Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1904-06-28

ten miles over the ridge to the Little
North Fork, a climb of nearly thou.
sand feet and then down again.
BY the efforts of President Otto
Hansen of the Gold Mining and Mill
ing company, and by interesting all
the other principal mine owners of
the Santiam district, wagon road is
to be built to these properties. 1t will
leave the present terminus of the wag-
on road about the Pope place, proceed
about mile and a half, when a fifty
foot bridge will span the first canyon
The road then leads on to Henlne
mountain, along the foot of which it
will wind up to Stack creek. Horn
creek, Dry creek and Tin Cup are
crossed with short spans, that will
be made by falling stringers and COW
ering with poles or puncheons.
The scenery increases in grandeur
as we ascend the Santiam, at times be.
coming wierd and picturesque, as at
Stack creek where bald SUBMITS six
thousand feet high rise on all sides.
Stack mountain rises to a conical
peak shaped like a pointed stack of
grain weathered and silverry with ex-
posures of million years. On top
stand dead sentinel pines, and the
glacial prairies where feed the elk
extend away for miles.
Hard Road to Build.
President Hansen estimates that it
will take 60 men 60 days to build the
road into the Santiam district. The
proposition he makes is that the mines
do the grading and the county stand
the expense of bridges. The county
will also be asked to furnish such
tools as it may have in this part of
the county in the hands of road super.
visors. 1t is estimated that the grad
mig will cost $1,000 per mile and the.
bridges 80 cents a foot AS fast as
the grade IS done, bridges are to be
put in. The necessity for this lies in
the fact that this summer will see the
development work on these mines
completed and enough ore in sight so
that the next step will be stamp mills,
to reduce the ores to concentrates,
that will be valuable enough to go to
the smelter.. A concentrator first re-
duces one hundred tons of ore to about
ten tons, smelter then separating the
iron, sulphur and silicate, and leav-
ing the product so per cent pure
metals, consisting Of "copper" gold, sill.
yer, lead and zinc. This shows that
until stamp mills are introduced
there is no way of tapping the wealth
of these mines, or getting back one
dollar of the investments that have
been made in development work. No
stamp mills can be got in without a
counties have spent money freely on
wagon roads into their mining dist.
ricts, and no county has ever had so
liberal an offer as the Santiam dis.
trict mine owners now offer Marion
Three stamp mills will go into the
Santiam district just as fast as road
can be built, and it is President Han
sens plan to have the road finished
to the Gold Creek camps by Novem-
Der l.
This mining district has abundance
of timber, splendid water power, re-
quires no pumping stations or hoists.
The ores are in vertical lodges, cut
into by quartering tunnels, that expose
ledge after ledge, from six inches to
thirty feet across, that can be run out
onto the dump or right onto the stamps
by the stopping process. A small
crew can get out 80 to so tons day.
These ores assay from $500 to $3.50 a
ton and higher. Larger bodies go
$40 to $50 per ton. The incalculable
wealth of these mines will, once re-
iuction is begun, induce investments
1f millions.
In another letter the writer will
give some further description of the
mines in this district and the men who
ire pushing them into value and repu.
alton as producers of mineral wealth
E. HOFER.