The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-07-09
GOLD BUTTE HAS
FINE PROSPECT
Climate Not So Good as That of
Utah, but 1t Can Be
Endured.
ALL KINDS OF MINERAL
DESCRIPTION OF SOUTHERN NE
VADA DISTRICT.

Special Correspondence to The Herald.
Gold Butte. New, July As south
ern Nevada's summer sun each day
sends the mercury a little higher the
Utahans thoughts and dreams are more
and more turned toward the cool re-
treats of his home state. In magma
ton the undulating scenery of the
Park City country, the savage gran
deur of the CottOnwoods Gold noun
tain, with the grim viSaged. snow
capped Badly and the graceful cone
of Belknap form the southern boun-
Diary of that rapidly developing dis
trict, and the Marysvale country, with
It's deep. eSt-lined canyons, crystal
streams, lakes and mountain meadows.
form an endless and ever-recur-
ring panorama. When finally the hard,
practical labor of mining in this south
east corner of Nevada yanks the
dreamer out of his trance. and he looks
out on the bare, sun-baked hills and
mountains that comprise his environ
ment he wonders why nature did not
give to Utah a greater quantity of gold
and less OF the super wealth
OF silver, copper, lead and iron so law
ishly bestowed on her. Then Utah
would have had a real BOOM and her
people could have looked with wonder,
some with derision, on the wild. fantas-
tic antics of those gOld-frenzied NOR
tails who are feverishly chasing the
dissolving golden rainbows of south
ern Nevada, urged on by the ever
present hope that each harmless luna
tic will find pot of gold at each end
of the bow of promise"
Then, on second thought, the Utahan
knows that Utah needs no boom in her
mining industry. The mighty strides
Utah is taking are those of a giant
who senses the sureness of her footing
and the certainty that no reaction will
ever come as a partial blight TO the
enduring prosperity of her people who,
In sackclOth and ashes, have so long
waited for the lifting of the shadows
Utah does not nor has reason to, envy
Nevada her marvellous stores of con-
centrated wealth. Rather should all
Utahans glory in the kindly cOmpensa-
ton of gold that nature has given to
southern Nevada as a partial offset to
her verdureless hills and deserts and
her dry, blistering summer climate.
For, when the boom froth is SKINNED
from the reports of strikes sent from
Nevada to the outside world, the re-
sidum is sufficiently great to place
the Sagebrush state at the head of the
worlds gold-prOducers.
Gold Butte's Future.
But the objective point of this letter
is Gold Butte, the real merit of which
will not be fully realized until after
some of the present boom camps are
fnulnrinnClNr fnponttafo n like
Searchlight, the coquettish goddess
Fortune must be wooed and won with
hammers, drills and dynamite. But
for all that the results will be just as
satisfactory as though we had boom
paper telling the world each week that
Dape Nature is daily tumbling over
herself in a frenzied effort to pour
carload of gold into the lap of every
burro prospector that strays into camp.
From the foregoing labored intrOduo
ton the reader will infer that no boom
literature will find room in this COM
munication; and that is true. Except
as an aid to the professional wildcat
ter. cold facts are either good enough
or bad enough for any camp.
Extent of the District
The principal mineral belt that trav-
erses the country here is something
like two miles wide and can be traced
from Gold Butte southwesterly to near
the junction of the Colorado and Virgin
rivers, or a distance of nearly fifteen
miles. Its southeasterly prOlongation
may yet add several miles TO its pres
ent known length. On each side of it
are found isolated Outcrops of copper.
iron and gold, but the haphazard direc-
ton of the strikes or no strikes, of
those outcrops suggest that their rela-
ton to the Gold Butte belt is extreme
ly remote.
The value OF vein. system or veins
or belt is gagged by what it yields, and
not by its length or breadth-that is
valuable only as an evidence of deep
seated or superficial causes for the
presence of mineral at the surface.
However, in new camps where the
question of depth has not been an
swered by actual exploration, the nat
ural evidences of deep-seated forces are
of prime Importance. and I'm this dis
cussion of the probable merit of Gold
Butte as a future prolific producer of
the yellow metal those evidences should
receive first attention.
The Formation.
The great bed OF faulted. sharply
tilted and intensely altered limestone
TO the north of Gold Butte ends in a
fault escarpment several miles in
length. and with strike of north about
% degrees east. To the south of the
escarpment the formation is granite,
schst, lava and other eruptives.
The granite and schist i'm this local