz-
ns influences of the air. the blue Will turn !
ed or vary 20 brown, SO that we ind the
upper horizons Of the mass holding the
after tinis, while the lower and more !
protected parts are stained with the pig
nent Of small. And all along the trend Of
he lead. a. far as it can h definitely
ocated. there are tunnels. They strike in
rom the canons. and cut across the Crav-
is. forming avenues for the exploitation
f gold - numerous are they that some
ines their hores. coming from opposite
ides. have met, making continuous pas
ages for thousands OF feet sometimes
connecting villages in different ravines.
travellers passing between Monticello and =