72 MINING INDUSTRY. , 



Quartz. — A third, and by far the most important, series of vein-materials 

 are the bodies of quartz which everywhere throughout the lode fill the larger 

 openings. In Gold Hill a single but imperfectly known quartz fills the lode 

 from the southernmost workings up to the Middle Belcher. From this point 

 to the northern limits of the Gold Hill group the two bodies diverge from the 

 surface and fill those fissures already described. North of Gold Hill, through 

 the Alpha and Bullion, there is again but one vein which, in the Chollar, 

 widens to the northward and finally splits into three forks, separating and 

 inclosing the two great propylite horses, and finally curving to the west, 

 gradually converging and terminating upon the syenite. Following the zone 

 of eastern fissures are several masses of quarts, arranged concentrically within 

 the east wall. As in the Chollar, this mass, after thickening rapidly toward 

 the north, diverges and again includes two horses, and following still further 

 the Chollar example, its two spurs bend across the lode and terminate 

 upon the west wall of the Gould and Curry. North of this point are three 

 veins of quartz, which make their appearance successively further to the west 

 and north. The easternmost of these is an immense sheet, rarely less than a 

 hundred feet wide, continuing along the east wall to the northern limits of the 

 Ophir. The next is a red body, which extends from the Gould and Curry, also 

 through the Ophir, lying between two horses of propylite. The third, or 

 Virginia vein, as it was called in early days, outcropped back of the Consoli- 

 dated claim and extended indefinitely northward, not improbably connecting 

 with the Sacramento works upon Cedar Hill. Like the horses these masses 

 vary from a few hundred to 2,000 feet in length. 



The quartz differs in different positions, both in the degree to which 

 it has been subjected to dynamical forces, and in the modifications it has 

 undergone by chemical action. Those sheets which lie either in contact with, 

 or in close proximity to, the west wall are of a larger crystalline texture and 

 more sparry luster, and have a greater tendency to crystallize round open vugs, 

 and a generally harder character than those bodies which accompany the ore- 

 channel. These differences, together with the frequent occurrence of included 

 angular fragments of country-rock, chiefly mark the upper levels of the west 

 portions bf the lode. As the west bodies descend they approach more and 

 more those of the ore-channel, and from their close proximity have shared the 

 same conditions, so that toward the bottom of the wedge-like expansion of the 



