El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1911-07-14
Free Gold Planned From the
Surface Operations Thus
Far Largely Prospecting.

/ I nave just returned from the LlanO
county gold belt" says H ]. Clifford,
mining engineer and successful mine
operator, and formerly manager and
part owner of the Hazel silver mine in
Ell Paso. county that produced over half
a million dollars. L made a thorough
| Investigation Of the mines of the Llano
| Gold and Rare Metal Mining company,
consisting of 200 acres of mineral land
! located in the geological district known
as the Llano Quadrangle in the coun
| ty Of Lano. Texas. It is four miles
| from the town of Llano on the Houston
& Texas Central railroad, 10 miles
! from Austin and 1s5 miles from Dallas.
The Discovery of Gold.
Gold was first discovered some Is
years ago by the then owner OF the
property I visited and the mine was by
| him bonded to San Antonio parties who
| did considerable prospecting on the
ground and shipped so tons of ore to
! the Pueblo (Colorado) smelter. The net
| returns were $1564.50 after deducting
the freight and treatment charges,
| which amounted to s14 per ton. This ore
was selected or picked ore, but a large
amount of milling ore was left on the
dumps of the various open cuts and
small prospect shafts. which would not
stand the high freight and treatment
charges then prevalent with railroad
and smelter. The development of the
property was thus retarded and finally
| abandoned on account of a disagreement
between the parties Hrao had bonded 1t
as to the proper way in which the
property should be developed and oper-
ated, and not because OF the want of
values in the property itself.
Geology.
1.-The geological features of the. Llano
district are peculiar and highly inter-
esting. It is classed by biologists as
the "Archean" formation, made up prin-
cipally of the acidic rocks, metamor-
phOsed into schists feldsites and spars
The GRANTEES are principally biotitic
metamorphosed to some extent, and
foliated. The schists are principally
biotitic, interstratified with graphite,
chloritic and some hydromica schfsts
with quartz stringers ana lenses of
considerable extent The limestones and
| other sedimentaries are very sparingly
distributed in this district. In fact the
whole formation may be called an
| Archean complex Of GRANTEES, schists
and quartz pOrphyry.
Occurrence of Ore Bodies in LlanO.
The principal ore bodies of the
mines 1 examined occur near the sur
| face, and in what IS called contact
! deposit lying between the GRANTEES
| and the schists. I found some value in
| the decomposed GRANTEES at the contact
| between it and the schists, but I am
| satisfied that this value was leached
out of the everything quartz and schists
found no value in the unaltered gran
| tie I found good values in the quartz
| stringers and lenses, in the chloritic
| and hydromic schists and the decom-
posed feldspars, feldsite. 1 also found
traces of gold in the biotitic and graph
| itic schists; and even the surface soil,
I ,@1o L
ues, by panning and fire assay The
gold is found there both free and as
| a telluride.
Rare Minerals.
"Quantitive analysis of the ores
/ found in the Heath mine shows strong
| traces of the rare minerals. gadolinite.
| iridosmine, thorite, cerite, yttrium and
| orbium. While these rare minerals and
| rare earths have not been found there
in commercial quantities, 1t is not i'm
probable that they may hereafter be
found in paying quantity. MolybdenUm
is found there both as a sulphide and
| as an oxide. Platinum is also found in
| panning the placer sands
Surface Gold.
Free gold can be panned from almost
all the surface of the properties exam
ined. There is no evidence that the sand
and gravels found there was drift from
other localities, but the fact is that it
was formed from the decomposition Of
! the rock in stu.
Mining Operations.
Most of the work done on the prop
critics there so far has been merely
prospecting. Many open cuts, crosscuts.
i shallow shafts and drifts have been
| made all tending more or less to locate
the main source of the values The main
work consists of three open cuts, two
( of which are over 100 feet in length
One cut follows the apex of the hill.
northeast and southwest, and along this
| good gold values are found along the
! contact between the granite and the
schists, and it was from this open cut
| that the first car of ore shipped to
Pueblo was taken. In the second open
cut Is a quartz seam is inches wide.
Considerable ore of high grade was
| taken from this cut and considerable
ore of milling grade was left on the
dump. In the third open cut, running
along the contact between the granite
and the schist numerous quartz lenses
and stringers are found all along The
ore from this cut from the surface down
to the contact of the granite was Of
good milling grade, averaging SIG per
ton IN gold and silver.
THE face of the slope, where it en-
tiers under cover shows 10 feet Of de-
composed feldspathic material highly
stained with molybdic oxide. An aver
age sample of this surface gave by as
say $3.50 gold per ton and one ounce
silver. The values in this ore body oc-
cur as telluride, although some free
gold is found in panning. From careful
sampling OF all the material from the
surface down to a depth of II feet, I
found good body of milling ore, aver
aging 1920 per ton in gold and sill
YER All prospect holes sunk on the
property examined shoT good bodies Of
milling ores averaging from s12 to SIS
per ton, and 1 can not see why this
Texas gold mine cannot be made a good
paying investment. The cost of mining
is about 81 and Of milling $3.50. or a
total of $3.50 per ton. There is abund-
ance of wood and cheap coal for fuel,
and water can be ptped in from the
Llano river. Altogether that is an ideal
country to mine in, much more con-
genial in its surroundings than the
western deserts where gold mines are