The White Pine news. [volume] (Treasure City, Nev.) 1868-1906, 1899-03-16
Bright Outlook for the Chain
man Mine.
Large Bodies of High Grade Ore
Blocked Out.

LaFSC OOuiSS u uiBH oFduS OrS
Blocked Out.
Nothing hurts the reputation OF a
mino so much as failure, especially when
that failure Is made by man with
plenty of capital and record as a sue.
cessful operator. When G. ID. Lane
bonded the Chairman mine and spent
thousands Of dollars for a big mill, every
body confidently expected that, II the
mine had any merit, he would certainly
make it pay, and when he dropped 1t
after working it for over year. people
not intimately familiar with the prop
erty naturally lost faith in it. II you
told a man few weeks ago that there
are still thousands OF tons of ore in sight
in the Chairman of value over $40
per ton, he shrugged his shoulders and
Hooked incredulous. We must confess
that we also we're among the doubters,
but visit to the mine last Saturday
wrought a sudden conversion.
When Lane abandoned the property,
the resident owners, Messrs. McOmie,
Lyons and McGill, determined toinves-.
tigate its condition. They first exam
ined the drift on the tunnel level, and
found that above this drift for a length
of $50 feet, practically all OF the ore had
been stopped out but below the drift,
hardly ton had been removed on that
level, although the ledge showed itself
| to be from to 10 feet thick. 1t had
been complained by the Lanes that this
ore was too low grade and contained so
much copper that il could not be oco-
nomically cyanided. We recently saw
certificate from Frank officer, the
Salt Lake assayer, showing the value
OF a sample taken from a five-foot face
at one end OF this drift TO be S24 ton
in gold, and not trace of copper. The
ore is decomposed gray quartz and
will average fully sl2 a ton for the en-
tire length Of the drift, Of which value
about 80 per cent IS free gold.
The next question to determine was
how far down the ledge extended. A
drift had been run into the hanging
wall from one end of and at right angles
/ to the drift above referred to, for dis
tance of 20 feet, at which point, a winze
had been sunk % feet which cut the
ledge, and from the bottom of the winze,
drifting was continued IN the same di-I
rection for another 20 feet. At this
point, 140 feet from the upper work
ings, but only % feet below them verti-
cally, the ledge was still found as thick
as ever, thus showing that it lies near
ly fiat, and another drift was run on
the ore, paralleling the 350-foot drift
above, and known as the | ] level. 1t
was in a stope opened from this level
that Neil Mcleod was killed by cave,
and shortly afterward, the entire stope
cayed and filled the drift, which the
Lanes never took the pains to clean out,
claiming there was no more ore there
OF any value.
About the first work done by Mr..
McOmie was to clean ont this drift.
Then from a point beyond where the
cave occurred, he diifted up on the
ledge, and turned at right angles to get
into the caved stope. Imagine his sur
prise when one day he broke through
the top of the drift and found that
about 3 feet OF ore had been stopped out
above him, and stulls had been set on
top OF a body of equally good ore fully
s feet thick, in which he had run his
drift. The foreman had evidently taken
streak of clay about inches thick,
which separated the two bodies OF ore
for the footwall, and had never taken
the trouble apparently to break thro'
IL and find out what was below. II does
not seem credible that men with thou
sands of dollars at stake should have
been 30 careless, but such seems the
case, as we have seen for ourselves, be-
sides numerous other cases where hang
ing wall and lootwall had been mined
and mllled and the ore left.
Mr. McOmie has since been working
to complete the connection on the ledge
/ from Ii to the tunnel level, and on Sat
urday had only ten feet further to go.
When this is done, he will have solid
block OF ore-except about 1000 tons
stopped out of the cayed stope-350 feet
long, l40 feet wide and averaging over
feet thick with drifts on all four sides
OF it, with an average value of at least
$i2 per ton. This is all above the u
level How much longer the body Is,
nobody knows but it is reasonable to
suppose that it extends for hundreds of
feet. That it extends down to the wat
er level 100 feet below, between un.
broken wall, has been demonstrated,
But that is not all There is a second
ledge in the mine, about 300 feet north
OF the above ledge and parallel To it.
The foetwall of me is porphyry, the
hanging wall of the 9th is po 'phyry,
and between the two lodges is lime and
iron. This second ledge IS an iron stain
ed quartz. both richer and freer than
thu other. It averages fully $50 ton
in gold and is about 9 feet thick at the
water level. This body of ore was work
ed out clear to the water level by the
present owners in their little mill, and
yielded nearly $40 600 above running
expenses. The water IS now fully 40 IT.
lower in the mine than formerly, and