Year: 1876

Some recent trips down and up the Has sayamps.- creek, where ten and twelve years apo the Placer mines used to make an ounce day with a rocker, shows that the old creek is not entirely worked out yet. A short time since little above the old Mont gomery mine, Duff and Co. took out $l20O, in about three weeks, and Duff put out for the Centennial. Just below the mouth of Copper creek, Kelly and Hemphill are open ing claim that promises ounce dig gings ard above Copper creek, Merrill & Co. have a fine piece of ground that pays them from to slO per day. Half mile below the Umuua mine two men are sluicing with good pay. A mile above party of French men are opening bar claim with good prospects through five feet of ground, and between there and the Clipper saw-mill several men are working with rockers and sluices, making ordinary wages. Nearly all the Placer miners are also interested Tn quartz and with J. R. Darroche examined the Commissary, Buck, Silver Star, Orphan Boy, Buckskin, and Often Veins. and found them all looking we'll for the developments made and evidently only needing more eS- penditure to put them in paying condition.

 Some ore we got on the dump of the Chance, which has not been worked for nearly ten years, gave an assay of $49O00 per ton in silver but as the shaft is filled with water up to within thirty feet of the t)p, we could not examine the vein. On the Often mine we worked two weeks at the old shaft, getting some good quartz. but left the job we undertook of cleaning out the old 90 foot shaft because we got bet ter lay out to realize more immediately, concerning which another letter will explain. Consequently we made trip to the Peck district on the 23rd inst. returning on the 27th, having visited the Evening Star, Black Warrior, Silver Chief, Silver Prince, Peck, Occident and Morning Glory mines

 Nothing has been done on the Star since the lessees Bigelow, Thompson and Monk quit work last summer. They had ore worked at the Agua Fria furnace that yielded s23e,OO per ton, and there seems to be great streak left of the same quality.

 Meyers and Laird are down some 20 feet with shaft on the Black Warrior and have a pile of fine looking ore on the dump which will soon be sent to the reduction works and we learned that Doc. Smiih (one of the owners) and Geo S. Thompson have leased the mine for three years and are about to start in on systematic work about November 1St.

 Houghtelin and Curtain arc sinking a shaft on the Silver Prince on the main vein nearly opposite the 100 foot shaft on the little vein and are down about 70 feet, in- tending to go 30 feet deeper. They are getting some very good ore in a small seam which shows every indication of near ap- proach to good body of rich ore. On the dump below the shaft they run in on the vein prospecting cut and took out several tons of high grade ore, which they have sacked ready for shipment, and the mine Is lOONiH@ idiC'

 At the Peck, business is lively. After making a contract with the Aztlan mill to crush 900 ton of ore the Peck Co. put Geo. Opdyke in charge of the mine and he has been opening it in good shape, 150 tons have been sent to the mill by pack trains and the rest will be delivered in few more days. Some croakers said when the bar gain was made that the ore could not be taken out fast enough to keep the mill run ming, but as those who knew best stated at the time the getting out of 200 tons has only begun to show where the ore is. Messrs. 0pdyke and Hubbard took us through the mine at our leisuse showing us where the ore had been taken out, the bod ies of orc in sight and the proposed plans of work ahead. ....-f ..... ...-.-...

 The work performed on the mine up to this time amounts to this; one shaft which has reached depth of 210 feet from the surface, and one of 50 feet, one tunnel run in on the vein from the south side of the hill 24O feet long which taps the main shaft 45 feet above the bottom, and 90 feet of tunnel on the north side of the hill, and five levels run from the shaft, three on the north side of the shaft, respectively 90, SO and 120 feet in length, and two just started from the south side not over twenty feet in, and in all of them high grade ore is found, varying in assay value, from 600 to 5000 per ton. It was the intention of the Con- pany to sink deeper in the main shaft but the water came in too rapidly and work was for the present. The water rose at once ten feet in the shaft and continues to stand at that point, and the 80 foot drift is run just above the water

 The Company propose running in a tun- nel from the north side of the hill on the vein starting as low as possible and give dump room, which will give better facili- ties for working the mine. Such tunnel will probably pay we'll while in course, of drain the mine about so feet below the bottom of the shaft and give a