The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1902-11-18
CUSTER COUNTY ORE.

elect or Idaho, came down from
the north yesterday, says the
Salt Lake Tribune. Mr.. Bel
comes direct from the new quartz
camp on Loon creek and gives
the following interesting infor.
nation regarding that section OF
his home county.
The Lost Packer property,
which forms the basis of re-
Gently organized stock company
in this city, is at present the
chief center of attraction at the
new quartz camp on Loon creek.
1t consists of a handsome group
of seven claims and will shortly
make its bow to the mining world
with an initial shipment of a 20.
ton car of ore, which has been
carefully sampled as its was
sorted and packed and held up
to an average value of 5000 per
ton in gold.
Part of this shipment has al
ready been loaded on teams at
Custer and forwarded to the rail
way at Mackay for shipment to
Salt Lake. The carload is al
ready mined and sacked and will
be forwarded as fast as the pack
ers can get it over the range.
The company is pushing de-
velopment with all the men that
can be conveniently worked.
This they will continue to do all
winter and are indulging the an
ticipation of having a whole
trainload of the same class of ore
ready for shipment by the time
the trail opens in the spring.
The mine is being opened on a
steep pitching fissure that cours-
es north and south with slight
underlie to the west. 1t courses
up the face of steep mountain
and affords a magnificent tunnel
ing proposition. A tunnel start
ed and run on the course of the
vein would gain foot for foot and
undercut the present ore shoot
at vertical face depth of 1000
feet.
The rich ore shoot now being
opened has been exposed for 100
feet along the vein and is from
one to four feet wide. The ore
is a rusty brown honeycombed
quartz, with bands of ivory white
quartz and a thin sprinkling of
copper pyrites. The wall rock
is gray porphyry.
The new district surrounds the
old Loon creek placer camp of
Ore Grande, which is about five
hours horseback ride over a
good trail from Custer. The
general formation of the district
is eruptive granite, with an ex-
cessive development of quartz
porphyry and diorite dykes, a
thin series of highly metamor-
phosed sedimentary rocks, and
all kinds of veins from a simple
cash of quartz to a profound fis-
sure vein fifty feet thick and
traversing the country for miles.
The district is quite extensive
and while there has already been
some 800 locations made it still
affords some excellent opportun-
tiles for prospecting, and some
of it's richest discoveries are yet
to be made, for float has been
found at several points, carrying
values of from 500 to $500 per
ton in gold, whose source yet re-
mains to be uncovered.
A yeast powder can of heavy
nuggets was examined that were
recently taken from a remnant
of the old diggings. They rang
ed in value FROM 80 cents to $50
each, some of them contained a
pronounced mixture of the ivory
white quartz and brown iron OK
ides similar to that found associ-
ated with the rich ores of the
Lost Packer claim, and indicate
that bonanza crevice seams may
be encountered with the extern
sive development of the veins of
the district.
At Custer the Lucky Boy COM
pany are dropping 25 stamps and
working a full complement of
men at the mine, which is send
ing 80 tons of good ore over the
tramway every "a hours, with
the ore bodies in the lower levels
showing such strength as to in
dicate that they can safely be de-
pended upon to repeat the mines
already great bullion record of
81, 800, 900.
At Stanley Basin the hand
some new dredge boat bei' :
built by Geo. T. Burroughs is
just about completed. 1t has a
working capacity of 1000 cubic
yards a day, and with plenty of