](| A N C I ENT M IN I N'<i 



There is ;• heavy vein half a mile wesf uf the East Vein, which is styled the 

 VVesI or the - - 1 1 i 11 Vein," where the old works arc similar in all respects to those 

 ahove noticed and sketched on the East Vein. Those on the "Owl Creek" Vein 

 arc net so extensive, because the creek occupies the "back" of the lode. Still 

 further east other veins are seen with pits, not only on this location, but on that of 

 the Eagle Harbor Mining Company. Broken stone mauls are common in all of 

 them. About the point where the Owl Creek crosses the " scoriaceous" or metal 

 bearing bed J (J, the excavations on that bed near the creek are very marked. 

 Here is something similar to the cave on the Waterbury Location. 



A very large pit to the east of Owl Creek was partially explored by S. W. Hill, 

 Esq., the Superintendent of the mine, in 1S.V.2. By running in an adit on a level 

 eighteen feet below the edge of the depression, after passing some distance in the 

 gravel, rock was met in place; cutting through this at a distance of 100 feet, the 

 miners discovered loose fragments and rubbish that had been handled, and pieces 

 of timber still in good preservation. The adit was not deep enough to drain the 

 pit to its bottom, and its depth was not ascertained. I have in my possession a 

 portion of a pine tree from the end of this adit, in complete preservation, except a 

 part which was charred by fire. The adjacent rock contained sheet copper, and 

 small lumps, being a part of the metalliferous band. 



By examining the section, it will be seen that the order of succession in the strata 

 is as follows: — 



Beginning at the shore of the lake first, a bed of trap, that dips northerly. It 

 rests upon a stratum of red conglomerate of great thickness, dipping conformably 

 under the trap, and is succeeded by conformable 1 and alternating beds of trap and 

 red sandstone, known by the geologist as the "Potsdam" red. 



In these beds the mineral veins are not rich enough for working; a fact, which 

 the ancients knew full well, for it was only on the regular and uniform strata of trap 

 underlying the variable beds that they expended their labor. 



<r On clearing out some of the old pits, Air. Hill found wooden shovels like those 

 at the Waterbury Mine, more or less worn and of the same size and shape. In 

 the bottom of trenches, and among the rubbish, the workmen saw continually ashes 

 and charcoal, with other traces of the presence of fire. They threw out frequently 

 broken hammers or "mauls," with a groove around the middle. These mauls weigh 

 from five to fifteen pounds, and are merely oblong water-worn boulders of hard, 

 tough rocks. Nature has done everything in fashioning them, except the groove, 

 which was chiselled around the middle. They were collected from the smooth 

 boulders of the lake shore, and from banks of coarse gravel that abound in the 

 country. Most of them are trap; but the hornblende, sienitic and granitic rocks 

 furnish some. The ring or groove appears to have been cut for the purpose of 

 attaching a withe, to lie used as a handle, wherewith to swing the maul. In one of 

 the trenches on the Cliff Mine, north of the upper engine, one was found with a 

 root of cedar still twisted in the groove, but so much decayed that it fell to pieces 

 and was not brought away. Dr. M. D. Senter, of the Cliff Mine, states that he 

 saw it before being disturbed, and it. was evidently the intention of the operators 

 to use the twisted root or withe for a handle. V 



