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SAN JUAN TO NORTH BLOOMFIELD. 397 
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 1600 feet in length 
at the upper end of the tunnel, and the undercurrents in the cafion 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 general cleaning of the whole length of the 
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 
ai, 1879." 
Work was commenced at the North Bloomfield mine in 1866, 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. Profit. 
1866 — 1874 ; : ; : 4 : : . $218,073.42 $ 2,232.84 
1874-1875 . : P , : 2 ; : 83,078.63 22,072.45 
1875 — 1876 : A : ‘ E 2 : . 200,366.54 98,476.28 
1876-1877 . 4 : : ; ‘ : A 291,125.42 148,172.09 
1877 — 1878 : : : : ; , : . 311,276.70 140,635.61 
1879 - 4 3 ; 2 : é ; 331,759.76 183,855.09 
" 1,435,680.47 $595,444.36 
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 oe 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 Caiion, 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 be 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 neigh- 
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 Run 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 Cafion, there are small bodies of gravel, near the junction of lava and slate-rock, which 
