THE LODE QUESTION. 113 



sion of the compromise line belonged to the Eureka company, as a vertical 

 plane passing through the compromise line, and its extension was, by virtue 

 of the agreement between the two parties, the boundary of their individual 

 rights; moreover, that the Richmond company could not follow the ore 

 outside of a vertical plane passing through their end line. 



Decision of the United States Supreme Court. The CaSe WaS Carried tO the United 



States Supreme Court, on appeal, and the decision of the lower court was 

 sustained by Chief Justice Waite, upon the ground that the agreement 

 effected between the two parties in 1873 gave all ground situated on the 

 northwest side of a vertical plane passing through the compromise line to 

 the Richmond company and all that lying to the southeast of this plane to 

 the Eureka company, and that the conditions under which this compromise 

 was made necessitated the prolongation of this plane across the mineral 

 zone. Chief Justice Waite did not state whether, in his opinion, this min- 

 eral zone between the quartzite and shale or clay constituted a lode or not. 



Summary of the physical characteristics of the mineral zone. Beginning at the extreme 



southeastern corner of the plan of contacts (Plate III.), a belt of limestone 

 is visible which Mr. Arnold Hague has determined as Cambrian, and to 

 which he has given the name of Prospect Mountain limestone. This lime- 

 stone extends in a northwesterly direction nearly to the Albion shaft; is 

 bounded on the southwest by a mass of quartzite, also Cambrian, and on 

 the northeast by a belt of stratified limestone and shale belonging to the 

 same period. These three formations, which all dip to the northeast, were 

 originally laid down one upon the other at the bottom of the sea and 

 afterwards raised above water at the close of ,the Carboniferous. At some 

 period subsequent to their upheaval and prior to the deposition of ore, a 

 deep and extensive fissure and fault cut through these formations. Its 

 course was about northwest and its dip about 70° to the northeast. For 

 the present purpose, it can be taken as extending from one end of the plan 

 of contacts to the other. It can be seen near the surface southwest of 

 the American shaft, in the Jackson, Bell-shaft and Utah tunnels, and in 

 a short incline beyond the Richmond mine office, and may be visible in 

 other places. It no doubt could be traced for the whole distance exposed 

 on the map if trouble were taken to remove the debris from the rock in 

 place. This fissure is exposed in numerous places underground and its inter- 

 2654 L 8 



