Daily Arizona silver belt., 1907-09-05


 pings while the remainder of the party moved on down the trail. Copeland soon hurried after them, overtaking his comrades out of breath. He held out a handful of black metal and his pock- cts buged with some of the same sort. 'I've found it, he finally found the breath to say. The little party went on down to the Gila river, re-supplied their outfit with ammunition and pro visions, and the next day hastened back to the place where Copeland had found the nuggets. They had no trouble in finding it. The ground was strewn with nuggets of solid, tarnished silver, and the quartz outqrop was stained red, brown, black, green and blue, with car bonates of oxide of iron and copper. This was on March 22, 1875. They stalk ed the Silver Hing location, forming the Pioneer mining district. The four part ners held an equal interest in the prop erty, which .dterward became the prop erty of the Silver King Mining com pany, organized May 5, 1877.
 One day several years later, an old man, roughly dressed, evidently pros pector, and not very prosperous one, arrived in camp and strolled about the mine. His face was drawn, his eyes wore wistful, almost hopeless look, though everything about interested him intensel y-the machinery, the mill and town It was Sullivan, came at last to see tfe famous mine he had never been able to return to seek until it was too late. He was given n good job at the mine-hard luck or good luck as you choose.
 The Silver King was well named, as it produced silver by the cord. Beside the rich chloride and sulphide ore, there were tons If native metal in wire, ropes and tangled masses. Over $l5,0O0,0O0 came from the single ore body, which like hugs subterranean chimney ex- tended from the surface downward for more than 1000 feet.
 The ore deposit occurs in forma- ton of schist and gneisses, assigned by Professor w. F. Blake to the Archa- can. These rocks are cut by a huge dike of quartz.porphyry and it is with this latter rock that the Silver King ore body is directly associated.
 | The Silver King was worked eontinu- ously and pro6tably for years, but final ly the ore became low grade in silver and base, and the price of the metal fell until it was no longer a profitable en- terprise under the then existing condi. tions. From the surface outerop to the lowest level in the mine--more than 1900 feet, copper showed throughout the ore. Often copper gave the assay CTS trouble in the laboratory. Tn the mill, copper at times was over-abund- ant, creating low grade bullion and giv- ing much difficulty in refining bars at the mine. Finally the property was closed and the camp deserted.
 After years of idleness there is now a prospect of reopening the famous old property, not Essentially as silver mine, but as n copper mine. Copper ore can be seen at every accessible level, it occurs throughout the huge dump and some of the richest silver ore in the mine was associated with eopper-tetra. hadrite (gray eopper).
 The great ore body has no distinct walls, the limitations of mining opera tions being defined rather by conner. eial than geological considerations and the great porphyry dike in which the mine was opened is still mineralizel on all sides beyond the limits of the mine workings.
 There is nothing particularly startling or unusual in seeking to convert the Silver King mine into a copper pro ducer The great Cerro de PascO silver mines of Peru have turned to copper in depth. The noted Horn silver mine at Frisco, Utah, is producing copper ore the Broken Hill lead-silver mines of lsNew South Wales annually output q large amount of coper. Other silver as we'll as gold mines have turned to copper in depth, and it would be grati flying to see the Silver King once moro in full working on profitable basis.
 The great mine did more to open the Apache country to civilization than any other one thing, and made possible the establishment of cities and many indus tries in the country, where savages had roamed before Silver King is only q few miles from Globe and where copper is the principal mineral production and the entire country shows signs of mineral deposits.
 It is fairly safe thing to say that outside of the Silver King and tho adjoining property, the Blk, the regior about the once great mine has not beer intelligently prospeeted, and that there are still attractive opportunities in tho basin among the rugged volcanic cliff' that tower above the Silver King mine
 In line with this idea, J. H. McCabe well known Arizona mine owner, ha, acquired a large area of claims, twenty seven in number, including the Silver King mine, in addition to several mill sites. The smelter at Price station, or the Southern Pacific railroad, is a1sC owned by MT. McCabe and associates , It is the intention to concentrate or, from the numerous mines of the grOuI and to operate them in connection witl the shelter, which will also receive GUS , tom ores. The present metallurgica ? plant comprises complete samplinl 7 works and twenty-ton stack, bull 2 originally for experimental purposes. 4 250-ton stack is Co be built to treat 3 large tonnage of custom ores assured by contracts. In the meantime th 3 mines are to be reopened and put il condition for extensiye nrndnctinn