120 WALKS AND TALKS. 



The contents of the lode are somewhat miscellaneously dis- 

 posed. Besides the great prismatic horse just mentioned, are 

 many smaller fragments of country rock, together with clay, 

 quartz and silver-bearing minerals. Most of the ore contains 

 both silver and gold, but the proportions of the two metals vary 

 in different parts of the lode. From the whole lode the yield of 

 gold has been 43 per cent and of silver 57 per cent. The 

 richest quartz lies nearest the hanging wall. A mass of ore 

 rich enough to pay for working is styled a " bonanza." An ore 

 must afford fifteen or twenty dollars a ton to pay. The cele- 

 brated " great bonanza" averaged $80 to the ton. It was 

 composed of crushed quartz, including fragments of country 

 rock, and carried a few hard, narrow, vein-like seams of very 

 rich black ores ; while nearly the whole mass of the crushed 

 or " sugar quartz" was impregnated, to a moderate extent, 

 with native gold and stephanite, which is an arsenical sulphide 

 of silver known sometimes as brittle silver glance. Even the 

 country rock was also charged with these ores. 



It would not be proper to enter further into particulars of 

 this kind. But glance a moment at the mechanical operations. 

 Perhaps you think the miners attacked the wonderful Lode at 

 its outcrops, and followed it down on a slope into the earth. 

 Not at all. As soon as this method of exploration had re- 

 vealed the position and promise of the lode, great capitalists 

 laid out the work according to methods sanctioned by centu- 

 ries of experience in other countries. Going some hundreds 

 of feet to the east of the lode, a vertical shaft would be sunk 

 until the lode was struck. At frequent intervals, horizontal 

 passages were excavated westward to the lode, and through 

 the lode to the foot wall. From these, other passages or gal- 

 leries were excavated along the lode. From these numerous 

 galleries, the various ore-bodies were discovered and worked 

 out, within the limits of the claim. There is a large number 

 of claims or properties along the lode, and there are twenty- 

 four shafts sunken on the east. In course of time, the va- 

 rious mining operations have been brought into some degree 

 of concert and system. Without this, the difficulties of the 



