, 1924-09-04
CENTENNIAL IS
COMING DISTRICT
SAYS POWERS

The Republican is in receipt of
the following letter from G. l..
Powers of Centennial:
Having several inquiries from
Rawlins people regarding the Gold
and platinum mines in this district,
/ wish to answer them, thru your
paper, giving what it looks like from
a prospector's viewpoint.
1 have been here two months and
have not had time to examine all
the ospcc's yet, so can only report
on hat l 1--we seen so far. The dis
tricJ is situated about t~hirty-five
miles west of Laramie in the Medi-
cine Bow National Forest, and is
eight to- ten thousand feet elevation,
is heavily timbered and has nan
deep canyons and clear mountain
streams.
The country rock is granite and
gneiss cut by eruptive dykes OF bio
tite, pegmatite, hornblende, schist
and lime.
The vein matter, mostly of quartz,
occurs at the contact of these dykes
and vary from a few inches to- 20
feet. They are nearly perpendicular
and give every indication of going
down to great depth. The surface
quartz has been more or less leach
ed, changing the pyrites to oxides,
and carrying the values dow to the
permanent water level, causing much
secondary enrichment. Most of the
gold found occurs at the contact Of
the biotite pegmatite and hornblende,
while the platinum seems to prefer
the lime and mica schist, and is as
sociated with nickel and cobalt. The
Platinum occurs native in the ores.
Cobaltite, nicolite, millerite and
garnerite, which also contains some
palladium and iridium.
Some quartz and ~hornblende veins
cutting the red granite carry gold
and a little silver and some ore sup
posed to be carnotite carry vanadium
and radium has also been found in
them. Ores of iron, manganese,
m%agnesia, titanium, ETC., are abun-
dant, and an ore carrying owe 400
graphite has also been found.
A great deal of the mineral zone
has been covered over with glacial
wash from the Snowy Range, con
sisting of huge boulders and gravel
of quartze mixed with Hematite
and magnitite and containing some
gold and platinum. In places favor
able to recommendation these depos-
its should pay as placer mines.
The placers in Middle Fork Gulch
are nearly all derived from the eros
ion of the gold and platinum veins
of the cliff and empire mines, and
they are finding considerable coarse
gold in them now and there Is a
good possibility of finding large mug
gets when they get down to the
lower bed rock. Whether these
placers will pay or moi a only be
determined by a good seasons run.
They look very favorable at present
and certainly should be given a good
fair test. There are some glacial
bars on Fall creek that will be test
ed cut in the lea future. and may
prove very good.
1t Is true that this camp was
prospected some forty years ago and
produced some gold, but the old time
shallow gravel OF free gold in quartz
deep holes. and did not know any
thing about the ores of the rarer
metals that are being found today.
In their shallow tunnels some OF the
veins were lost where they were cut
by faults or slides, n the extern
sions are probably still there and
will be found some day by the lucky
p~rospectors that stay with It and
keep digging.
All old miners know Of good pros
porous mining camps hat were once
condemned by so-called experts, be-
cause they could not see large guam
titles OF shipping ore right on sur
face and were only proven by the
logged determination Of men who
would not quit till they had given
It n fair test. This camp has not had
IA fair test yet. the principal reason
being lack OF funds to supply grub
and tools, but there are plenty of
men here who will stay with their
claims tll they find what they be-
lieve is down on the lower levels.
During the rush In here last win
ter there were a great many claims
staked In the snow by n class OF
boomers that expected to sell out in
side of ninety days. They did not
dig any holes. and when the snow
went off and they found only bar
rem rock or gravel they departed in
disgust and gave the whole camp "A
black eye. There may have been
some validating and some misman-
agement but IL will come out all
right In the end and the ones that
have faith and stick will be amply
rewarded some day. The right for