Lyon County times. [volume] (Silver City, Nev.) 1874-1907, 1906-12-29
GEOLOGY AND MINERALOCY OF THE DISTRICT

some more, and cracked again down on
the TANKS of the range. not evenly but
on lines generally parallel with the
range. This gave the magniatic waters,
which held the copper in solution, the
chance they were waiting for to get in
their work on the limestone by process
of solution and replacement. Mildly,
but firmly, the mineral juice was squirt
ed through those cracks for several mil
lions of years and the work was done.
The copper, which had been originally
disseminated i'll minute particles through
the mass of the magma, was concentrated
into workable ore bodies in the limestone
THE CHEMICAL PROCESS.
The mineralized waters probably had
strong acid reaction and when they came
in contact with the lime, which is an al
kali, they dissolved it, atom by atom,
and dropped an atom mineral in the
vacancy. When an acid and an alkali
come together like that they always set
up chemical reaction and deposit a
salt" The salt in this case was the
copper ore with iron and sulphur and
things. The drama was probably con-
tinuous performance for several millions
vi NCstlS anu SloNtl lOI Nature
is sure of her job and never hurries.
Your trouble i'll studying these things
is that YOU think OF them as having taken
place III impossibly short periods of
time. You think of them as results of a
sudden cataclysm. But Nature doesn't
keep large line of cataclysns in stock
and she is economical in the use of
them. She had one up her sleeve, how
ever, in this Yerington game and was
only waiting for chance to play it. The
sagging down of that lime on the hot
magma and the inpouring of surface
waters gradually created lot of gas,
which was under enormous pressure.
When enough of that gas had been gen
Grated, Nature reached up her sleeve and
PLAYED her cataclysm she started a vol
cano on the east flank of the mountain,
near Captain DeLamar's great Bluestone.
The Liberation of all that gas carried out
by suction lot of the hot magma as
volcanic ash, - which covered about
/ 900 acres of the ground to depth of
100 feet.
That knocked the props from under
the limestone again, and it broke III
large cakes from so to 500 acres in size
and settled or plunged down in differ
ent directions upon the hot magma,
again leaving great gaping assures
through which the magma was squashed
out as dikes and the mineralized waters
gradually followed and got in their work.
That is the rationale of the second
period OF naturalization i'll the Hering
ton field, as put it up. The new set of
cracks in the limestone mostly crossed
the first set of cracks at something like
right angles, but of course they were not
laid out with mathematical precision.
Wherever big cake of that limestone
plunged forward or sagged sideways, or
tell over backward, it cracked and left
assure and gave the waters their chance.
But in some spots, for some reason, the
props under the lime didn't go down
completely, but held it up. and there
the sheets OF lime naturally sagged in
different directions, making plexus of
radiating assures through which the
mineralized waters poured or oozed, min
eralizsng the whole area thoroughly.
Douglas Hill, OH the west side of the
mountain, is one of the spots, and it
NAV fairly be called a little mountain of
ore. The Nevada Douglas mine, of
which | have spoken, covers 500 acres of
that ground, and is probably the greatest
treasury of mineral ever opened in Ne
vada.
OTHERS JUST AS GOOD.
The topography of the ground makes
the mining of Douglas Hill remarkably
easy proposition to attack and practically
puts the whole hill 'in sight as ore,
though it will not all prove workable
ore, of course. Some of it, however, is
very rich. 1t is not improbable that
other spots may be found in the district
as valuable as Douglas Hill and the indi-
cations for them on the east flank of the
range seem to me, at hurried inspec-
ton, to be excellent. If this hope
proves true, the camp is greater than
Ely. for there is no single property IN
Ely as great as the Nevada Douglas, and