The Alaska citizen., 1912-11-04

to he one of the best quartz pros poets in the Fairbanks district A cordingly visited the property ot the Hudson Brothers on Ester creek. The stakers and discoverers of thlt mine have been in the Fairbanks district d little over year. and so well realized that was not going up against anything as far developC6 as the Rhoads-Hall mine Then knew that the two-stamp Nisseu mill which will crush the ore from the Hudson Brothers mine was stir in the course of construction. an that thought would give me an opportunity to study little more thoroughly the details of a quart mill
 From what l saw. from what any man. be he no more Of a quartz min er than am l. l am satisfied that the Hudson Brothers have in their property on Ester creek the making of one of the richest quartz mines in this part of the country. Under. stand that l make no pretense Of be- ing a quartz expert l know mighty little about hard-rock mining but l do know gold when l see il banned. and l am passing the above state ment on what l saw with my own eyes From here and there l took where the owners suggested that l take them. for they did not suggest any places in particular. but from the foot wall, the hanging wall. the ledge itself, in fact from all over. Both from the shaft that sinks one hundred feet into the earth in d straight line. as well as the inclined shaft l knocked off my samples and in every case. after I had had tn" dirt banned, did see gold. IL was not fabulausly rich. or so it seemed to me. There were none of those VOL derfully rich pans that you hear about, but every single. solitary hi of rock that was pounded out and banned yielded some Colors
 The first place that l arrived at after l reached the property was the mill. This is about three quarters of a mile down the hill from the mine. Here there Wern men. ten of them. busying then. selves getting the stamps that are to crush out the gold ready Mr Rivers. the foreman of the cons rue tion of the mill, told me that the stamps would begin to fall in about ten days. There are two stamps. thirteen hundred and fifty pounds each in weight. that will fall sA and one-half inches onto the ore from the mine, and grind out the gold that will put the town of Ester on the quartz map of the district The ore is freemilling. Next summer a concentrator will probably be ir- stalled, but at the present time ther" Is none at the mill. The ore VII be sledded down from the mine to the mill on bobs this winter It will be dumped in an ore dump. loaded on cars. and dropped into the crusher. AS soon as the snow leaves the ground there will be start ed the construction of tramway, The road from the mine to the mill is well graded, and there is lit tie difficulty in getting the oIe to keep the stamps falling day and night
 From the mill went to the mlhc. There l saw shaft that sinks one hundred and twelve feet into the ground. The shaft is the last one sunk by the Hudson Brothers
 At the present depth the owners will drive couple of tunnels. If there had been but one vein Of quartz. the straight shaft would not have been essential. The perpen. dicular vein was cut by the shaft at depth of s5 feet
 The rock found in the mine of the Hudson Brothers is all highly mtneraliZed It is rusty looking rock, and differs from any kind found in this district It is eX- ceedingly soft and has much clay with it. Indeed, if water could be obtained it would almost be possible to work the output of the mine as placer proposition. When Mr Smith, the government geologist. wis ited the mine he said that of course the gold would stop at the footwall Much to his surprise, however. tn, Hudsons pounded out some of the footwall and showed the expert where the footwall contained gold of no small quantity MT Smith said tha he was greatly surprised. Ask. then as to the depth of the mine and whether or not he thought the quartz would last as they went deeper into the earth, the expert replied that they could sink as far as they de- sired, and that the gold would still be there, for contrary to the usual custom the gold had come up from