112 SILVER-LEAD DEPOSITS OF EUREKA, NEVADA. 



perpendicular plane passing through this line, that the Eureka company- 

 claimed as the limit of their ground. In order to establish their claim it 

 was necessary that the Eureka should prove that they possessed a lode, or, 

 at any rate, a mineralized zone within the meaning of the United States 

 mining laws. The Richmond company, on the other hand, claimed the 

 whole of the Potts chamber, inasmuch as they had a light to follow their 

 body of ore, as developed in the Richmond, as it passed into the Eureka 

 claim beyond the extreme northeasterly point of the compromise line as it 

 was originally established. This body of ore, which was continuous, or 

 very nearly so, from the surface down to the deepest workings of the mine 

 (at that time about the ninth level), followed a fissure or system of fissures 

 for nearly the whole distance. Sometimes the ore was found on the lower 

 side of the fissure planes, sometimes on the upper, the fissures frequently 

 expanding into an ore body. The course of the fissures was about N. 45° W. 

 On the other hand, the Eureka company followed an ore body lying on the 

 quartzite from some distance above the end of the fifth level down to below 

 the seventh. From this point ore was traced to the body at the end of the 

 ninth level which connected with the Potts chamber. 



There was considerable difference of testimony in regard to the con- 

 tinuity of the ore-connection between the Eureka seventh and ninth levels. 

 In some places it consisted of iron, oxide carrying but a small amount of 

 gold and silver, which was found along the quartzite. 



In view of the existence of a secondary fissure between the quartzite 

 and limestone, which the investigations forming the subject of this report 

 have proved, this ore-connection was a valid one. The Eureka and Rich- 

 mond, therefore, each established the existence of a lode leading into the 

 Potts chamber from their respective claims. The former claimed that their 

 lode extended from the quartzite to what they called the shale (the clay of 

 the Ruby Hill fault or main fissure), and the latter that their lode was 

 wholly in limestone and had no connection with either quartzite or shale. 



Decision of judge Field. — The court decided that the belt of limestone between 

 the quartzite and shale (as understood by the Eureka people) constituted a 

 lode in the sense of the law of 1872 and the usage of miners, and that, 

 therefore, the portion of the Potts chamber situated southeast of the exten- 



