The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1899-01-05
IN IHE MOTHER LODE
Origin of CALIFORNIA; Great
Wealth of Gold.
TWO RIVERS Of QUARTZ
Geological Romance of the
Sierra Nevada.
TWO RIVERS OF QUARTZ

Sierra Nevada.
Along the middle foothills Of the Sierra
Nevada Mountains, and about twenty miles
from the high SUBMITS of that range, there
runs for a distance of nearly 200 miles a
great ventricular arm or body Of quartz
1t is mostly from two to twenty fest in
thickness. often pure, crystalline, marble
like structure, but again broken into by
| dikes Of eruptive rock, cut by these in
some places into mere ribbons and threads,
then resuming it's spotless integrity and
texture, swelling into enormous bulges,
and spreading. as a Quartz Mountsin,o over
a whole broad hill.
For 200 miles or more this geological phe-
nomenon may be traced. It is cut off by
the granite at the southern end of Mari
poea County, but II ranges north through
Tuolumne, Calaveras, Amador, FL Dorado,
Places, Sierra Sevada, and Butte Coun-
ties. and finally disappears. There was a
time when no part of this great minera-
logical serpent was exposed, but all lay
protected by some thousands of feet Of
incumbent material which has since been
dissolved or torn and washed away, and
in these parts where the vein flashes bare,
the eroding agents have thrust their re-
sistless teeth into it's very vital and are
now gnawing it away, its severed particles
being carried off by that unimpedable We
hicle, water.
This is the Mother Lode Of California It's
formation is due to a great lateral rift.
which has been made by the uphsaval or
the settling of these mountains, and this
rift. filing with the silicated percolating
waters Of the thermal depths beneath, has
received the precipitate, which has con-
creted, and 50 formed the substance Of the
vein. The measure in which this body lies
is a series Of black states from one TO four
miles wide, called the Mariposa beds, and
this slate itself is cut with volcanic or
eruptiive dikes, which have been belched
up out of the earth, broken through, cooled
and hardened there, and now stand, with
their crystalline masses, some green, some
gray, under names of schists and diorites,
Of hornblend, porphyry, and else. The
strata or layers of slate do not lie fat but
SLd4Au Oil NHSiI cuScS, ICSLlHS SOulC nun
dreds of feet below upon Archean granite
These states were deposited by the clay
like precipitatbons of a great sea, which
then spread over the area Of these nils;
Jurassic sea. And what we now look up
on as the high Sierras, stupendous. sub
lime chain of mountains, 400 miles long
and 60 miles across, was then a low, round
ed series Of knobs, the remnants of noun
tains which had been worn off and had
fallen into senile decay.
But recent geology tells that mountain
structure is caused by the Unfolding of the
strata of the earth's crust yielding to lat
eral pressure, such as an adjacent ocean
will exert. The strata are pushed so that
they are bulged outward and upward, like
a pile of layers Of putty pushed laterally
from opposite sides. 1t IS along lines Of
weakness or frocture in the eartf's crust
that the strata will yield in this way which
accounts for the uplifts occurring in mar
row trends over long distances, and so
forming range OF mountains instead Of
a massing Of them together. without indi-
eating strike or direction. When the pres
sure which the weight of mountains. ex-
erts upon the earth's crust had been re-
lieved by the long processes of denudation,
and the mountains had become worn down
almost to their roots, there was nothing to
Withstand or conteraCt the intense lateral
oceanic pressure, and consequently there |
came terrible upheaval Of the strata |
along the seam of weakness, and a great |
range was born. The rise was |
from the easternmost margin of the old |
range, and it lifted the strata like a giant |
block. heaving It UP to a height of many /
thousands of feet higher than they now |
stand-the east side being precipitous and |
craggy, but five miles from the summit |
to base, while the western side graded |
down gradually and found the level at a |
distance of about forty-five or fifty miles.
1t was by this uplift that the old Jur |
assic states were tilted on their edged as
we find them today along the Mother |
Lode; and when the fitting process occur
cd, and the eruptive stones arose from be- /
meath and cut into them. there were form
ed by these movements all through the
states more or less vertical splits or cracks
Or assures. Into these assures ran the
hot waters which are continually circu-
ating through the earth. and these waters
were impregnated with various minerals
and metals, particularly with sulpher and
gold which has been leached out OF the
rock substances containing them. and car
lied in solution along with silica and else
As soon IS the assures in which they were
deposited were opened, the waters being
under pressure, naturally sought passages
II escape. The pressure being released and
cooling processes suparvening. condensa-
ion rapidly set in, and so the veins were
formed.
II therefore occurs that all throughout
-hese states and the circumiacent rock.
wherever these splits have occurred. away
IS far as the Mother Lode extends. there
are innumerable veins which are often en-
irely enclosed in the states. although mora
commonly wedged between the slate and
some eruptive rock at what is called the
contact" These splits are no, pernen-
iicular. but are inclined as are the beds
y the slate itself az an angle of PERTAINS
.oTty-tive degrees from plane: and 50
he veins dip. AS * : termed in mining
'ariance. the bottom foot wall often being
slate and The top or hanging wall green
e PURE GRAPE csCsu or-asrsz ee,v,