642 THE SAN JUAN MINES. 



work on during the day, we find the time passes rapidly and enjoyably 

 Winter is 2^<^'>' excellence the time to work a mine. The warm sun, green 

 hillsides and valleys, and the perfume of a thousand flowers do not tempt 

 you from your work, and you feel quite content to peg away with pick and 

 shovel, sledge and drill, with the bright prospect of being, mayhaps, a mil- 

 lionaire in the spring. 



The three principal silver mining districts of the San Juan are 

 the Lake, Animas and Sneffels, and in all of these rapid strides toward 

 improvement have taken place during the past season. In the first the 

 strides seem to have been too rapid, and a rush to Lake City took place 

 early in the spring, which neither the advance of the season or the richness 

 ofthe mines in the least warranted. Hundreds went there and returned 

 disgusted. They were of two classes — the capitalist, who on arriving there, 

 found snow still deep on the ground and none of the mines to be seen ; and 

 the poor deluded wretches, who, misled by the lies published in "one-hor6.e" 

 mining sheets and copied into eastern newspapers by ignorant and careless 

 editors, came in on foot expecting to find silver and gold lying about loose, 

 or to get plenty of work at high wages. The former returned by the first 

 •coach — the latter, God knows what became of them — I saw dozens re- 

 turning hungry and footsore. Lake City had a wagon road to it, and that 

 is what made the place ; Silverton, the capital of the Animas district, has 

 none, and the one to Ouray, the only mining camp in this district, has been 

 through Lake City. The consequence was, a tremendous rush to the latter 

 place and it was over-run ; a reaction has of course taken place, and it is 

 now as flat as ditchwater. 



There are two smelt mills there — Bernard's and Crook's — the former is 

 buying ore, but has not yet made a vein ; the latter has shut down and the 

 owner gone out for the winter. There are also lixiviation works there 

 which have been running all summer on ore from this district, packed to 

 Lake City at a cost of $45 per ton. It was principally from the " Wheel of 

 Fortune," whose ore (1st, 2d and 3rd class), has averaged this season 225 

 ounces of silver to the ton. Twenty tons of ore from this now celebrated 

 mine, ran 800 ounces per ton. So some idea may be formed of the richness 

 ofthe mines. These lixiviation works ha\?e also shut down and the owners 

 gone out to hibernate elsewhere. In the mines around Silverton, great 

 activity has been manifested this season. Greene & Co.'s smelter has been 

 running night and day all summer, and they have sent out between 300 and 

 400 tons of bullion, averaging $250 per ton. The Cement Creek Chlorina- 

 tion works at Camp Gladstone, seven miles from Silverton, have been erected 

 this season for a London company by Mr. J. H. Ernest Waters, M. E., F.E. 

 S., a graduate of the Eoyal School of Mines, and an engineer of some dis- 

 tinction in English mining circles. Their machinery is all in, and by this 

 time they have made their trial run. Their caipacity is 15 tons per diem; 

 Greene & Co.'s 10. Messrs. Melville & Summerfield's Lightning Amalga- 

 tion works in Silverton, through some mistake in the management, failed to 



