G2 MDfING INDUSTET. 



datum-point, and extends from the Sides through the productive part of the 

 Ophir. It will be seen that this chamber contracts at the north end of the 

 Ophir; and if the walls retain their present direction for 200 feet further north 

 they will come again into contact and form the north limit of the Ophir cham- 

 ber. From the south, the west-wall syenite continues to about the middle of 

 the Central Number 2 claim; from that point northward, the west wall is of 

 propylite — a dense, heavy rock, containing an unusually large proportion of 

 hornblende, and frequently much decomposed and interlaced by filaments of 

 quartz. The east wall here, as everywhere, is of the normal porphyritic 

 propylite. It is defined by a very heavy body of clay. Lying next this 

 seam is a sheet of quartz, varying from 6 to 100 feet in thickness, known as 

 the white vein. It was here, in the early days of Washoe mining, that the 

 highly crushed quartz was first found, and, from its position, came to be called 

 the Ophir quartz. In this, for 200 feet of longitudinal extent, occurred the 

 great Ophir bonanzas. Lying west of the quartz, and defined from it by the 

 usual sheet of clay, was a propylite horse, remarkable for its unusual thinness 

 and its great length of 1,100 feet. It is rarely over 20 feet wide, although in 

 the South Ophir it once reached 35 feet. This horse, from the Union Tunnel 

 level, thins downward until it terminates in a mere clay vein, which, for a con- 

 siderable distance, separates the white quartz from the red seam, which lies 

 directly to the west of the horse, but, on descending, the clay ceases, and the 

 two quartz-bodies lie side by side. Next west of the porphyry horse is what 

 has been known as the red vein, or hard quartz. It has about the same thick- 

 ness as the porphyry horse, and extends from 300 feet north of the north 

 Mexican line into the Grould and Curry. It is hard, blocky, filled with crys- 

 talline vugs, and differently charged with minerals from the white vein. West 

 of this, and separated fi-om it by another clay seam, lies the great Ophir horse, 

 a mass of clear propylite, averaging 125 feet in thickness, and extending north- 

 ward to the end of the chamber, and south into the Sides claim. This mass, 

 of 1,100 feet in length, thins as it descends, meeting the west wall and cutting 

 off" the further continuance of the so-called Virginia vein, lying west of it. In 

 the Ophir and Mexican a limited body of white quartz lies between the Vir- 

 ginia vein and the great Ophir horse. It terminates on the Union Tunnel 

 level, at about the southern line of the Ophir. This quartz contains some ore, 



