SAN JUAN TO NORTH BLOOMFIELD. 



397 



general cleaning of the whole length of the 



The gold at Malakoff is usually in small grains, which exhibit a coarse or " nuggetty " exterior. 

 There is no fine, scaly gold. Occasionally a heavy nugget worth as much as twenty dollars is 

 found. 



For the greater part of the distance in the long tunnel the current of water and gravel runs 

 directly upon bed-rock, the appliances for saving gold being chiefly the sluice of 1G00 feet in length 

 at the upper end of the tunnel, and the undercurrents in the canon below the tunnel's mouth. A 

 " clean up " of the sluice takes place about twice a month ; the undercurrents (some of them) are 

 cleaned every six or eight weeks, but there is no 

 tunnel oftener than once a year. 



The following facts are compiled from the " Annual Report to the Stockholders of the North 

 Bloomfield Gravel Mining Company, with Statement of Accounts for the year ending December 

 31, 1879. 



Work was commenced at the North Bloomfield mine in 186G, but there was little profit until 

 after 1874. The yield and profit for the first eight years and for each fiscal year since have been 

 as follows : 



Yield. 



$218,073.42 



83,078.63 



V 



o . ■ 



1866 - 



-1874 



1874- 



- 1875 



1875- 



- 1876 



1876 - 



-1877 



1877- 



•• 1878 



1879- 





200,366.54 

 291,125.42 

 311,276.70 

 331,759.76 



$1,435,680.47 



Profit. 



$2,232.84 

 22,072.45 



98,476.28 

 148,172.09 



140,635.61 



183,855.09 



$595,111.36 



There have been fifteen dividends paid since the start, aggregating $ 438,750, equal to $9.75 per 

 share on 45,000 shares. There have been forty-three assessments collected, aggregating $ 1,545,000. 

 The company has valuable property and property rights, but has bonds out amounting to $450,000, 

 and a floating debt of $9,600. 



The other mines and diggings in the vicinity of North Bloomfield are of small importance com- 

 pared with the mine at Malakoff. It is not yet made out with certainty what their true relations 

 are. Further explorations will have to be made under the lava or tufa which caps the ridge above 

 this point for several miles before the question can be settled. In the Black — or Cadwallader — 

 diggings, which lie on Humbug Canon, near the centre of the town of North Bloomfield, there is 

 said to be no blue gravel, but only the yellowish-red material which might be looked for on a rim- 

 rock. The gravel is not much washed, and it may all belong to some small branch or tributary of 

 the main stream. The gravel at the Marlowe ground also appeared to me to bo lying upon a steep 

 rim-rock or upon the steep slope of some tributary ravine. The bed-rock flume at the Cook and 

 Porter ground, according to the measurements of Mr. Perkins, is 477 feet above the bed-rock at 

 the Malakoff Shaft No. 8. 



It has been already stated that the top of the ridge is covered with volcanic tufa in the nefoh- 

 borhood of Lake City. A reference to the General Gravel Map will show that the lava extends 

 down as far as a point nearly north of Columbia Hill. The lowest lava that I saw in this vicinity 

 was at a point on the Bloody Bun ditch, from which the bearing of Columbia Hill was approxi- 

 mately S. 5° W. (magnetic). This observation indicates that the coloring for lava is carried about 

 half a mile too far down on the map. This lava is supposed by some to cover a channel of aurif- 

 erous gravel, different from and partly parallel with the main channel, on which the Columbia Hill 

 and Malakoff mines are. Some support for this supposition is found in the occurrence of detached 

 beds of gravel at altitudes considerably above that of the present upper surface of the main deposit. 

 For example, on the road from Columbia Hill to Lake City, which lies near the line of junction 

 of the slate and the lava, I noticed, while riding in the stage, a small amount of rolled gravel at 

 too high an altitude to be looked upon as belonging to the principal deep channel. At the lower 

 extremity of the lava-flow, and at several points on the northern slope of the ridge near the head 

 of Grizzly Canon, there are small bodies of gravel, near the junction of lava and slate-rock, which 





























