182 



GEOLOGY AND QUICKSILVER DEPOSITS, NEW ALMADEN DISTRICT, CALIFORNIA 



FIGURE 107. The Hacienda, or furnace area. In 1854. The buildings with the smokestacks bouse 12 furnaces like that Illustrated In figure 

 106. The long building with the weather vane, shown on the right, was the Hacienda office and part of It remained standing in liMlt. 

 Deep Gulch leading up to the mine Is shown on the extreme right of the drawing. Prom Harpers Monthly Magazine. 



tion had been mined from a compact group of stopes 

 lying under the original outcrops near the summit of 

 Mine Hill and extending down to a depth of only 

 600 feet. 



In January 1861, when the court's decision had been 

 reappealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, Barren, Forbes, 

 & Co. again began operating the mine even though 

 the injunction had not been lifted. And they con- 

 tinued to operate it without any title after the Su- 

 preme Court, late in 1862, decided by a vote of 4 to 3 

 against the Castillero claim. On May 8, 1863, Presi- 

 dent Lincoln, with the authority of the Supreme 

 Court, dispatched Leonard Swett to California with a 

 writ ordering C. W. Rand, the U.S. Marshal for 

 northern California, to enter onto the New Almaden 

 property, to put off the operators by force if neces- 

 sary, and to turn everything over to Swett. Oddly, 

 Swett arrived in San Francisco accompanied by S. F. 

 Butterworth, the president of the Quicksilver Mining 

 Co. When these two, accompanied by Rand, reached 

 the mine they were refused entry, and the refusal was 

 backed by 170 tough miners armed with rifles and 

 shotguns. The official party withdrew, and Federal 

 cavalry were ordered to be in readiness to seize the 

 mine by force. Before this could be done, however, 

 public opinion was inflamed by scorching editorials 

 in the newspapers, which suggested that the Govern- 

 ment was planning to seize all mines, and because of 



the importance of gold mining in California many of 

 its citizens were clamoring to withdraw from the 

 Union and join the Southern States in the Civil War. 

 The Governors of California and Nevada, with many 

 other influential friends, sent frantic telegrams to Lin- 

 coln demanding that he rescind his order, and he did 

 so in a telegram which explained that no wholesale 

 seizure of the mines by the Government was contem- 

 plated. 



As the title dispute involved parties of two nations, 

 it was submitted for international arbitration, and 

 King William I of Prussia was agreed upon as arbi- 

 trator. A compromise was reached whereby the Quick- 

 silver Mining Co. was granted a clear title to the 

 Castillero claim on payment of $1,750,000 to Barron, 

 Forbes, & Co., and on September 1, 1863, the new com- 

 pany began a 50-year period of operation of the mine. 



When the Quicksilver Mining Co. took over the 

 property they found that the former operators had 

 stopped development work 8 months before and had 

 concentrated their energies on mining out all the 

 really good ore from the stopes. As a result the new 

 operators were obliged to furnace a large amount of 

 low-grade ore previously rejected, and meanwhile they 

 began exploring for new ore bodies. In this explora- 

 tion they were particularly fortunate, for in August 

 1864 they struck the exceedingly rich Velasco ore 

 body. Then early in 1865 the North Ardilla ore was 



