Yerington times. [volume] (Yerington, Nev.) 1907-1932, 1908-08-08
MT Grant DISTRICT

Mr.. Alfred Day, mining man of con-
siderable experience, has been making
study of the formation here and says:
Il have spent about three months going
over the Mt. Grant district and will say
the district is we'll mineralized, but is
far behind many other districts that have
none of the advantages found here.
Here you have plenty of timber for min
ing purposes and an abundance of water
in most places. What is needed is bet
ter roads. II is as miles to Hawthorne,
with stretch of road that it is impossi-
BILE to haul more than 800 pounds over
with a good team. From Dutch Greek
we are 10 miles with only two or three
miles of wagon road and trail that is
almost impossible. There is good road
through Wheeler Pass, with the excep-
ton of about three miles, that could be
completed in ten days with twelve men
and team, this would be the best route
to Yerington and / understand would
cut off 10 miles. This road could be
made so autos could get in this district,
then capital would come in here, and
there is no question that there would be
some big properties opened up. If the
county commissioners would only
take hold of this matter and complete
the Wheeler Pass route it would not only
bring capital in but would make good
market for the Yerington merchants and
the farmers on the Walker rivers. When
was l25 miles from railroad and freight
was from 3 to cents a pound, and yet
millions of dollars went into the district
where water was scarce and the nearest
fuel was Ia miles distant. Some devel-
opment work has been done here and
water and wood is plentiful, and yet it
is as expensive to mine here as it was in
the early days at Bullfrog. What we
need is better roads and deeper mining.
Many are making the mistake of driving
tunnels, when it is fact that in not one
case in fifty can the required depth be
reached. One instance might be given
where it required 800 foot tunnel to
get depth on the ledge that could have
been reached with a shaft 20 feet deep.
Tunneling may be cheap mining but 1t
is the dearest in the end.
The formation of the district is diorite
and granite. First comes the granite,
that runs in northerly and southerly
upon which the Dumontelle
property is located. This granite belt is
about one mile wide. Then comes the
diorite belt, which is about three miles
in width, and upon which most of the
best properties are located. The quartz
carries a good deal of brown and red
hematite of iron. On the east of this
belt comes the alternated granite and
porphyry. l have seen good paintings
from different ledges in this district, but
depth is needed. The elevation of the
placer diggings is about 10000 feet,
being in what is called Lappin Meadows
on big and little Lappin cut and Cotton
wood Creek. Placer gold has been found
on all these creeks. and from what /
have seen there could be thousands of
dollars taken out if it could be watered
on a large scale and the water was housed
up. AT present there are only few
men working, there not being enough
water for all. The gold found is quite
coarse but not smooth. The gold is
found in a decomposed granite and
broken up but smooth diorite, and what
is called bed rock is to 4 feet in depth,
being a granite. No doubt the gold was
put there when Mt. Grant was in action
and volcano. Now give us shorter and
l,esier roads to Yerington, mail once
week, and we will soon have one of the
iss. mining districts in Nevada.