WATER. 109 



machinery with which the shaft was equipped even while sinking to the 

 840-foot level. When this level was reached a cross-cut was driven to the 

 old workings with which connection was made just above the twelfth level, 

 a little over 1,000 feet below the top of the Lawton shaft. The water from 

 the Locan shaft was allowed to flow along this cross-cut and enter the 

 twelfth level, where, joining with the other water on that level, it was con- 

 ducted to the "water winze" on the Richmond ninth. 



Shortly before this report was finished, pumping machinery having a 

 capacity of 600 gallons per minute was completed at the Locan shaft and 

 sinking was continued. Stratified limestone and shale were struck at a 

 depth of 1,020 feet, The stratification of this bed was nearly horizontal, 

 and at a depth of over 1,200 feet the shaft had not penetrated it. A south- 

 west cross-cut was run from the 1,200-foot station to the main fissure, a 

 distance of 300 feet. The first 60 feet were in shale and the rest in a mass 

 of limestone mixed with clay, which is the product of the Ruby Hill fault. 

 The fault fissure contained ore, and when it was cut by the drift a body 

 of water was developed which soon filled the cross-cut in spite of the pump. 

 The flow of water was so sudden that the men had barely time to escape 

 from the drift. It rose to a height of 1 ,03") feet in the shaft (about 50 feet 

 above the water level in the Richmond), and up to the present time (Decem- 

 ber, 1883) it has not been possible to materially lower it. 



The flow of water from the shale was not as great as from the lime- 

 stone above it, the shale acting as a barrier. It will be observed that 

 before the large body of water was struck in the end of the cross-cut from 

 the 1,200-foot level of the Locan shaft, the water rose in the shaft to the 

 840-foot level, and ran into the twelfth level of the old workings, but after 

 the fissure was cut it only rose to 1,035 feet, or about the upper surface of 

 the shale. The fact that the tapping of the main fissure partially drained the 

 twelfth and thirteenth levels, shows that there was a water channel between 

 these levels and the point at which the vein was cut on the 1,200-foot level 

 of the Locan shaft, and as this water, as well as that which drained into the 

 shaft from the limestone overlying the shale, would not rise higher than 

 1,035 feet, a level which is but a few feet higher than the water level in 

 the Richmond, it would appear that there was a water channel also along 



