Elk City mining news. (Elk City, Idaho) 1903-1913, 1904-03-12

49, illo ulSIIlCI 10 Olle VI Iilt Olu iuSCOliS
placer districts of Idaho. Its total pro-
ductioh of placer. gold is estimated at
$10,000,000 1t is situated among the
low rounded ridges and fiat tributary
streams that empty into the Upper
South Fork of the Clearwater.
Elk City, neat little mining town
with a good hotel and several good bus
mess houses, is situated twenty-five
miles north of Buffalo Hump. :'FThe for
nation here is a gneiss, of much older
date than the eruptive granite OF the
Hump, coarse granular rock, carry
ing an excess of bronze-colored mica
arranged in wavy lines, and lenze shap-
ed segregations of feldspar
The low rounded ridges are covered
with deep mantle of sandy soil and
! densely timbered with black pine. AL
most every little flat tributary gulch
and draw over an area fully twenty
miles square has been worked over for
placer gold, and practically the only
boulder residue left in these miles of
old placer pits is gold-bearing quartz,
of which thece must be many thousands
of tons ricked up, and while quartz
vein groupings are scarce, Investigation
proves that the district is reticulated
with deep pitching fissure veins that
vary all the way from foot to twenty
feet wide.
This district is probably the most
deeply eroded placer district in the
state. The general elevation of the
vplacer beds are about $500 feet above
the sea level, and the grass was just as
green there on the 10th of October as
it is in the upper Salmon river counties
on the first of May, and the district
should afford an ideal field for insistent
and intelligent prospecting with the
chances of striking big bodies of good
pay ore, and possibly sensational ship
ping values, for it is evident that the
source of the rich placers was not en-
tirely exhausted in spite of the deep
erosions of their parent veins, and 1t is
not at all improbable that the district
will become an important producer OF
quartz gold in the future.
The American Eagle mine, situated
on one Of the placer tributaries eight
miles east Of Elk City, is opened on a
vertical fissure of white quartz ten feet
wide, accompanied with a narrow dixie
OF fine grained igneous rock speckleo
with quartz crystals. The strike OF
this vein is northeast and southwest.
The development consists of two adit
tunnels five hundred and one thousanc
feet long respectfully, and connected
with raises to the surface. The genera
massive white quartz filing of this veir
runs about four dollars in gold. Il
=. makes several shoots of much richer
ore; one of them is from two to ter
feet wide and three hundred and fifty
feet long in which the quartz is more
shattered and richly impregnated will
brown cube iron (oxidized pyrites) anC
carries an average milling value o
twelve to fourteen dollars per ton.
The American Eagle mine was equip
ped with a ten stamp mill with Willie,
tables in the fall of 1902. The mill wa
started January l, 1903, and was rul
steadily during the year, producin!
S75, 600 worth of gold bullion or abou
one twenty-eighth of the total gol
yield of the state, pretty good show
ing for a starter in the quartz gold his
tory of this old placer district.
The lower tunnel on this vein wa
run at an elevation of not to eXcee
twenty feet above the level of tn
creek; it passed through shoot of or
rs feet long and four feet wide tha
contained average values of thirty-fiv
dollars per ton. In driving .throug
this ore shoot quite'a spiinkling Of liv
iron pyrites were encountered, rathe
coarsely crystalline and containing hig
values in gold up to twenty ounces, an
in addition to this some punches of te
lurium ore of the variety petite, te
luride of gold and silver.
Tellurium ore has frequently bee
reported from many points in IdahC
and there is good reason to believe ths
it is widely distributed over the minin
districts Of the state, but this is I'll
first instance that l have PERSONAL
met with it. I was presented with
@handsome specimen of the mineral ;
this mine, and to make sure of its idei
49,, cont q ,,;oca of If IN NV Hem