Nevada Nugget Hunters

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THE MINING JOURNAL for JANUARY 30, 1931

CALIFORNIA

KING UNWATERS 700 LEVEL OF OLD FORD INCLINE SHAFT

Notwithstanding several delays caused by mechanical mishaps, re-timbering, and de-watering of the 750-foot incline shaft on the Ford Mine on the outskirts of San Andreas, started late last November, the work is practically completed. The property is being operated by the Calaveras Development Company, controlled by I. E. Selix, San Francisco merchant, and associates, under the supervision of Joseph E. King, (address, San Andreas, Calif.), veteran Mother Lode mine manager. Water is at present, being pulled by pump and baler from the 700-foot Level, the bottom lateral, on which there are 830 feet of drifts. To expedite operations, a 75-horsepower motor is being connected with the hoist, to replace a 50-horsepower motor used in the past.

On the 300-foot Level, the Main Vein, Superintendent King states, shows a width of from 15 to 25 feet, for the length of 400 feet, opened up, while the Footwall Vein, 160 feet west of the Main Vein on the same level, varies in width from four to 10 feet. Both veins pan well in gold. On the 400-foot Level, a 117-foot crosscut shows the Main Vein to be from 10 to 15 feet wide. Samples assayed gave an average of $8.40 a ton
in gold. All present workings of the mine were run by its early operators. When the 700-foot Level is cleaned out, an assay map of all workings will be made, in order to check up engineering data, which has come into the possession of the present management.
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Considerable good cinnabar ore has been opened in the Bitterwater Creek Mine, according to H. V. Underwood, of Hollister, California, and a larger retort will be installed soon. The drift is in 55 feet, and a shaft, now down 15 feet, is being sunk below that level. The property is five claims and a millsite, located within two miles of a natural gas pipeline, and has an abundance of water.
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Gustav Bender, of Johannesburg, California, owner of the Bender Mine, intends to sink a 300-foot shaft, and drift 200 feet at that depth. Since the development of this mine was started last Fall, it has been opened to a depth of 70 feet, and about three tons of gold ore are being mined daily. It is equipped with a hoist and hoist house, a blacksmith shop, a three-room house, and an ore bin. Three men are working.
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The drift from the bottom of the 85-foot vertical shaft in the Blue Lead gravels, at Bangor, California, has opened the Blue Lead Tertiary Channel, and is within 20 feet of the Grey Channel. The former prospected about $4.50 a cubic yard, and temporary equipment has been installed to test both channels. Pending satisfactory results, electric power, and a plant, consisting of an automatic hoist, Krogh mill, Huelsdonk concentrator, etc., will be installed capable of handling as much as 250 cubic yards of gravel in 24 hours. The electricity may be provided either by Diesel engines, or by hookup with the lines of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Twelve men are employed.
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Negotiations are in progress to finance the purchase and installation of a complete line of new machinery at the Gross-Street Mining Company, Ltd., property on the Mother Lode, between Melones, and Rawhide, California. No ore has yet been produced commercially by the company, but it is estimated that 43,820 tons, having a gross value of $388,650 are to be developed. The company controls 40 acres, developed by a 312-shaft, and 1,350 feet of drifts on three levels. E. B. Cushman, and R. W. Bender, of 1024 Mills Building, San Francisco, are President and General Manager, respectively.
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The Mayflower Gravel Mining Company, at Foresthill, California, George L. Duffey, Superintendent, is asking bids on the driving of 1,400 feet of bedrock tunnel at its Baltimore property. The Baltimore property was acquired by the late W. F. Detert in 1928, when the handling of water, and working downstream from the main Mayflower tunnel became prohibitive. The Baltimore property includes a mill and electrical equipment, and is developed by a 5,800-foot tunnel.
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A deposit of $5 gravel has been opened by River Placers Co., Ltd., L. A. Smith, Superintendent, on the Middle Yuba River. The streak is from two to four feet thick and is being drifted along upstream. Superintendent Smith’s headquarters are 53 Granada Street, San Francisco.
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Donald Woodrum, Merchants Exchange Building, San Francisco, California, and associates, have been granted permission to market stock in the California Mines Corporation, Ltd., and development will be started as soon as funds are available. Its property is a consolidation of the Arbogast, Rodgers, Layton, Price, Walrath, Reward, Summit, Dodo, Orleans, and Mountaineer Claims, in all, more than 36 mining claims.
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The San Francisco Mining Exchange has listed the shares of the Mirabel Mining Company, embracing 1,400 acres in Lake County, California, fully equipped with operating machinery, and a 48-ton Scott furnace. The ground is said to have a production record of about 36,000 flasks of quicksilver, and, at a depth of 300 feet, a vein as wide as 18 feet in places is being developed.
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W. P. Hofstetter, of Murphys, California, has taken a two-year lease, on the Tanner Mine, near that town, and is operating one shift. The old dump is being run through the mill, with good returns. The Tanner is developed principally by an 1,800 foot tunnel.
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The Valley Lime Company, Ltd., at Lindsay, California, intends to widen its quarry tracks, and install cars of greater capacity, according to E. H. McEuen, President and General Manager. Twenty-one men are in the employ of the company. The average daily output is 160 tons.
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On January 9, the Oversite Mining Company opened very rich ore, one nugget alone being worth $75, in its gravel workings on Six Mile Creek, near Angels Camp, California. A shaft has been sunk to a depth of 256 feet, and approximately 1,400 feet of drifting done. The rich discovery was made while crosscutting from the main drift. The property adjoins the Vallecita Western Mine, one of the best producing gravel propositions in the state. E. A. Eames, and Victor Lemoge, are President and Secretary, respectively. The company maintains an office at 281-285 Natoma Street, San Francisco.
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During December, the Estelle Unit, of the American Smelting and Refining Company, at Keeler, California, Thomas L. Chapman, General Superintendent, shipped 350 tons of ore to the Selby Smelter. This was direct smelting ore, assaying 33 percent lead, and from 25 to 30 ounces silver, and is of the general average content which the company has been shipping for several months. Some new ore has been opened and, with further development, may he a faulted segment of one of the famous Cerro Gordo producers. The aerial tramway has been repaired, and is carrying its normal tonnage.
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The General Kieselguhr Corporation has acquired a number of placer claims, and fee simple acreage containing a large body of high-grade in Shasta County, California, near Weed, from the Mt. Shasta Silica Company, M. H. Neimeyer, General Manager. The ground is said to contain large deposits of diatomaceous barites, which the new owners will operate.
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The Champion Mining Company plans to resume the operation of its property at Hornitos, Mariposa County, California, with a payroll of 10 men. General development, and a new mill, are included in its program. This is a gold property, developed by approximately 4,000 feet of underground workings, to a depth of 600 feet. E. Stevens, President; W. A. Noon, Secretary and General Manager; and George C. Hogg, Consulting Engineer, all reside at Portland, Oregon, and the company’s office is located there, at 215 Porter Building. Clarence Jarbeau is General Superintendent at Hornitos. This company also owns property in Malheur County, Oregon, and at Kingman, Arizona.
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C. H. Massan is dismantling the stamp mills, and other machinery, at the Picacho Gold Mines, located about 20 miles from Yuma, on the California side of the Colorado River. Twenty years ago, the mines were at the peak of their production. A railroad was built to the river, over which the ores were carried and transported to the Gulf of Lower California, thence to the smelters along the Pacific Coast. A large part of this ore found its way to England, for refining.
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The constructive improvements effected recently by the Bonanza Gold Mines Company, have cost approximately $135,000, and enable the company to mine 1,000 tons of gravel daily, according to Charles Moore, of Yuba City, California, President of the organization. Thirty men are on the payroll. William U. Price is General Manager and Consulting Engineer.
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The improvements made by the Crystal Silica Sand Company, at Oceanside, California, during 1930, have increased its production 30 percent, according to President and General Manager J. A. Benell, 716 East Sixtieth Street, Los Angeles. The plant is now equipped to produce sand for all purposes, at the rate of 200 tons a day. M. A. Kite, Superintendent at Oceanside, has a crew of 10 men working.
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Immediate development of the Roydon Mining Company, on Soledad Mountain, in the Mojave District, in California, will be confined largely to driving a 335-foot tunnel in the Echo Mine, and crosscutting 225 to the east, and about 245 feet to the west. The old milling plant has been taken apart and is being rebuilt with such gold-saving devices as a 100-ton high-speed rotary grinder that crushes to 20 mesh, a Dorr classifier, Marcy ball mill, plates, agitator, cyanide equipment, and zinc boxes. This plant will be operated on a 50-ton basis, until all parts are checked. The officers of the company are: A. R. McGuire, M. E., President; Littleton Price, Vice-President and Engineer in Charge; and W. J. Pierce, Secretary and Treasurer. The company receives its mail at Box 127, Mojave.
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The Brunswick Mill of the ldaho Maryland Mines Company, at Grass Valley, California, has been making test runs for several days on silica from the Idaho Maryland Mine. The mile of road between the mine and mill are undergoing repair for heavy hauling, and as soon as the mill begins regular operation, a better grade of ore will be milled. William S. Sheeler, of Silverton, British Columbia, who has installed the flotation process in the mill, will continue to operate the mill until it is in regular production, and probably longer.
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The Smuggler Mining Company, Ltd., C. N. Miller, President and General Manager, 549 Holbrook Building, San Francisco, has taken over the Brown’s Hill Channel Mine, 45 miles from Oroville, California. A tunnel has been driven 312 feet, and is expected to reach the ore channel within 90 days. Buildings have been erected at the mine, and supplies are in camp, for the winter. This company was formerly known as the Smuggler Divide Mining Company, and still owns the Limerick Mine, at Rochester, Nevada, where a large tonnage of mill ore is in sight.
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The Mar-John Mines Company is stoping on three distinct veins, paralleling each other, within a distance of 340 feet, at Sheepranch, California. One shift is engaged in the mine, and three shifts in the 10-stamp mill. Production is coming from the 350-foot Level of the 470-foot vertical shaft. Following two and one-half years of systematic and vigorous development, Mar-John Mines became a profitable operation last summer, and has been making a creditable showing since that time. A mile east of the main workings, the company is mining some cobalt and rare metals and shipping them to its plant in San Francisco, for special treatment. John T. Martin, 381 Bush Street, San Francisco, is President.
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E. W. Callahan, of Los Angeles, California, mine operator, expects to begin active work at his Baltic and Buckboard leases, at Randsburg, January 10. The 10-stamp mill at the Baltic will be reconditioned, and deeper development prosecuted in both mines. The Baltic incline shaft is 600 feet deep. Water and power service are available, and the mine is close to a paved county highway. The Buckboard Shaft has been sunk 400 feet vertically, and, in the bottom, Callahan has located a four-foot ledge of sulphide ore, that will return about $30 a ton.

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STUDY, And be FREE from the BONDS of IGNORANCE!

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THE MINING JOURNAL

Pacific Coast Mining Activities
Concentrated mining news from California,

Nevada, Oregon, and Washington

CALIFORNIA

Todd B. Elliott, Box 1998, Angels Camp, California, and eastern associates, have leased the Bower Mine, 17 miles northeast of Angels Camp, from Del Ray, of Sonora. The new operators are losing no time in laying concrete foundations for the construction of a five-stamp mill, and will install amalgamation, concentration, and oil flotation machinery. The Bower ground has been idle 30 years. The former operators sank a 180-foot shaft on the vein, and drifted 200 feet east, and 150 feet west at that depth, on a vein that averaged eight feet in width and $20 a ton in gold. An 850-foot crosscut was driven to the vein, at a depth of 200 feet below the shaft.
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The Western Empire Mines, Ltd., is dropping 20, of its 120 stamps, at the Royal Mine, two miles north of Copperopolis, California, and expects to use 10 more within a few weeks. Three shifts totaling 40 men are working the mine and mill, and handling close to 60 tons a day. The mill heads run between $8 and $10 a ton. Frank S. Tower has been connected with the Royal Mine many years, either as General Manager, or as leaser, and is Superintendent for the new operators.
They are Los Angeles people and took over the ground last August. Since then, they have sunk the 1,000-foot incline shaft another 200 feet, and are drifting northwest and southeast from that point, to pick up the downward extensions of the ore bodies that have yielded several millions from their upper levels.
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The Genii Mining Company has reorganized as the Genii Consolidated Mines Company, Ltd., with a capitalization of $2,600,000, divided into non-assessable shares of $1 par. The officials of the reorganization are: C. N. Miller, 549 Holbrook Building, San Francisco, President; William F. Seeds, Vice-president; and Townley Ball, Secretary-Treasurer. From the sale of treasury stock, the new organization hopes to complete a plant that can wash 100 yards of gravel daily, and make other preparations to place the property on production. A second storage battery locomotive, and additional cars, are to be provided that can move 400 yards of gravel daily, and it is hoped to eventually increase the capacity of the washing plant to handle that tonnage.
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Finances have been obtained in San Francisco, for the further operation of the property of the Drytown Mining Company, according to Walter T. Lucot, of Sutter Creek, California, President and General Manager of the enterprise. From the 485-foot incline shaft, levels have been run at 50, 150, 260, and 450 feet, on the Bonanza Vein, which yielded its highest grade ore from the lowest level, and returned $8 to $20 a ton, all gold. The 180-foot incline shaft sunk on the Crown Point Vein has opened 10 feet of ore that assays $11 a ton, also in gold.
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Within another 50 feet the Amador Star Company hopes to reach the vein towards which it has driven a 200-foot crosscut, from the 800-foot level of the shaft. The Amador Star Mine comprises 138 acres, two and one-half miles north of Plymouth, California, and came under its present management last October. It is equipped with a full line of mine machinery, and the development is financed by the Boro Brothers, of Jackson, and associates.

John Ratto, of Sutter Creek, is President and General Manager. The former development consisted principally of a three-compartment shaft, sank to a vertical depth of 580 feet. At the 500-foot point, a crosscut was driven 170 feet to a west vein that was followed in drifts, 450 feet to the north, and 175 feet to the south. A streak of ribbon quartz was followed 800 feet along this vein that averaged $8 a ton in gold, across a width varying from 8 to 20 inches.
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The Texas Mining Company, Inc., J. R. Hoskinson, President and General Manager, Valley Springs, California, is sinking a shaft to a depth of 150 feet, and will crosscut east, to three veins. These veins will be reached at lengths of 80, 50, and 100 feet, in the crosscut. West of the shaft, ore has been opened at distances of 10 and 25 feet. The small stamp mill is operating on rock that assays from $5 to $325 a ton in gold and silver, no attempt having been made to recover the cobalt and nickel. Gasoline furnishes power, and to date, the shaft has reached a depth of more than 90 feet.
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An agreement of sale of the North Fork gold-silver property, at Forest, California, is in escrow, and the new owners have until June 1, 1931, to assume full charge of the property, according to Manager George F. Stone. Development has reached the point where a 100-stamp mill is required, and a new working shaft should be sunk to a depth of 500, or more feet. The examinations recently made, based on H. G. Ferguson, United States Geologist’s report, showed that the mine has more than $800,000 worth of ore in sight.
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A deposit of nickel has been discovered, near Elsinore, California, that can be traced 1,000 feet along the surface, according to J. M. Mack, Box 122, Elsinore. The ore is of good grade, and the ledge has been followed across a width of 41 feet.
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Grant H. Smith, attorney, Mills Building, San Francisco, California, has purchased the Redding Consolidated Mines, in the Middletown mining district, four miles west of Redding, California, at sheriff’s sale, for the sum of $9,618. The personal property on the ground was sold for an additional $2,000. The Redding Consolidated mines include 68 claims, on which more than $800,000 is claimed to have been expended.
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L. E. Kimball and Percy Barnhart are producing some good ore from the Golden Thread Mine, near Pine Grove, California.
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Lew Rowland of Cathay, California, is preparing to put a small mill on the Mistletoe mining claim, where he has opened considerable ore that runs $45 a ton, and has 100 feet of backs from the tunnel available for mining. He is leasing the ground from J. W. Warford of Mariposa, Milo Caton, and George W. Egenhoff of Merced, and Louis Hanson of Clearinghouse.
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A 50-foot headframe has been completed, and ore is being hoisted from the old workings, of the Yellow Aster Mine, in the Randsburg District, in California. The shaft has two compartments, according to General Manager W. F. Allen, Jr. An agreement for a reduction in wages was entered into between the management and its 30 employees, to continue three months from February 1. Workers drawing $6 a day have been reduced to $5; the $5.50 men have been reduced to $4.50 and the workers who were paid $5.00 a day have been cut to $4.
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The Treadwell-Yukon Company, Ltd., R. J. Duncan, Manager, Bodie, California, is treating between 30 and 40 tons of ore daily from its South End Mines in the Standard Mill, and the new 250-ton mill on the hill above the Standard Mill, is in operation. The crushing department of the new plant is entirely satisfactory, but adjustments are being made in the flotation machinery. As soon as the necessary adjustments are made, it is expected that the mill will work at capacity in the treatment of ore from the old Standard dumps.
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An office, repair shop, and road to the portal of the tunnel, have been completed by the Swift Gold Lode Mining Company, two miles north of Georgetown, California. This is the old Stafford property, which came under the control of a group of Los Angeles men late last year. Fourteen men are working, under Superintendent B. V. Dermody, and the tunnel, which is the principal piece of underground development, has reached a length of 40 feet, and is being well timbered.
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Dr. W. R. Colbert, Box 555, Elsinore, California, and associates, have followed a large andesite-porphyry ledge in Valley View ground, 10 to 14 feet wide, and carrying gold, silver, and lead ore, to a value of $60 a ton. The ledge has been followed 120 feet by a tunnel and drift, and carries its predominating value in gold. A good automobile road has been built to the property, and it is within three-quarters of a mile of each, a railroad, high voltage line, and aqueduct.
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In spite of “hard times” the following transactions have been brought to our attention: the transfer of the Cherry Hill Mining property in Colusa County, California, to the Amalgamated Gold Mines Company, now building a 200-ton cyanide plant; the transfer of the Aurora Quicksilver Mine to Hamilton Carhart, Jr., now in operation and production; transfer of the Big Four group at Manhattan, Nevada, to Cohn McIntosh, formerly of Salt Lake City, Utah, now developing a large low-grade gold mine.
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The Confidence property, comprising more than 70 acres, two unpatented claims, and two lots in the townsite of Confidence, have been sold and deeded to J. Coutts, by Mary Lord Sexton, of Maine. The property has been improved by a shaft house, headframe, engine room, blacksmith shop, boarding house, mill building, and some equipment.
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The Murray Mining Company has dismantled its property, formerly known as the Hinshaw Mine, and is moving its equipment to Humboldt County, California, where it is opening a placer property. George McClutchey is Superintendent.
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A New York company has taken a five-year lease with option to purchase the L. A. and J. T. Burns Ranch, near Soulsbyville, California, embracing the Wheal Rough Mine. In the event of its purchase, the sum of $25,000 has been named in the agreement. Preliminary work is already in progress, pending the arrival of machinery, and it is understood that a shaft will be sunk between 200 and 800 feet. The Wheal Rough vein shows a width of 14 to 16 inches and averages $30 a ton.
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The Silver Creek Development Company, Ltd., is building a 8,500-foot gravity aerial tramway at the Oro Standard Mine, near Victorville, California, according to E. H. Wambold, mining engineer in charge of the property. As soon as weather conditions permit, the 125-foot shaft will be continued to the Third level. Gold, silver, and copper are the principal minerals in the ore, and a concentrating plant will be purchased and installed when development reaches that stage. A. L. Shipley of Los Angeles, is President and General Manager of the company.
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The Whitlock Mines Corporation, M. T. Tresidder, General Superintendent, Mariposa, California, has closed negotiations for the purchase of the Mullin property, and is surveying it for patent. A head frame is being built over the Miner’s Hope Shaft, and the grading has been completed for a 75-horsepower hoist, and for a 525-cubic-foot compressor. The shaft has two compartments, each 4x4 feet inside the timbers, and has been re-timbered 150 feet. Gasoline, which had supplied the motive power, is being abandoned for electricity, necessitating the construction of 8,700 feet of power line. Three men are engaged in surface construction, and three are developing the mine underground.
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A zinc-oxide refinery with a daily capacity of 12 tons of finished product, is to be built at Santa Ana, California, by the Copperconda Mines Company, Robert O. Gruwell, Jr., President and General Manager, 812 North Olive Street, Santa Ana. The concentrate for the refinery will be supplied from the company’s mines at Kingman, and Vicksburg, Arizona, where a 100-ton concentrating plant will be constructed shortly. Approximately 15,000 feet of development that has reached a depth of 1,400 feet, has been done in the mines, and a large tonnage of gold, silver, lead, copper, and zinc ore, is available.
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The hydraulic mine of the Paramount Mining Company, near La Porte, California, is ready for production, awaiting only a supply of water, which will run for about three months, according to General Manager W. A. Hunter, 318 Crocker Building, San Francisco. The equipment includes two giants, pipeline and ditches, a water powered hoist, and a lighting plant. During the past year considerable attention has been given to its drift mine, opened by more than 4,000 feet of tunnels and raises, and its development justifies the installation of a Diesel engine, generator, compressor, and electric engine, for tramming the ore. E. A. Stent of Jackson, California, is President of the company, and Charles S. Haley of San Francisco is Consulting Engineer.
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Water is being drawn from the 700 Level, of the Calaveras Development Company’s property at San Andreas, California, with a pump and baler, in preparation of mining ore from the 300, 400, 600 and 700-foot levels. The 50-horsepower motor has been replaced with one of 75 horsepower, and two pumps will be installed soon, one of 300-gallon per minute capacity at the 400 Level, and one of 225-gallon capacity at the 750-point, in the shaft. Plans for the 100-ton mill are taking form, hoping to be milling ore during the summer. W. L- Merrill, a mining engineer of Sacramento, is President and General Manager, and J. E. King of San Andreas is Mine Superintendent. Thirteen men make up the payroll.
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The Death Valley Exploration Company has taken a new 80-stamp mill, to its property about 50 miles northeast of Barstow, California, and plans to place it in operation as soon as it can be installed. Frank J. Buck, general manager of the company, was formerly on the engineering staff of the Guggenheims, and for the last year has been prospecting the Death Valley property and operating a four-stamp mill. The average return on the plates is said to have been $108 a ton in gold. A supply of water has always been a drawback in the district, but the company has developed a supply considerably beyond its needs. John Allmer is mill foreman.
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Charles B. Watson, and H. L. Cotton, of Sonora, California, have leased the Stanislaus, Keystone, and Adelaide mines, at Melones, from Carson Hill, Ltd. They will begin work by cleaning out the 450-foot shaft in the Stanislaus claim, and intend to install considerable equipment. The Carson Hill properties have a production record of more than a million and a half in gold.
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The California Zinc Company, E. L. Ralston, General Manager, Winthrop, California, has sold all that is left of the original Afterthought smelter and refining plant, to Samuel Billings at Los Angeles. The company, however, retained all of the tramline to Bully Hill, and the Ingot terminal, and all of the mine buildings and the roaster plant.
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The Kennedy Mining and Milling Company, Jackson, California, operating the oldest gold producer in the United States, is experimenting with the oil flotation process, in the treatment of its ores. The 60-stamp mill is treating about 7,000 tons of ore monthly, or around 233 tons a day. E. C. Hutchinson, Room 302, 619 California Street, San Francisco, is president.
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For the purpose of exploring the extension of the Empire Vein, in Pacific ground, the Argonaut Mining Company, Frank Mercer, Superintendent, Jackson, California, is crosscutting west from the 900-foot Level of the Pacific Shaft. One hundred feet of crosscut have been driven, and the objective should be reached in another 50 feet. In Empire ground, this vein yielded more than $6,000,000, to an incline depth of 1,300 feet, or a vertical depth of 1,140 feet.
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J. M. Crandon, a Nevada mine operator, has acquired a lease and option on the Yellow Treasure No. 2 Mine, at Lonely Camp, two and one-half miles east of Rademacker siding, Kern County, California, from Anthony DeMayo. Immediate development is planned.
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The Virginia Mines Company, at Perris, California, is developing the Virginia Mine, through a 220-foot shaft, and in the Trujillo claim, has followed the ledge 120 feet. The ore averages $49.68 a ton across the ledge, and is from 22 inches to five feet wide. Since the ground came under the control of Dr. H. L. Musick, 2236 Whittier Boulevard, Los Angeles nine months ago, close to $85,000 has been spent in its development, and the force reached 37 men. Recently, however, the crew was cut to 20, while the concentrating plant is being built, but a full crew is planned upon the completion of the mill.
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It is reported on good authority that some of the Goldstone mines, near Barstow, California, are about to reopen. They have been closed under option for several years.
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The Los Prietos Quicksilver Mines Company, F. M. Townsend, President, 762 Subway Terminal Building, Los Angeles, California, is in the midst of spending $150,000 in the development of the old Snow quicksilver property in Santa Barbara County, two miles southwest of the Gibraltar Dam. About a fifth of the expenditure has been used up. The retort can turn out two flasks of mercury daily, and a large body of cinnabar has been located.
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A pilot plant, equipped with a Straub Rib-Cone mill, is operating successfully at the Collier Mine, not far from Angels Camp, California. It is the first mill of this manufacture in this section of the East Belt. This mine is owned by Perry Condit, of Murphys, California, and is being operated under lease, by a man named Crawford, from San Diego. It is a quartz proposition, with the vein, in places 28 feet wide, and worth as high as $60 a ton, and has produced many dollars since it was first opened in the early ‘60s.
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A full face of shipping ore, with an eight-inch streak of high grade, assaying better than $200 a ton in gold and silver, has been exposed in the extension of a drift tunnel, on the Rising Sun property, on the Mokelumne River, 19 miles east of Jackson, California. This property has recently been taken over by Paul S. Webb of Santa Monica, formerly chief engineer of smelters, for the Cerro de Pasco Copper Corporation, in Peru, and W. L. Aiken, who has been identified with western mining for many years. They have a lease and bond on the adjoining Henry Toop Ranch of 804 acres. At the surface, the vein has been traced several thousand feet, and its average width is four feet. More than $67,000 have been mined from a 40-foot hole in the Rising Sun claim by early operators. The property is mechanically equipped for extensive operations.
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E. S. Prather of Beverly Hills, California, who took over the Lookout Mountain property, five miles south of Mokelumne Hill, has leased the 20-stamp mill of the Mother Lode Central Mines Company, five miles distant. It will be used in testing and treating ores from the Prather property, which is being developed by a crew of 15 men, and a complete line of mechanical equipment. A power line is being built one and one-half miles to bring in electricity.
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What has the appearance of a new ore body is being opened on the 1,500-foot level of the Idaho-Maryland Mines Company, Albert Crase, General Superintendent, Grass Valley, California. The remodeled Brunswick mill has made test runs during the past three weeks, and is in regular operation, handling more than 100 tons daily, and supplementing the 20-stamp Idaho-Maryland mill.
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METAL PRODUCTS DRIVES TUNNEL TO NINE VEINS IN OLD MAN MTN.

The Metal Products Holding Corporation, operating the Carlyle Mine, on Old Man Mountain, eight miles north of Cisco, California, under the management of Walter Arnstein, Vice-President and General Manager, Hobart Building, San Francisco, has spent over $50,000 since last September, in equipment, supplies, and development. With 21 men working, the corporation is driving a tunnel to cut some nine major veins that run through the mountain, from east to west.

Already the management estimates that there are available 2,000,000 tons of ore, that will average $10 a ton in gold, some silver, and 1.5 percent copper. The main tunnel, now in 200 feet, has cut one of the fissures, and the Eagle, one of the main veins, is 200 feet ahead. This will give 800 feet of backs, and driving west on this vein, a depth of 1,500 feet will be attained in 1,000 feet. Drifts will be run on the fissures as soon as they are cut.

By summer, the management expects to have sufficient ore in the lower levels to insure the first unit of a mill. From where the Eagle vein will be cut to its outcrop, on the top of Old Man Mountain, the difference in altitude is 2,000 feet. As the shrinkage system will be used, and all work will be by gravity, mining will be unusually cheap.

The other officers and directors are:
Harry P. Raansay of Berkeley, president; William F. Stoneback, formerly with George Wingfield and the Goldfield Consolidated Mines, secretary; J. W. Fauson, San Francisco capitalist and oil operator; and Clarence T. Johnston, Menlo Park capitalist, inventor and engineer. Max Cohen, San Francisco capitalist, is also interested.
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CENTRAL EUREKA CENTERS WORK ON HETTY GREEN MINE

On account of heavy ground and excessive costs, the Central Eureka Mining Company, A. S. Howe, Superintendent, Sutter Creek, California, operating at Sutter Creek, has discontinued mining in all lateral workings tributary to its 4,850-foot main incline shaft, and is now confining ore extraction, and new development work, to its north adjoining Old Eureka property, frequently referred to as the Hetty Green Mine, acquired five years ago.

The company’s 40-stamp mill is treating monthly an average of 4,000 tons of ore, which is being drawn from the 2,000 and 2,100-foot levels of the Old Eureka Shaft. This shaft has a total depth of 3,500 feet, but at present, is open only to the 2,860-foot point. At the 2,300-foot point a station is now being cut, preliminary to the opening up of the downward extensions of the Old Eureka ore bodies being mined above.

It will be at this point that the new 1,550-foot North Drift, from the 2,540-foot Level of the Central Eureka Shaft, will connect with the Old Eureka Shaft. This connecting drift, being extended between two parallel veins about 70 feet apart, has thus far been advanced approximately one-third of the distance to its objective point. Its completion will permit the Central Eureka to abandon the South Eureka Mining Company’s 2,700-foot shaft, which has been maintained for the last 12 years as an emergency exit and passageway for mine water, from the Central Eureka, and other workings, thus effecting, it is estimated by the Central Eureka management, to that corporation, a saving of $2,500 monthly.

All water from the Central Eureka, Old Eureka and South Eureka mines will thereafter be pumped up the Central Eureka Shaft, to and through the connecting drift, and thence up the Old Eureka Shaft, to the surface.
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VALLECITO WESTERN YIELDS UNUSUALLY RICH PANNINGS

Placer gold gravel, revealing nuggets reminiscent of the “days of ‘49,” in size and quantity, is being found at the Vallecito Western Mine, two and a half miles east of Angels Camp, just off the Calaveras Big Trees Highway. Strange as it may seem in this day, single pans of gravel have recently yielded nuggets in the pan. Five particular pans showed large pieces of the yellow metal, having an aggregate value of $399, or an average of slightly less than $80 to the pan.

It should be explained, however, that such exceptionally rich pannings are unusual. The general average of the gravel being hoisted at the mine, situated on what is known as the Tertiary Calaveras Channel, nevertheless, is around $15 a ton car, or about $22.50 a cubic yard, the gravel weighing a ton and a half to the cubic yard.

Since the new find, designated by Manager Don Steffa as the “third concentration” revealed in the property, was first made about a month ago, more than $4,500 worth of placer gold has been obtained from the gravel yield, remarkable by reason of the fact that it has come solely from development work. No attempt has yet been made to breast the pay dirt exposed in the new workings, located at a vertical depth of 240 feet beneath the surface at a point about 2,200 feet east of the main working shaft, a single-compartment and manway bore, having a depth of 153 feet. It will be seen from the vertical measurements given above, that the development operations gain in depth beneath the surface, as the exploratory work progresses.

Manager Steffa is authority for the statement that current output of the mine, derived exclusively from development of the new find, is paying all operating costs and piling up a surplus. He further states that for a distance of 500 feet, immediately approaching, or below the new discovery, the extension of the main gangway exposed gravel varying in value from $5 to $14 a ton, or $7.50 to $21 a cubic yard. A still lower stretch of ground, breasted for a width of 65 feet, and a length of 200 feet, at a point about 1,000 feet east of the main shaft, and about the same distance west of the face of the main gangway, yielded $56,000, according to Steffa.

He estimates that there is at present, immediately available in the entire workings of the mine, around 40,000 tons of pay gravel. The Vallecito Western property, equipped with a full complement of machinery and employing 11 men working in two shifts, is being operated by the Vallecito Mining Company, controlled by Thomas H. Lipps, Los Angeles oilman, and associates.
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Fire Destroys Headframe and Plant at Kennedy Shaft

ON SEPT. 7, the headframe, and at the main shaft, of Kennedy Mining & Milling, near Jackson, Calif., were destroyed by a surface fire. Fortunately no lives were lost. The fire spread so rapidly as to get out of control within a short time, and nothing could be done to save the equipment. The Kennedy mill and office buildings escaped damage.

The men underground at the time, escaped through the neighboring Argonaut Mine, and the north shaft of the Kennedy Mine. The new steel head frame, 135 ft. high, which was being built by Moore Shipbuilding, of Oakland, Calif., to serve the main shaft, was destroyed, as well as the machinery equipment, and shops. The shaft itself, which reaches a depth of 4,776 ft and is the deepest in any gold mine in the United States, was damaged, but it is believed that this is not serious. So far as is known, no plant insurance was carried by the company, and the financial loss is heavy.

Kennedy Mining has been particularly unfortunate in suffering losses from fire. Recently, the company lost a suit against Argonaut Mining, for damages resulting from a fire in the Argonaut Mine, which caused the flooding and shutting down of both properties in 1919.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/local...tory?coll=la-headlines-california

1922 Gold Mine Disaster Was State's Deadliest
· Nearly a mile below ground, 47 workers ran out of time and air in a case with similarities to the recent tragedy in West Virginia.

By Cecilia Rasmussen, Times Staff Writer
The words "cave-in" and "mine disaster" inevitably call to mind the coal-mining region of Appalachia.

But 84 years ago, the Gold Country was the scene of the deadliest recorded mine disaster in California, with similarities to the recent Sago mine explosion in West Virginia that killed 12.

On a hot summer night in 1922, fire and toxic gas ripped through a mine shaft nearly a mile beneath the surface, trapping 47 miners. The incident at the Argonaut Gold Mine in Jackson, about 30 miles from Sutter's Mill in Coloma, turned into a 22-day rescue effort.

The harrowing story is told in Times news reports and a recent book.

The Argonaut mine had been discovered in the 1850s by two freed slaves, William Tudor and James Hager. It was destined to become one of California's richest, producing more than $25 million before the federal government closed the nation's gold mines at the beginning of World War II. (Gold was considered nonessential to the war effort.)

Tudor and Hager worked the mine until the 1860s. By the 20th century, it belonged to a large group of investors.

The Argonaut was the heartbeat of Jackson, along with the nearby Kennedy Mine, where ore-crushing hammers shook the earth around the clock.

By the early 1920s, the Argonaut's main shaft extended 4,900 feet into a maze of interconnected caverns and honeycombed tunnels. Most miners, primarily immigrants from Italy, Spain and Serbia, earned $4 a day.

Shortly before midnight on Aug. 27, 1922, when most of Jackson was asleep (or occupied in speak-easies and brothels), a fire broke out below 3,000 feet. Most of the men on the night shift were trapped.

A few miners who were stationed closer to the surface clambered out, alerted others and began pouring water down the shaft. By dawn, the townspeople, firefighters and every miner in Amador County had rushed to help. They could hear water hissing as it hit the flames, raging out of control in the impassable shaft.

It took 2 1/2 days, until Aug. 30, to extinguish the blaze. Two rescue teams began to reopen two passageways that connected the Argonaut with its rival and neighbor, the Kennedy Mine. The tunnels had been closed after a 1919 fire.

In dim light, slowed by heavy oxygen tanks and plagued by small cave-ins, rescuers laboriously cleared rock, timber and debris.

Word of the disaster had spread beyond the county. As the miners' families waited anxiously for news, dozens of reporters and newsreel crews with hand-cranked cameras swarmed into Jackson.

One of them was already there: a producer-actor named Hobart Bosworth, who in 1909 had starred in a dramatic epic filmed in Los Angeles' first studio, "In the Power of the Sultan."

Bosworth was staying in Jackson and using the mine as a backdrop for a silent movie, "The Beloved Unknown." He had hired and filmed many of the trapped miners as extras. Bosworth took his camera crew back to the mine to shoot real-life fire scenes and try to rescue miners. His still photos of the miners, taken before the fire, ran in all the newspapers.

After laboring for a week, rescuers had yet to reach the miners. But they, and newspapers, remained optimistic — if inconsistent. A front-page Times story almost two weeks after the fire had begun screamed: "Rescue Crews Hope to Reach Miners in Week." Yet three days earlier, the paper had quoted engineers and mining officials as saying they believed that there was no hope and that 47 coffins had been ordered.

Amador County's mining companies offered a $5,000 reward for the first rescue team to reach the miners.

In the depths of Prohibition, the American Red Cross dispensed a couple of shots of whiskey to each rescuer before he entered the tunnel, and a few more when he climbed out.

The liquor was supplied by the federal government as a special "dispensation" and to help bolster morale.

On the evening of Sept. 18, rescuers wearing masks and carrying oxygen tanks inserted a caged canary behind a bulkhead. Several minutes later, the small bird lay lifeless; rescuers lost all hope of finding survivors.

Moving on, the crew watched as rats scurried away from where the remains of two men would be found huddled together. They would be identified as Charles and Arthur O'Berg, father and son. All but one of the other bodies were found nearby.

Devastated townsfolk buried the victims four days later in three cemeteries — Protestant, Catholic and Greek Orthodox. Forty-seven coffins were placed in the ground, even though the body of the last man would not be found for a year.

It turned out that all of the doomed miners had fled farther into the mine to escape the fire. Trapped nearly a mile from the main entrance, they built two bulkheads and barricaded themselves, trying to stave off deadly carbon monoxide.

But the miners' training and precautions proved futile when critical hours passed without rescue — the same fate that befell the Sago miners.

As the oxygen supply dwindled, Argonaut miner Edward William Fessel used the carbon from his miner's lamp to scrawl a message on a rock wall: "3 o'clock, gas getting strong."

Another miner, using a rock, scratched: "3:15, half knocked out."

Fessel made the final entry: "4 o'clock" — nothing more. That was 4 a.m. — their oxygen had run out in four hours.

It was Fessel's body that was not found for a year, perhaps because the water used to extinguish the blaze had washed his remains farther down the shaft. During the intervening year, newspapers speculated that he had escaped and fled to start a new life — much to his family's anguish.

An investigative committee appointed by Gov. William Stephens concluded that the mine had violated safety regulations. But the owners of the Argonaut Mine Co. were not fined or punished; at the time, the U.S. Bureau of Mines had little control over enforcing safety regulations.

The committee's report is recounted in O. Henry Mace's 2004 book, "47 Down: The 1922 Argonaut Gold Mine Disaster."

Investigators eventually made 17 "logical" safety recommendations, Mace wrote, including the installation of an emergency alarm system, fire doors and reversible ventilation fans. But the committee could not determine what had caused the fire. It cited several possibilities but concluded with "incendiarism" — meaning arson — or defective electric wiring.

"Despite the death of 47 men in the Argonaut Mine, the government of California had determined that the value of the state's gold mines far exceeded the risk to human life," Mace wrote, noting that the Legislature had failed to regulate mine safety.

Sympathetic Americans banded together to raise money for the miners' families. At a ball sponsored by Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, several of the rescuers — friends of the dead miners — made special appearances in their denim mining garb and described the ordeal. (One of them insisted that Los Angeles traffic was more dangerous than mining.)

Members of Pacific Coast League baseball teams lined up against Hollywood celebrities at a charity game at Washington Park, which was at 8th and Hill streets in downtown L.A.

In all, more than $45,000 was raised nationwide — about $1,000 per miners' family.

After World War II, several attempts to reopen the Argonaut and the Kennedy failed. Both mines — registered together as California Historical Landmark No. 786 — now strike it rich as a tourist attraction.
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THE MINING JOURNAL 2 28 1931

CALIFORNIA MINING NEWS

The Central Eureka Mining Company, A. S. Howe, General Superintendent, Sutter Creek, California, has started stoping the new ore body opened recently in the North Drift, on the 2,100-foot Level, of the Old Eureka Mine. It is stated officially that the ore averages 7 feet in width, and $13 a ton in gold.
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Thomas Cooper of Volcano, and W. W. Cox of Grass Valley, California, are cleaning out, retimbering, and lowering the grade of a drift tunnel in the Battle Mountain Property, a half mile northeast of Volcano. They have a bond and lease from the Lagomarsino Brothers of Sutter Creek. The tunnel is 2,200 feet long, 1,800 feet of which is through the Cleveland Consolidated property, where gravel was mined for a width of 80 feet, and was from 1 to 3 feet thick. Specimens recently taken from the old Battle Mountain workings show a liberal distribution of flake and nugget gold.
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Eight feet of ore, assaying an average of $44 in gold, and $2 in silver, have been opened up in the Boston Mokelumne Mine, two miles northeast of Mokelumne Hill, California, according to Bat Sullivan, Manager of Operations. The ore is in the south drift, on the 950-foot Level of the 1,000-foot incline shaft, and 160 feet from the shaft. In the south drift, on the 100-foot Level, two chutes are being installed, preliminary to stoping a large body of ore, assaying from $7 to $10 in gold. Repair of the shaft has been completed from the collar to the sump, and changes are being made in the 200-ton ball mill, which is expected to resume operations within 30 days.
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Otto Ossinghaus, San Francisco mining man, has exposed ore from one to three feet wide, in the Yellow Aster Mine, near Westpoint, California, that assays from $43 to $81 in gold, with small silver values. The ore has been followed 90 feet in the tunnel, which has been driven 400 feet, and gives a vertical depth of 300 feet on the vein. W. W. Congdon, local man, owns the mine.
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The Lucky Tiger Combination Gold Mining Company, an Arizona corporation, with headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri, has taken a bond and lease on the American Girl Mine, in the Cargo Muchacho Mining District, in Imperial County, about 16 miles west of Yuma, Arizona. Machinery has been taken to the mines, and work started under the management of T. R. Herndon. The ground was operated during the heyday of the Hedges Mine, one mile distant, and which has a production record of more than $3,000,000. Most of the ores in the district are low grade, running between $5 and $7 a ton in gold.
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San Francisco capital, organized as the Gold Ledge Mining Company, Ltd., has taken over the Duncan Mine, and the Parallel Mine, both in Mariposa County, California, near Hornitos. While the Duncan Shaft is 190 feet, no stoping has been done below the 160 Level. Its production record is close to $600,000 in gold. Only a slight amount of development has been done in the Parallel ground, but the surface conditions are considered worthy of prospecting.
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The gold mine of the Lost Horse Mining and Milling Company, within 14 miles of Palm Springs, California, is being opened by Sam Ryan. Private capital is being used in the development of this ground, and a complete plant is being assembled for operation.
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Gravel washing has started at the Kirkpatrick Mine, at Goodyear’s Bar, California, George Nightingale, Superintendent, and will be continued as long as water is available. The paystreak has been opened 600 feet in a drift tunnel, and breasting therefrom is well under way.
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A rich pocket of gold ore is reported to have been located in the Slate Mountain Mine, eight miles cast of Georgetown, California, owned and managed by R. Ward Brookes. Seven men are working, and a stamp mill is in operation. Besides this pocket, there is a large body of ore with free gold throughout.
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Five feet of ore that assays $57 a ton in gold, has been opened by the Consolidated Metal Mines, Ltd., in a winze 70 feet below the 1,050 Level of the Virginia Mine, at Coulterville, California. The winze had been following a foot of gold ore, and the strike was made when a shot was put in what appeared to be the foot-wall of the vein. The mill has been operating on ore taken out during development and, if the discovery proves continuous, deeper development will be undertaken, according to Arthur Thomas, who resumed the operation of the property. Thomas maintains his headquarters at 1118 Newhouse Building, Salt Lake City, Utah, and is visiting in California at the present time.
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Work has been resumed on the gravel mining property on the Fred Batten Ranch, near Vallicita, California, by J. W. Rogers, and I. T. Long. The incline shaft is down 285 feet, and is being unwatered. They expect to find the channel at an early date.
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The Alpine Consolidated Mining Company will resume operations, the last of next month, according to C. L. Wilson, of Markleeville, California, President and General Manager of the company. Their plans call for a 500-foot vertical shaft on a gold-silver-copper deposit, which at a depth of 500 feet, shows 60 feet of good mill ore. Large deposits of enargite, running as high as $400 a ton, have been mined and shipped from the 260 Level, but these have not been reached in the lower tunnel, now in 5,000 feet. According to Wilson, winter development was impossible because they started too late in the Fall to make preparations for the winter. C. D. Wilkinson, Box 174, Tonopah, Nevada, is their Mine Superintendent and Consulting Engineer.
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Extensive constructive improvements have been made at the Victor Mine, at Angels Camp, California, by the Calaveras Central Mining Corporation, now developing and producing, and equipped to handle between 250 and 300 tons of gravel a day. Sixteen men are working, according to Harry Sears, President and General Manager, and they intend to increase the force to 30 men at an early date. The recent underground installations include six new two-ton, roller bearing, Joshua-Hendy ore cars, a Butler-Nordberg loading shovel, and changes in the track; and additional scrapers and ore cars are to be installed. A 150-ton steel ore bin will shortly be installed at the mill. The living accommodations have been improved by a three-room change house with showers, lockers, and wet clothes dryer. William H. Warwick is General Superintendent.
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Recent experiments in oil flotation, conducted by the Kennedy Mining and Milling Company, Webb Smith, Superintendent, Jackson, California, show that it can save approximately $1.20 a ton by adding this method to its amalgamation-concentration system. The 60-stamp mill treats an average of 7,000 tons of ore a month, and the loss in the tailings had been averaging $2 a ton, therefore the new process is of utmost importance. The Kennedy is the deepest gold mine in the United States, having a vertical depth of 4,800 feet.
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The 10-stamp mill at the Bigelow Mine, near Sierra City, California, is being operated continuously on a fair grade of ore, believed to be an extension of the Pearson Oreshoot, which has produced heavily In adjoining ground. Water power is used, and the ores are free milling. The work is conducted by T. W. Callender, J Martin, E. A, Humphreys, and D. Coughlan, under lease from Elizabeth Martin.
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Recent operation of the 100-ton milling plant at the Woodhouse Mine, three miles south of Westpoint, California, has brought $6.50 a ton by amalgamation and concentration. Drifts are being run from the 100 and 170, or bottom, of an incline shaft, on a vein averaging four feet in width. W. W. Gibson, 112 Market Street, inventor of ore reduction processes, and eastern associates, are operating the mine, and seven men are employed.
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Jack Munson, a Nevada mining man, and Charles Golta of Westpoint, California, are sinking an incline shaft and manway on the Paymaster Mine, one and one-quarter miles northwest of that town. Ore worth $40 a ton in gold, silver and lead is being mined from the shaft at a depth of 35 feet.
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On the 300-foot level of its property four miles south of Middletown, California, the Mirabel Mining Company has followed its Creek cinnabar strike 65 feet, and the ore is still running from 5 to 10 percent and better. The ore was first located at the surface, and later at the 150-foot Level. The vein is estimated to contain more than 10,000 tons. Besides this oreshoot, ore can be drawn from the Plymouth, Vineyard, Sandstone, and Bullion Veins. Twenty-one men are working. With favorable weather, the 48-ton Scott furnace will go into operation in two weeks, and the force will be nearly doubled.
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Last year the Walker Mining Company, at Spring Garden, California, H. A. Geisendorfer, General Manager, produced $15,782,200 pounds of copper concentrate. The mill heads ran close to 1.67 copper and the recovery averaged 91 percent. The tonnage mined was 580,529, at a cost averaging $1.26 a ton, and milling and tramming to the Spring Garden railroad station, brought the total cost of mining to $2.45 a ton. As a by-product, the company produced nearly 1,000 ounces of silver, and nearly $1,000 in gold, daily. During the year, improvements were made in the mill equipment, housing conditions, nine-mile aerial tramway, installations of hoisting equipment at the Piute Shaft, and maintenance of other plants at a cost of $98,878. The operating profit was $401,305, and was further increased by interest to $405,882. The mine is now working on a five-day basis, and during December, was producing copper at a cost of 9 cents a pound.
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The Santa Ana Mining Company, C. D. Holmes, 1408 North Main Street, Santa Ana, California, is running 30 tons of cinnabar ore daily, through its 100-ton reduction plant at Keene. Ore is being mined in excess of the tonnage concentrated, in order that substantial reserves may be maintained. Twenty men are employed at the property, under the supervision of G. H. Simpson.
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The installation of electric pumps is planned by Cory Mine Company, Ltd., at Magalia, California, in preparation for continuing the shaft below its present depth of 290 feet, and establishing permanent workings. Fifteen men are on the payroll, and three shifts will be employed within a week, according to C. H. Thurman, Box N, Oroville, California, who is Managing Director for the company. This is a gold proposition, and Jack Sobrero is Mine Superintendent.
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The Allegheny-Eldorado Gold Mining Company, at Alleghany, California, is sinking a winze below the Main Drift. It has reached a depth of 40 feet, and will probably be continued to a depth of 200 feet, according to Charles E. Trezona, 525 Security Building, Los Angeles, who is the President and General Manager of the company. Five men are engaged at the mine under the supervision of William Lichtenberg, formerly Superintendent for the Kate Hardy people, at Forest. Another important development planned, is the sinking of a shaft in the Osceola Claim, which will be started about June 1. The property is well equipped, including a 10-stamp mill and concentrators, and all the machinery is operated by electric power.
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Further geological studies are being made at the Estelle Unit of the American Smelting and Refining Company at Keeler, California, in view of extending development, according to Thomas L. Chapman, General Manager of that branch. Thirty men are employed, and development is at present confined to the 5, 7 and 9 Levels. Valuable ore has been opened on these levels, and also on the 2 and 4 Levels.
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The Atolia Mining Company, Clifford K. Dennis, General Superintendent, Atolia, California, on February 6, began sinking the incline shaft from the 1,200, to the 1,300-foot point. Upon completion of the sinking, some diamond drill exploration will be carried out in an effort to further increase its reserves of tungsten ore. Due to market conditions, the operation of milling equipment was suspended January 19 of this year. Six men are working now. A. V. Udell, 1022 Crocker Building, San Francisco, is President, General Manager and Consulting Engineer.
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The Bella Oak Mines Company is producing, on an average, 34 tons a day at its cinnabar property near Oakville, California, according to John P. Steckter, of Napa, President of the organization. Nearly a year ago, a Gould rotary furnace was completed and placed in operation. All machinery is operated by hydroelectric power. Twenty men are working.
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Arthur Turpen, 728 East Villa Street, Pasadena, California, has taken a three-year lease on the Bitterwater Creek Quicksilver Mine, at Llanada, from H. V. Underwood and E. A. Matthews, of Hollister, California. On February 13, he took possession of the property, and put three or four men at work building a new road and camp. His, contract specifies that a 10-pipe retort must be in operation within 60 days, and enlarged as soon as the development of the ground warrants its increase.
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The bullion production of the Empire Star Mines Corporation, at Grass Valley, California, for 1930, is estimated at $1, 663,000, or a monthly average of $187,750. Although no new ore has been opened up, development has maintained the usual amount of ore in sight. The North Star ore is shipped over a 6,000-foot tramway completed last year, to the Empire concentrator for reduction. The North Star plant is treating oxidized lease ore, and flotation experiments are being made on the tailings. Empire Star is a subsidiary of the Newmont Mining Corporation, which acquired the North Star and Empire mines in May, 1929, and until the close of that year, produced $806,000, or an average of $100,750 a month. F. W. Nobs is General Manager of the subsidiary organization.
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The California Barrett Gold Mining Company, inc., W. McGee, President, Confidence, California, has been granted an extension of its lease and option on the Mayflower, Elsie May, and Regeina quartz mines, to June 1, 1934, by W. F. and Etta E. Barrett, the owners of the property. The lessors are to receive an additional $50 a month, to apply on the purchase price.
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Two hundred flasks of quicksilver were the January production of the new plant of the Nevada Quicksilver Mines, inc., at Cloverdale, California, which started work December 24 of last year. It is a 100-ton, plant, although not being operated at capacity, and is in charge of H. Hazen. The mines are operated under the supervision of Archie Burnett, and within a few days, the mile tram will be completed between the Beaumeister and Cloverdale Mines, and a larger tonnage run through the mill. Forty-one men are employed.
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The Treadwell-Yukon Company, Ltd., R. J. Duncan, Manager, Bodie, California, made its first shipment of gold bullion to the Mint, from the old mines at Bodie. It was valued at $11,000. The low-grade ores, which are mined by power shovel, are treated by a 250-ton flotation mill, while the high-grade from the underground workings, is handled by a 20-stamp mill.
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A gallows frame has been erected at the Yellow Treasure No. 2 Mine, at Lonely Camp, California, and shaft sinking is in progress, according to G. F. Crandon of Searles (via Trona), who is leasing the ground. Systematic crosscutting and drifting will be carried out at different points in the shaft to explore three parallel ledges, which appear to be related to a porphyritic intrusion.
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The Aladdin Divide Mining Company, C. E. Collins, Superintendent, Box 186, Placerville, California, is washing about 40 cubic yards of gravel daily at the Rising Hope Mine. To date, the gold content in the ore is said to have averaged $4 a yard, and the cost of production is running around $1 a yard. A. large tonnage is available for washing, and the capacity will be raised shortly to 100 cubic yards a day. Twelve men are on the company’s payroll.
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The Golden Horseshoe Mining Company, Ltd., has started its 10-stamp mill on the Guildford property, and is milling ore from a chute in the upper tunnel, in that property. Samples along seven and a half feet of the vein have been assayed and average $80 a ton in gold. The mill can handle 50 tons a day, and will soon be worked at capacity. A crew of 20 men is employed, with L. F. S. Holland, of Placerville, as General Manager. In addition, drifts are being run from the 500-foot Tunnel, which is in approximately 1,800 feet, and from the River Tunnel, which is about 1,300 feet below the surface. The drift from the bottom of the 180 foot Fortuna Shaft is out 300 feet to the south, and the ore averages $20 a ton. At the Pacific Properties the old Oregon workings, which showed very rich ore in the past, are being opened up, and a shaft will be sunk either on the Oregon, or on the Epley, which is a part of this group.
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Three shifts are working at Forest, California, for the Nevada Monarch Gold Mining Company, and supplies are on hand to last all winter. Motors, a compressor, and complete blacksmith shop have been installed, and approximately 1,400 feet of tunnel will be driven to virgin placers, in the Bald Mountain Channel, which the company plans to work first. Several quartz ledges will be worked, which are producing at the present time in adjoining property. The Bald Mountain Channel is considerably lower than the Great Blue Lead Channel, which produced more than $3,000,000 in this property, as reported in the California State Mining Report of 1918. It is also reported that a gold nugget, weighing 201.56 ounces [16.75 Troy pounds], has been obtained from the Ruby Mine, adjoining. F. W. Powers, 253 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, is President and General Manager of the Nevada Monarch, and W. Scott is Mine Superintendent at Forest.
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The ldawa Gold Mining Company, operating property at Quartzburg, Idaho, is said to be negotiating for six gold mining claims located in the new district, 15 miles north of Baker, California, by Boden and Watkins. The report further states that they have offered $50,000 for the group, with a cash payment of $5,000. The Idaho property is equipped with a 25-ton mill and has produced approximately $425,000 during the past four years and has paid its stockholders $80,000 in dividends.
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Robert Burns, W. J. Burns, Dr. David Andrew, and H. O. Hall, all of Salt Lake City, Utah, have organized as the California Gold Corporation, for the development of eight claims in San Bernardino County, California, located early in the year by Robert Burns. The location is about 15 miles north of Baker, on the Union Pacific Railroad, and is reached over the Zion National Park Highway (now I-15). Burns took 14 samples at various points near the surface, and their assays ran between $6 and $65. Trenches, six to eight feet deep, are to be dug, and, if a promising showing is opened, an air compressor will be installed, and the ground thrown open to lease. It is estimated that the entire cost of mining, trucking, and shipping the ore to the Utah smelters, will not exceed $11 a ton.
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KENMAR TUNNEL NEARS DEEP CHANNEL SIXTEEN-TO-ONE OPENS WIRE GOLD

With a force of ten miners, the Kenmar Gold Mines, Ltd., of which J. Y. Ownbey, 805 Security Building, Los Angeles, is President, is making rapid progress in reopening, and re-timbering the Golden State Tunnel, measuring more than a mile in length, on the South Fork Mine, at Forest City, Sierra County, two miles north of Alleghany. The work has advanced to a point 2,860 feet from the portal of the adit, and is entering, it is claimed by the management, the Deep Channel, one of the two gold-bearing ancient river courses, which current operations are designed to open. The second course, known as the Extension Channel, should be reached about 1,800 feet farther along the tunnel, when cleaned out, it is estimated.

The Kenmar, or South Fork, Estate adjoins the Sixteen-to-One Lode Mine, which is producing gold from a depth of 3,100 feet, and which is credited with a yield of more than $15,000,000 to date. In addition, to its placer channels, the Kenmar Property is traversed, it is claimed, by the extension of the Sixteen-to-One ledge. In the early days of California, the Kenmar yielded heavily to its pioneer owners, and was involved in a long drawn out legal battle, which was settled only a few years ago, making possible its present renewed development and operation.

According to reports emanating from an authentic source, negotiations have been inaugurated by the Newmont Mining Company of New York looking to the acquisition of the Sixteen-to-One Mine, on the 3,100-foot level of which, a new lens or shoot of surprisingly rich gold ore has recently been disclosed. It is estimated that the new discovery should yield from $80,000 to $100,000 in wire gold. It is understood that at present, the mine has at least six of these rich lenses, or pockets, immediately available for extraction.
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FEDERAL SURVEY CO-OPERATES WITH CALIF. DIVISION OF MINES

Mr. George W. Stose, Geologic Map Editor, U. S. Geological Survey, was recently in San Francisco to confer with the Geologic Branch of the California State Division of Mines as regards the new geologic map of the state, which the two surveys (state and federal) are preparing through a cooperative arrangement.

Mr. Stose arrived in San Francisco about February 8, and at that time,
conferred with Mr. Walter W. Bradley, State Mineralogist, and Mr. Olaf P. Jenkins, Chief Geologist, who is in charge of the preparation of the map.
Mr. Stose also conferred with many other geologists in California, first in Los Angeles and Pasadena, before arriving in San Francisco. There is much interest among members of the profession at this time, as regards the preparation of this valuable piece of work, and much cooperation is being secured from all institutions, academies, professional societies, and geological departments, of mining, oil, and railroad companies.

According to the arrangement made, the Federal Survey has been compiling all information that was available to it in Washington, D. C. There is, however, as much more information, unpublished, and in various files here in California, as in the office of the U. S. Geological Survey. It becomes the duty, therefore, of the State Division of Mines to complete this map as far as possible, with data it has secured, and to continue to fill in the gaps as fast as the required data are obtained through field work.

The general state geologic map is being drawn on the scale of eight miles to the inch, and will show clearly and accurately all of the principal geologic formations exposed on the surface. A map of this sort will be of widespread importance and value to all mineral resources, mines, oil and gas, water supply, agricultural, and forest industries, transportation lines, etc.

At a glance the reader, traveler, or engineer may see on just what rock formation he is located, and what its relation is to the rest of the state. The main geological structures, faults, etc., will all be shown. The map as a whole, will be of constant service and education to the world at large. Investors, visitors, and travelers, will use it as a constant source of information.

The state is very fortunate in securing the services of men well trained and experienced in making such state maps. Mr. Stose has been in charge of editing and engraving these state maps, and all geologic maps for the U. S. Geological Survey for many years. Mr. Jenkins, a few years ago, prepared such a map of the entire State of Tennessee, doing much of the field work himself, and later was employed in the preparation of the Arizona State Geologic Map, which was published jointly by Arizona and the U. S. Geological Survey.
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ELLIOTT AND ASSOCIATES IN MIDST OF BOWER GOLD DEVELOPMENT

Todd B. Elliott, mining engineer of San Francisco, and eastern associates, have obtained from Del Ray of Sonora, California, a lease and bond on the Bower Mine, 17 miles northeast of Angels Camp, and resumed its operation. The crew of workmen employed is at present engaged in grading and laying concrete foundations for the immediate construction of a five-stamp mill. Amalgamation, concentration, and oil flotation, will be used in the reduction of the ore from the mine.

It is more than 30 years since the property was actively worked, prior to which time, according to official records obtained by Mr. Elliott, it produced ore to the value of $140,000. The early operators opened up the mine by sinking a 180-foot vertical shaft, and extending an 850-foot crosscut tunnel, which exposed the vein and oreshoot 200 feet below the bottom of the shaft. The production named was obtained in drifting 200 feet east, and 150 feet west, on the ore body, averaging eight feet wide and assaying $20 in gold, on the 180-foot or present bottom level of the shaft.

The ore body was practically entirely stoped from that depth to the surface for the combined length of the two drifts. The 350-foot crosscut tunnel, Elliott states, shows the ore body and vein to be six feet wide, with assays of $20 in gold, and small silver and lead values. Development work on the vein from the tunnel, will be vigorously prosecuted.
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AMADOR STAR IN THREE-FOOT DISCOVERY HELD RICH IN GOLD

The northwest crosscut, from the 300-foot station of the Amador Star vertical shaft, has reached the ledge at 225 feet from the shaft, precisely the point calculated by John Ratto, of Sutter Creek, California. No assays have been made yet, but the vein is three feet wide, and its highly mineralized formation indicates that it is the southern extremity of the oreshoot that attracted wide attention at the 500-foot Level, more than ten years ago. Exploratory drifts are being run on the upper level.

The Amador Star property consists of 183 acres of land, two and one-half miles north of Plymouth, California, which have been idle several years. During 1916 and 1917, a vertical three-compartment shaft was sunk to a depth of 580 feet, and a crosscut driven 170 feet west, to the vein. Drifts were run 450 feet north, and 175 feet south, and revealed a streak of ribbon quartz from 8 to 20 inches wide, that averaged $8 a ton in gold, over a length of 300 feet. At another point, a tunnel was run on the vein, and a winze sunk 50 feet. These workings showed the vein to be from three to six feet wide, and averaging the same gold content of $8 to the ton.
The gold was recovered at the old Bay State Mill, less than a mile distant.

Last October, the Boro Brothers, of Jackson, and associates, organized as the Amador Star Mining Company, and financed the reopening of the property, with Ratto in charge as President and General Manager. The funds are entirely private subscriptions.
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STUDY, And be FREE from the BONDS of IGNORANCE!

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THE MINING JOURNAL 3-15-1931

CALIFORNIA

CALIFORNIA MINING COMPANY PURCHASES ALDER GULCH MINES

The California Mining Company has purchased the Alder Gulch group of Mines, from T. Tomich, of Butte. This is a quartz Mine of 14 claims, and is fully equipped in all respects, including a mile of powerline, which was connected March 1. The ledges vary from 8 inches, to 5 and 6 feet, and the ore values are from $21.80 to $58.85 per ton. One of the ledges is two and one-half feet wide, and the ore runs as high as $180 a ton.

Frank Zichosch, engineer and superintendent for The California Mining Company, intends to install an Ellis ball mill of 100 tons daily capacity; and six months later, another one of similar capacity. By the end of the year the company hopes to be able to handle 500 tons of ore in 24 hours.

Another important development planned for the near future is the opening up of the lava-capped channel. The work will be started as soon as the weather warms up. The channel is said to be one of the richest pieces of gold land that has been found.
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The Metal Mines Corporation of California, Chris Waumhof, president, 1245 Pacific Avenue, Long Beach, California, has started the development of the Norfolk Mine, near Murphys. Since the lease has been taken, a gallows frame, compressor, and other equipment hare been installed and power equipment installed, ready for connection. A shaft will be sunk 500 feet, and approximately 1,000 feet of drifting are planned. This property has both quartz and gravel, but the quartz will be worked first.
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The five-stamp mill and 80-ton ball mill for regrinding purposes are scheduled to go into operation at the Bower Mine, 17 miles northeast of Angels Camp, California, the middle of the month. T. B. Elliott, engineer, and Eastern associates are conducting the work.
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The Boundary Cone Gold Mines Company, near Mokelumne Hill, California, is getting pay gravel from the Blue Lead ancient river channel, at a depth of 165 feet, according to General Superintendent J. J. McSorley. The work is being carried on from the bottom of the 450-foot incline shaft, and the face of the heading is out 500 feet.
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The Consolidated Metals Corporation, A. W. Frolli, general manager, 762 Mills Building, San Francisco, California, reports a net profit for 1930 of $121,299.71, after deduction of $199,082.42 for current expenses and taxes, and $7,865.96 for depreciation. Its receipts for that period were $238,197.75 from the sales of ore, $94,644 from the sale of the Kelly Mine, and $886.84 from miscellaneous sources. In April the company purchased the Oceanic Mine, which produced an average of 85 flasks of quicksilver a month until December 1. The furnace is now producing 150. flasks a day and is expected to maintain this production for several months. In October it acquired the Bishop Creek gold Mine in Inyo county and has developed approximately 70,000 tons of ore, averaging $12 a ton. Mining and milling costs are estimated to be $7 a ton. The Bishop Creek Mine is equipped with a 75-ton flotation mill and it is planned to double its capacity this spring.
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New discoveries of excellent ore on the deep workings of the North Star Mine of the Empire Star Mines Corporation, F. W. Nobs, general manager, Grass Valley, California, will probably result in deepening the 3,600-foot vertical shaft. Some fine bodies of ore have been opened during the last year, and the Mine is earning a good profit.
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Engineers have prepared plans for the construction of a reduction plant, which the Armstrong Mining Company proposes to build at Victorville, California, at a cost of approximately $890,000, exclusive of the site and excavation. The proposed plant will be constructed by the Mineral Conversion Company, owned principally by the Armstrong interests, to treat the ores from the Sidewinder Mine, near Victorville, and nearby Mines. Its output at capacity will be 50 tons of concentrates a day. It
is also planned to put in a concentrator at the Mine to reduce the ore before it is shipped to Victorville. More than $600,000 is said to have been spent in developing the Mine, where it is estimated 260,000 tons of ore, averaging $7.20 a ton, have been blocked out. Development to further depth is also included in the company’s program. It is 700 feet deep, and further development, probably to 1,000 feet, is included in the company’s extensive improvements. W. B. Armstrong, 535 Fifth Avenue, New York City, is president of the company, and Alfred Bell is Mine superintendent at Victorville.
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The Gold Ridge Mine, Inc., has acquired the Lulu, Poor Sinner, and Jones quartz claims, and an additional tract of approximately 54 acres near Stent, California, from Josephine and W. T. Jones. A substantial payment is said to have been made on the purchase price of $30,000, which is to be completely paid within five years. Mining and reduction equipment is to be installed at the property, and will include a ball mill of 300 tons capacity in 24 hours, two jaw crushers with a capacity to handle 400 tons of ore.
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Recalling the gold rush days of early California, more than 100 eager men and women prospectors, using pans and sluice boxes, are engaged in a hectic placer exploration in San Francisquito Canyon, six miles north of Saugus. A recent cloudburst, sending a three-foot stream of water down the canyon, is said to have uncovered the gold.
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The Arrowhead Gold Mining Company, Ltd., organized by a group of Salt Lake City, Utah, men, has started preliminary work in San Bernardino County, California, on locations of Robert Burns, who brought his strike to their attention. George W. Snyder of W. F. Snyder and and Sons, 218 Felt Building, Salt Lake City, is president of the new organization; Burns is vice-president; Guy M. Snyder, secretary and treasurer; and George Wilson and Neal B. Snyder, additional directors.

J. C. Ingersoll, geologist for the Snyders, in his report, found seven pronounced quartz veins, from 2 to 20 feet wide, in an area two and one-half miles long, and one and one-half miles wide. Ingersoll, and Earl Young, another company geologist, are on the ground now, in charge of geological work and development. Tent houses are being used for living and boarding quarters for the present, portable compressors from their work at the Bristol Mines, in Nevada, (near Pioche) will be used in sinking prospect shafts, and an assay office is being established. The establishment of permanent buildings and equipment will be deterMined by the success of the work now in hand. Water is available for culinary purposes.
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Within 10 days, the Gold Gravel Products, Inc., expects to be washing gravel at Wallace, 20 miles northwest of San Andreas, California. The plant is capable of handling 150 cubic yards an hour, and uses 2,000 gallons of water a minute, which are impounded and used over and over again. In connection with it, are operated a LinkBelt power shovel, and 12 four-cubic yard dump cars.

The cars are drawn over narrow gauge track by two small locomotives. It is estimated that 80,000,000 cubic feet of gravel can be handled. Local men represent the organization, with the exception of Arthur H. Barendt, an attorney of San Francisco, who is a member of the board. The officers are: Warren V. Clark, president and general manager; E. L. Farrington, vice-president, and Warren H. Clark, secretary-treasurer.
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Some consideration is being given to reopening the lower tunnel in the Bailey Mine at Dedrick, California, this spring, according to S. D. McDonald, who is manager of the ground. It is believed that from two to five feet of good milling gold ore can be opened by this tunnel. The Chloride and Bailey Mines are a part of the Globe Consolidated Mines, which have been idle a number of years. The Bailey vein averaged three and one-half feet between the lower tunnel, and the surface, and yielded $750,000.
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The boarding house and bunkhouses of the River Placers Company, Ltd., at Pike, California, were burned a few days ago. The blaze was caused by a spark from the chimney. Superintendent L. A. Smith is replacing the buildings immediately, at a nearby location.
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The Wallberg Mining Corporation, I. O. Wallberg, president and general manager, Challenge, California, has blocked out approximately 6,000 tons of ore, and plans to put in flotation equipment. A supply of water presents a problem, but within 60 days the management expects to have developed a sufficient supply.
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The Arlington Mining Corporation, Algernon Del Mar, president and general superintendent, Box 668, Victorville, California, is enlarging its 30-ton mill to handle 200 tons daily. This is a low-grade gold ore project, with a large tonnage available. It will be Mined by shovel from an open cut, and later by the caving system. Cyanide and amalgamation are practiced in the recovery of the gold, and Diesel engines furnish power.
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The City of Six Mining Company is producing some gold at Downieville, California, with a force of six men working, according to A. E. Hodgkinson, secretary and manager of the organization, 802 Lane Mortgage Building, Los Angeles. Some consideration is being given to the installation of larger equipment this year, D. E. Hunter, 703 Pacific Mutual Building, Los Angeles, is president of the organization.
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Foundations are completed for a five-stamp unit of a 20-stamp mill purchased recently, by the Brown Bear Mining and Exploration Company at Bagby, California, according to General Manager F. P. Myers. The other units will be installed as fast as development warrants. Approximately 15,000 tons of ore are blocked out, a power line has been installed, and water is available in abundance from the Merced River, 625 feet below the Mine, and one-quarter mile distant. Ten men are working. The vein has been traced in open cuts and drifts at the surface, over a length of 7,500 feet, and is from 3 to 10 feet wide. The formation is slate and porphyry footwall, and diorite hanging wall. About 150 feet south of the shaft on the 250 level, a vein three feet wide intersected the vein that was being followed, and the ore at that point ran $108.72. A. N. Waite at Portola, California, is president.
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Development is to be resumed at the Empire Mine, on French Creek, by April 1, according to James E. Garfield of Etna, California, who is in charge of the property. Test runs were made in the 25-ton ball mill last summer, and the plant will be enlarged in line with more extensive Mine development. The ore has averaged 1.5 ounces gold, and 8.5 percent copper, but the copper content has not been saved. With an increase in the price for this metal it is probable that cyanidation-amalgamation process will be supplemented with equipment to save that metal also.
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The Mt. Ontario Mining Company, George H. Hudson, president, Box 538, Garden Grove, California, will continue its tunnel to what is believed to be a valuable ore fissure. The ore is chalcopyrite, and it is planned to install a small concentrating plant to treat several tons of lower grade that are on the dump.
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According to C. N. Chatfield of Pike, California, the Pleasant View Properties, Ltd., will drive a 550-foot crosscut to tap the Pleasant View channel, and continue the main tunnel north, in the Mt. Alta channel. It is planned to install electric equipment to facilitate the work. C. L. Hudson, 449 South Fourteenth Street, San Jose, is president of the organization.
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The Kirby Development Corporation expects to commence the re-equipping, and further development, of its property at Fourth Crossing, Calaveras county, California, within 60 days, according to President and General Manager A. G. Kirby of San Andreas. No active development is in progress at the present time, but the Mine has been opened to a depth of 700 feet. The proposed development will be carried on by electric power.
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W. H. and G. E. Guthrie of Porterville, California, Star Route No. 1, have secured a lease and bond from the Redfield Gold Mining Company, on property near White River, Tulare county, California, and about 40 miles north of Bakersfield. The new operators are unwatering the shaft, and Ben Rickard is in charge of the work. There is a good steam hoist and pumping plant at the Mine. The Redfield Mine was located in the early 1860’s, and was known as the Last Chance Mine. It was worked by tunnel and shaft to water level, and considerable ore Mined and treated with an eight-stamp mill, driven by an overshot water wheel. The stamps are wooden, hewn oak stems, shod with iron, and the mill still stands a relic of bygone days. The Redfield company sunk the shaft 100 feet below water level, but did not mill any ore.
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Operations are said to have been resumed at the Rotten Boulder Mine, on the east side of the Feather River, four miles south of Magalia, California. The Knox brothers, Clyde and Edgar, own the Mine, and are in charge of the work, which is financed in Los Angeles. They hope to open an extension of the channel famous in the old Blue Hog Mine, which lies above the property.
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California Mining Existence Threatened

The Mining Association of California presents facts to Governor James Rolph, Jr.

During the past month there has been much activity in mining organizations throughout the state of California, in respect to apprising the newly-elected governor as to the problems of the mining industry, and securing action which will provide some relief. Combined delegations of mining men and independent oil producers, have secured audience with Governor Rolph, and urged him to issue a definite policy with respect to mining, and to appoint an authorized head who would be responsible for the carrying out of that policy.

In response, Governor Rolph has stated that he intended separating the Department of Natural Resources into four branches, putting oil and mines under separate heads. This move would require special legislation, and is arousing considerable contention, and it makes the welfare of California mining wait upon a political solution.

J. C. Kemp van Ee, Jr., president of the Mining Association of California, and president of the Belmont Metals Corporation. Mariposa, California, presented a message to Governor Rolph, which summed up the present mining situation in that state as follows:
“The Mining Association of California was possibly first brought to your attention by the appearance of articles in papers throughout the State, expressing our condemnation of the new retired administration, due to its utter indifference toward the mining industry. Last October, at Mariposa, I had the honor to bring the association personally to your attention, through the remark that mining was being legislated out of existence in California.

“Later, when you inquired further, I outlined the reasons for my assertion. But permit me at this time to change that statement, in view of the announcement that on March 1st, the compensation insurance rate affecting Miners will be increased from $9.42, to a minimum of $10.54. This means that for every Miner employed in California, the Mine operator must add to the average wage of his Miners, fifty cents per day, or $160 a year!

“For this same insurance covering identical risks, I am informed British Columbia charges one cent per day. In a word, in this detail alone, it costs the Mine operator $150 more per man per year to produce gold in California, than it does in Canada. And yet the price of gold is standard throughout the world.

“Consequently, I wish to change the statement made to you at Mariposa, that mining is being legislated out of existence and say, in all seriousness and sincerity, that the day this increase is confirmed, gold mining is legislated out of existence in California.
“I base this statement upon the fact that it is only natural and inevitable that with such a burden imposed upon our industry Mine investors and operators, judging the official attitude by the taxes levied, will turn to mining anywhere but in California.

“This situation is critical, arising as it does now that international bankers are
stressing the urgent need of more gold, when Australia has placed a bonus upon its increased gold production, when Great Britain has acknowledged the gold output of the Rand is declining to exhaustion— and the Rand has been supplying half of the total annual gold output for years— and when Canada is offering every inducement in the way of legislative co-operation to Miners to stimulate the development of her natural resources.

“Furthermore, this critical situation is aggravated, and made pathetically absurd by the fact that the greatest and most accessible known source of supply of gold today, is California, of which its Mother Lode, though the most extensive gold lode in the world, is only one of its many richly Mineralized areas. For the first time since ‘49, California has the opportunity to attract the attention of the world to its gold resources, and so enlist national and international capital in the development of its Mines.

“Here we are, provided we are alert to our opportunity, and true to the high obligation our Mineral wealth entails, on the dawn of another great era of mining in California. For the first time since ‘49, mining communities that have died, became ghost towns, and once again, have the possibility of becoming repopulated, of having their streets again filled with the stir of progress, their deserted houses transformed into homes, their stores busy supplying the needs of Mines and Miners, their farmers prospering through the sale of produce to the active camps, and thousands of men no longer unemployed and dispirited, but prosperous wage earners adding to the supply of gold which is the foundation of our economic structure.

“But opportunity is the mother of competition. Just as every nation, so is every state having even the prospect of attracting mining activity, bidding for this business. Every state, that is, except California, the one which according to the unanimous opinion of geologists and mining engineers, is inherently entitled to it.

“The obligation for immediate action on behalf of mining has now passed the phase of mere expediency on behalf of an industry, although that industry is the second largest in California. It has even passed beyond a matter of serious importance to the prosperity and progress of our entire state. It has become one of national and international concern.

“We feel that unless California publishes, through yourself, its policy toward mining, which we know is far-sighted and helpful, this opportunity will be seized by others, and pass us by. More, it will leave us responsible for increasing that growing discontent and unrest, caused by negative and subversive legislation, which is becoming a national menace.

“THEREFORE, the Mining Association of California respectfully urges a special and definite statement by yourself, concerning the policy of this state toward mining, and, “Whereas, a policy without a head, authorized and responsible both to yourself, and those it affects, becomes no more than the expression of a wish without the means of realization, and urges statement of definite policy in respect to mining and method of carrying out policy.

“THEREFORE, the Mining Association of California- further urges the appointment of a director of natural resources, so that Miners will have an accredited official, in whom both yourself and the industry have confidence, to guarantee the intelligent, efficient and conscientious enforcement of that policy.”
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COMMISSIONER INTERPRETS ATTITUDE TOWARDS MINING INDUSTRY

Walter G. Clark of Los Angeles, chairman of the Los Angeles chapter of the mining association of California, recently reported to his organization an interview with California Corporation Commissioner Raymond L. Haight, which gives an enlightening line on the attitude of the present administration towards the mining industry.

Mr. Clark stated the position of the mining association with regard to the California corporate securities act, and explained to Mr Haight, the commissioner, the workings of the Corporate Securities Act of New York, and the state of Washington, and also made some reference to the act in the state of Colorado.

Mr. Haight stated that the act in those various states was based on a different legal structure, than has been accepted by the legislature of the state of California, and that under the present act, he believed that we would be able to secure all the relief that we asked for, and further stated that the abuses that had crept in to the application of the Corporate Securities act, because of too strict a construction, would be remedied.

In the future, he intended to give the act as liberal a construction as is consistent with the purposes for which it was intended, that is to say, he intended to construe the act for the purpose of aiding and assisting corporations, rather than to hamper them, and he particularly stated that it was the governor’s desire to restore mining to its rightful position in the state of California; and he, as corporation commissioner, would be glad to aid mining men in their financial problems, by giving a very liberal construction to the act, so as not to interfere with the right of contract.

He stated further that should any pre-organization or pre-financial agreement between two or more persons, as a syndicate or as a partnership, for the purpose of raising funds for prospecting or developing a mining venture, be submitted to him, he would immediately issue a permit for the carrying out of the terms of the agreement, and the receiving of the money from the parties signing same. That is to say, he would permit any body of men to get together and agree upon a plan of financing or developing a prospect where they themselves agreed upon the amount of money that they would advance.

He did not feel that it was any of his business to make the contract for the syndicate, and as long as the syndicate members were confining the raising of money as between themselves and not offering anything to the public, he could see no reason why a permit should not be immediately issued. This is a more liberal construction than we were able to get under the former commissioners.

Under the present ruling, anyone having a prospect can get together and draw up any agreement that is satisfactory to the parties, and same will be approved by the corporation commissioner. He is not interested in what kind of an agreement the parties have when they themselves make the agreement, and know what it contains; but he would not give a blanket permit to sell stock or interest in a mining venture to the public, without some investigation on his part.

Under a ruling of this kind, the financing of prospects and raising money for development of mines, can be done in advance of getting the permit, but no money can actually be collected until the corporation commissioner issues the permit, and the committee feels that this is a long step toward solving our difficulties with the corporation commissioner, and believes that as long as Mr. Haight is corporate commissioner, that mining in California will be given assistance.
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NEW OPERATORS UNWATER DEEP SHAFT IN RANCH MINE

F. W. Wright and associates of Milton, California, are obtaining encouraging results in the operation of the Ranch Mine, three miles north of Felix, under lease and bond from J. D. McCarty, of Copperopolis, California. From an ore body assaying $5 in gold, and varying in width from one to five feet, they are extracting sufficient ore to keep an 18-ton daily capacity ball mill busy.

The ore is being Mined from a “blanket” vein, which has been opened up to a depth of 60 feet on its dip and a length of 250 feet. At another point on the property the operators are dewatering a 225-foot incline shaft on the Main, or Ranch vein.
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TWO GOLD PROJECTS AT SUTTER CREEK ENLARGE DEVELOPMENT

The Idaho Mines, Ltd., controlled by Shirley Houghton, a mining engineer of San Francisco, and associates, is installing a 50-horsepower gasoline hoist and three-drill compressor on its property, 20 miles north of Sutter Creek, California. The equipment replaces smaller equipment, and will be used in sinking the 350-foot incline shaft deeper.

Levels have been established from the 100, 220 and 350-foot points of the shaft, and the exploration of the upper level has revealed a vein 15 feet wide that assays $7 and $8 in gold, according to Superintendent John Noce. Lateral work on the lower level is being carried on to reach the vein.

Another comparatively new operation that has sprung into being in the Sutter Creek district, is the Quartz Mountain Mine, four and a half miles northeast, where Anderson Callison, Los Angeles and San Francisco oil man, and James R. Murphy, have recently taken charge. Murphy was formerly connected with the Guggenheim interest in Idaho, the old Amalgamated Copper Company in Montana, and the Wingfield properties in Nevada, and has charge of the development.

A hoist and three-drill compressor have been installed to expedite shaft sinking now at the 95-foot point. No extensive lateral work of consequence is planned until the shaft has reached the 150-foot point. The entire bottom is in ore assaying better than $25 a ton in gold and silver, the former predominating, exclusive of high-grade streaks that run into high figures. The vein on which the shaft is being sunk, has an average width of 13 feet, and is traceable at the surface for 8,000 feet.
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STUDY, And be FREE from the BONDS of IGNORANCE!

rehab

Governor’s Committee Investigates Argonaut Disaster E&MJ OCTOBER 28, 1922

Mine Fire That Killed Forty-seven Subject of Inquiry—Statements of Officials Appear Inconsistent.

The first public hearing of testimony by the committee appointed by Governor Stephens, to investigate the circumstances preceding and attending the disastrous fire at the Argonaut mine at Jackson, Calif., was held in San Francisco on Oct. 16. A. B. C. Dohrmann was appointed chairman; the other members are W. J. Loring and John C. Williams.

Will J. French, chairman of the California Industrial Accident Commission, first put upon the record, a statement of the amount of money available for the enforcement of safety laws, and for the education by the commission of the mining communities,in safety work. The amount, he said, should be increased from $18,000,to $50,000 or $100,000 per annum. He stressed the impossibility of adequate inspection with the present personnel of three safety engineers, a number that, he declared, should be increased to eight.

H. M. Wolflin, safety inspector for the commission, gave the date of the most recent inspection of the Argonaut mine as April, 1922, when he said everything was found satisfactory. The safety requirements comprised, he said, (1) the provision of extinguishers in the vicinity of powder magazines, (2) the provision of mine rescue apparatus, and (3) the holding of fire drills,if the commission was of the opinion that a hazard existed. No question was put as to whether it was considered that conditions at the Argonaut mine, made the holding of drills advisable.

The commission, Mr. Wolfiin said in answer to a question, has sufficient legal powers to enforce its regulations. Further inquiry elicited the evidence that the shift boss and skip tenders could probably have put the fire out had adequate apparatus been available.

Fred L. Lowell, assistant mine inspector on the commission’s staff, in reply to a question as to the value of extinguishers, said that a good supply of water was preferable. He recommended the provision of a hose and connection for every 100 ft. of shaft. On the question of the stoppage, or reversal of the fan, at the mouth of the Muldoon shaft, Mr. Lowell said that all concerned were unanimous that the direction of the air currents should be maintained. He was on the property about 1 o’clock on the day after the fire broke out, thirteen hours alter its discovery, and telephoned the commission’s headquarters in San Francisco for Instructions, in regard to the operation of the fan. Continuance of suction down through the Argonaut shaft was advocated.

T. A. Rickard, in his testimony, pointed out the inconsistency in statements made by officials of the commission. If the funds at their command were inadequate, he asked, how was it that the mine had been inspected sufficiently, and that all safety requirements had beet met? He added that he had learned on good authority, that one of the entombed men had telephoned the surface after fire was well under way, and had inquired as to when the skip was to be sent down for them; he suggested that the committee investigate this. In discussing the question of the operation of the fan at the mouth of the Muldoon shaft, Mr. Rickard pointed out that reversal was clearly impracticable, without a loss of several hours, but he was of the opinion that had the fan been stopped immediately, or soon after the fire was discovered, the Argonaut shaft would have become the upcast, and the natural draft caused by the fire would have sucked the foul gases away from the men, and would have created a current of air down the Muldoon shaft, and into the lower workings of the mine, thus permitting the men to escape death by asphyxiation.
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CALIFORNIA E&MJ OCTOBER 28, 1922
U. S. Smelting & Refining Co. Patents Claims—Gold Near Mariposa

Randsburg—About $14,000,000 worth of ore has been blocked out and developed in the California Rand mine,at Randsburg,since its discovery late in 1919, according to the annual report to stockholders, recently issued. Much of this has been shipped, but in addition to the shipments, ore worth $7,728,000 is blocked out to a vertical depth of only 513 ft. From the returns from this development, the company has paid $1,964,800 in dividends, and on Oct. 4 had a cash balance of $383,127.
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Adjoining the California Rand property on the east, is the Coyote claim of the Randsburg Silver Mining Co., which has sunk a shaft 700 ft., and opened up, and drifted on the same vein, as the California Rand mine, blocking out ore to an estimated reserve of $1,000,000. No ore has been shipped from this property, on account of threatened apex litigation with the California Rand Silver Co.
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Kennett—The U. S. Smelting, Refining & Mining Co., owner of the Mammoth and other copper mines in the Kennett district, has obtained a patent for the Spread Eagle group, and other mining claims, in the Flat Creek mining district. These comprise the McKinley, Evening Star, Backbone, Storm King, Link, Red Queen, Wedge, Spread Eagle, Ridge, Tom Boy, Canon, Grey Eagle, Connecting Link, Extension, Jumbo, Copper King, Copper Queen, Great View, Good Hope, Summit, American Girl, Merrimac, and North
Pole.
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Visalia— A discovery of gold, seven miles from Mariposa, is reported by a Visalia rancher. Four partners in the enterprise have located ten claims, extending for a distance of 15,000 ft. The vein is said to be a part of the famous Mother Lode, at a point where mining operations ceased some years ago.

Grass Valley—The Empire and North Star mines are employing about 1,000 men, and are operating at full capacity.
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Jackson—Forty feet of the Argonaut shaft has been retimbered. The objective is the 2,570 level. The bulkhead on the 2,500 level has been removed, and water has been poured down the shaft for several days, in an effort to extinguish the fire.
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The Kentucky mine is operating forty stamps.
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rehab

MINING AND SCIENTIFIC PRESS May 14, 1921

CALIFORNIA

AItavIlle.—Work of straightening and timbering the shaft, at the Toll Gate Mine, is progressing; machinery is being installed. The shaft is to be taken down to the 200-ft. level. The ore on the 100-ft. level was cross-cut 28 ft. with no wall in sight. The mine is equipped with a two-stamp mill, plates, and concentrator.
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The Triple Lode Mine is situated about three-quarters of a mile west of the lode proper in a sulphide area of some promise. The workings on the 250-ft. level have disclosed a number of bodies of heavy sulphide. The ore differs considerably from the ore of the lode, but it may be amenable to cyanide, and therefore more cheaply treated than the lode ores. No mining is being done, but the water is being kept out, pending financing.
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Calaveras County.—A rich find was reported recently in the Washington Mine. The mine is one of the oldest in Calaveras County, and is near the old Calaveras Mine. Workings consist of numerous shallow tunnels and shafts, said to have produced about $300,000, years ago. Recently, ore was found near the end of a 700-ft. drift, and a short stope, 15 ft. high, and 20 ft. long, yielded $1200 on the plates, and about $500 in concentrate. The plant consists of five 850-lb. stamps, a battery built in 1873, plates, and one of the first Wilfley tables used in California.
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At the Morgan Mine, 30 stamps are being operated, having a capacity of 15,000 tons per month. A cross-cut in the lower levels, has opened up another rich shoot in the hanging-wall country. Reserves of some $5,000,000 are reported in the mine.—
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The ten-stamp mill at the Finnegan Mine is ready for operation. A raise was made from the 600-ft. level, to the surface, for the purpose of handling the ore; it is not yet timbered or equipped for hoisting. For the present, the mill will handle the ore on the dump, which will be hoisted to the mill on a tram. Ultimately the mill will be equipped with stamps, classifiers, a Hardinge mill for regrinding, plates, and concentrators. The tailing will be impounded for later treatment by cyanide.
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Twenty stamps are now dropping in the mill of the Angels Camp Deep Company. The grade of ore milled is being slowly bettered, and the development work both on the 500 and the 200-ft. level is being pushed.
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Grass Valley.—Approximately a thousand miners are employed in the mines of the district. Of these 450 are engaged at the Empire-Pennsylvania group, 250 at the North Star, 100 at the Idaho-Maryland. 25 at the Sultana, 25 at the Allison Ranch, and the remainder in various small properties of the district. The wage agreement between the operators, and the Mine Workers Protective League, expires July 1. It is reported that the company will endeavor to establish a lower scale on the ground, now that the cost of living has decreased.
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Jackson.—The Moore Mining Co. has purchased new equipment, and will re-open its mine, one mile south of here. Horace O. Perry is manager.
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Redding.—Plans and specifications for an aerial tramway 18,329 ft. long, have been completed by the Mountain Copper Co., operating the Hornet Mine, at Keswick. The tramline is designed to deliver ore direct from the mine, to the loading platform of the Southern Pacific Co., and is scheduled to go into service about November 1. The company has developed a large tonnage of pyritic ore in the Hornet property, and is shipping the product to plants on San Francisco Bay, for conversion into chemicals and fertilizers. The Hornet also contains deposits of low-grade copper ore, but this material will be held in reserve until the copper market warrants production.
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Lawrence Gardella, of Orovllle, who has operated two gold dredges on Clear Creek, three miles below here, for several years, has contracted to pay the American Gold Dredging Co. $75,000, for 310 acres of pasture land lying directly west of his own holdings. Gardella’s dredges have worked up to the west line of his ground. Now that the deal has been made for the land further up the creek, his No. 1 dredge will go into the new field, which has been thoroughly prospected. According to the agreement, Gardella is to pay for the land at the rate of $3000 per month.
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rehab

May 1, 1920 MINING AND SCIENTIFIC PRESS

CALIFORNIA

Amador County —Arrangements have been made for reopening of the Fremont Consolidated Mine, under new management. Repairs are being made to the surface plant, and the pumps will soon commence un-watering the old workings.
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—The Garibaldi is yielding high-grade ore, and is to be developed on a greater scale.
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—Representatives of outside capital are investigating the Drytown Consolidated and Crown Point mines with a view to their rehabilitation, according to advices.
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Plumas County —The discovery of copper carbonate, in the drift left of the main tunnel, is reported from the Feather River group. This ore was cut about 610 ft. from the tunnel portal. The company recently ordered additional equipment.
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Operations are In progress at the Engels, Walker, Gruss, Beardsley, Trask, & Coffer, and other copper properties in the Plumas field, which is now the foremost producer of copper in California. Despite the high cost of labor and material, and the unfavorable market, operations in the Plumas field are active.
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May 1, 1920 MINING AND SCIENTIFIC PRESS 623

T. A. RICKARD, Editor

FIRE is said to have destroyed the little settlement of Columbia, in Tuolumne County, CA, on April 24. This early Californian mining camp is one of many communities born during the romantic days of the first gold discoveries, in the foothills of the Sierra. Gold was found there in March 1850, and a population of 6000 miners, with 143 faro-banks soon enlivened this lovely spot amid the woods. At that exciting period, Columbia had ambition to become the capitol of California; in late years it dwindled to a few score derelicts, left by the receding tide of mining activity along that part of the Mother Lode.

We remember, many years ago, stumbling upon a group of abandoned cabins, in a quiet corner of Calaveras County. The only sounds were the murmur of a mountain rivulet, and the hammering of a woodpecker. A couple of seedy-looking Chinese were ground-sluicing, where once an eager community of hopeful diggers had sought their fortune.

The name of the camp survived upon a weather-beaten post. “El Dorado” it was called. ‘El huomo dorado’, the gilded man! The myth of the Venezuelan wilds, where Raleigh first heard of the Indian chief that was covered with gold. ‘Eldorado’ has become synonymous with romantic expectation, not in mining affairs alone; so does the high expectancy of youth end in the derelict purpose of old age.

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