HISTORY OF THE NEW ALMADEN MINES 



187 



FIGURE 112. Shaft houses for the famous Randol shaft. Note the tremendous piles of mine timbers to the left of the buildings. 

 The headframe shows the unique construction wherein the hoist cable extends toward the hoist house at an oblique angle to 

 the head frame. From C. N. Schuette. 



fully charged. The New World ore bodies, which lay 

 to the south of Mine Hill in the vicinity of the San 

 Francisco shaft, had been discovered in June 1874, and 

 these were found to pitch southward to about the level 

 of the Day tunnel, which was therefore extended to 

 facilitate handling this ore. In December 1884, to 

 explore the ground above the Santa Rita stopes, the 

 Santa Rita shaft was started. To prospect the ground 

 lying farther south at lower levels the Washington 

 shaft (fig. 120), originally known as the Garfield 

 shaft, was started in November 1881 and sunk to the 

 1100 level by 1885. Although extensive drifts were 

 run on the 900, 1000, and 1100 levels only a little ore 

 was obtained between the 800 and 900 levels. The 

 Cora Blanca mine, on the east slope of Mine Hill, 

 had yielded a little ore in 1865; so in 1873 another 

 shaft, named after the mine, had been put down to 

 explore that area at depth. Unexpectedly it pene- 

 trated ore at a depth of only 50 feet, and this opened 

 out into fair-sized ore bodies which extended down 

 below the 800 level. To prospect the ore-bearing struc- 

 tures at greater depth another shaft, named the Grey 

 shaft in honor of one of the mining captains, was 

 begun in 1876 from a point some 700 feet farther east. 

 This shaft reached the 1100 level and was connected 

 to the Cora Blanca shaft on the 800 level, but although 

 apparently favorable structures persisted to the deep- 

 est workings, no ore was found. 



A more ambitious undertaking was the Hacienda 

 tunnel, which was begun in Almaden Canyon at the 

 level of the furnaces in January 1867, with the inten- 

 tion of draining the whole mine to the 1200 level and 

 furnishing a more direct haulage route to the furnace. 

 This tunnel would have had to be more than a mile 

 long to reach under the central part of the mine, but 

 it was worked on only intermittently until it had 

 almost reached the structures already explored on the 

 1100 level from the Grey shaft. When it was aban- 

 doned in October 1879, it had been enlarged to a di- 

 ameter of 8 by 8 feet and was more than half a mile 

 long. At the time of its conception the Hacienda 

 tunnel was a worthwhile undertaking, for transport- 

 ing the ore from stopes to the furnaces was costly. 

 The ore that was backpacked up to the Main tunnel 

 (300 level) was trammed to the head of an incline 

 above the Cora Blanca mine, let down the incline (fig. 

 109), trammed around the hill to the head of a second 

 incline, again let down, and again reloaded for a short 

 haul to the furnaces. Later, when the Day and Ran- 

 dol tunnels provided outlets on the 800 level, the situ- 

 ation was somewhat improved, but it was still neces- 

 sary either to utilize the lower incline or to haul the 

 ore down the hill in wagons. 



In October 1885 a very costly attempt to expand the 

 mine westward commenced with the sinking of the 

 America shaft and the simultaneous driving of a 2,000- 



