The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1918-09-19
QUICKSILVER MINE
IN CENTRAL IDAHO.
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IN CENTRAL IOAhO.
CONTINUED from Page ~
ed from Cascade with four-horse
teams in the open season, or between
late June and December. Freighters
refuse to contract delivery but work
by the day and charge IS or $40 per
day. according to the quality OF the
team, with food furnished for man
and horses and demand of or 10
DAYS for the round trip, which, with
the present high cost Of horse feed,
brings the cost of delivered freight
to the district to approximately 500
per ton.
Topography.
The road to the new quicksilver
district from Cascade starts 20 miles
east of the western border OF the
great Idaho eruptive granite batholith
and continues for the full 70 miles to
the district in monotonous exhipi-
| ton of these eruptive granite forma-
lions with coarse crystalline felspars
/ IN inches long even at the top OF the
| Cabin Creek summit, a condition re-
cognized as of deep-seated origin,
definitely indicating, with other top
ographic conditions, a very deeply
eroded region. fact that is empha-
sized by the conspicuous glacial evil
dence along the road. The approach,
on both sides of the Cabin Creek
summit east from Knox covering
distance of 8 to 10 miles, Is laid out
through a conspicuous exhibition OF
Imorainal material consisting almost
|entirely of massive granite boulders.
The elevation along the road ranges
Iron minimum of about 4700 feet at
cascade In Long valley to a maximum
Of about 5000 feet at the end of the
lroad near the Fern mine. There are
-four high SUBMITS to cross, whose
Elevations, above the adjacent canyon
bottoms, range from 1000 to 5000 feet
Ialong the present road.
The region Is well timbered with
Hodge pole or black pine, fir anc
spruce, and well watered throughout
and consists Of a rugged series Of
canyons and mountain divides will
large creeks on steep grades having 6
, general but irregular course north ant
west without any definite. range sys
TEN. 1t was formerly highly elevat
ed plateau country and the divides
have fairly uniform elevation-arount
5000 feet-and in places along thei
, ,crests, show hundreds of acres of fla
ground that definitely indicates thu
former high plateau condition of thu
region.
8 Geology.
4 Commencing at the Monumental
5 creek divide, miles above Roosevelt
D at an elevation of about 5000 feet an,
extending to the mouth of Sugar creel
north, where the elevation probabl,
does not exceed 5000 feet by two mile
broad, east and west, bounded on tn
west by granite and on the east b.
canic formations, there exists a serie
of steeply dipping highly altered an
cient sedimentary rocks in which tn
quicksilver ore occurs, consisting es
sentially of highly magnetism lime
stone or marble and quartzite in broa
zones constituting remanent pend
ant of what are probably cambrian o
pre- -cambrian formations in the gen
leral granite region. The quartzites O
the series are rather coarsely crystal
line thick bedded, hard slate and ais
thick horizons Of white pebbly con
slomerate similar to the gangue o
the Rand gold mine.
Igneous rocks are decidedly incon
spicuous in the central part of tn
district and prior to my visit | wa
unable to learn by inquiry of their ex
: istence from any of the prospectors
Z | was interested to find, however, som
: prominent bosses of intrusive dix
I material with exposures 10 to 20 fee
r wide and so to 100 feet in length Of
p lne FeTn NO. : Cldllil HoTtHtdSl VI III
, companys upper tunnel about 700 o
500 feet. These igneous outcrops ex
, hibit conspicuous crystals in rathe
fine grained blush ground mass ant
; carry variety of felspar, blacl
hornbend, biotite, mica and quart
crystals and classified as near as / cal
guess as to it's variety. in the rang
Of porphyretic syenite and is exhibte,
as solid outcrop in the quartzite a
the point described, for short dis
lance apparently striking northwes
and southeast. | subsequently, foun,
a small boulder of the rock in steel
draw 200 feet northwest of the Ferl
company's upper tunnel and from dis
closures at other points in the district
| am quite convinced that the dix,
passes through the Fern property II
this direction and with similar intru
sive occurrences probably forms tn,
genetic vents and probably represen
the magma from which the, quicksilve
ore solutions were derived. in thu
veins of this and the properties ada