THE COMSTOOK LODE. 73 



lode, the east and west bodies are very nearly alike. The sheets connected 

 with the ore-channel are far more finely crushed than the western bodies, are 

 rarely reddened to a considerable depth, and, even in their finer mineralogical 

 features, preserve throughout the entire length of the lode a remarkable 

 uniformity. 



The quartz is of a milky-white tint, of a somewhat pearly luster, and of 

 unusually compact, fine-grained texture. From the surface to the deepest 

 levels these bodies have been more or less disintegrated. The crushing force 

 has in places reduced them to a powder, equal in fineness to commercial salt, 

 and it is rarely ever the case that the fragments exceed a foot in diameter, 

 while those of the west vein, especially where they approach the surface, are 

 in the form of large angular blocks, in some instances solid for a hundred 

 feet together. Prominent instances of the solid west masses are the Eldo- 

 rado outcrop of the Grould and Curry, and the Virginia vein, situated in the 

 Ophir group. This latter has a thickness of a hundred feet and a longitudinal 

 extent of over a thousand feet of compact, solid rock. In Grold Hill both 

 divisions, since they belong equally to the ore-channel, are crushed very nearly 

 alike, yet the same tendency to finer powdering is observable in the eastern 

 body. Beside this general structure, characterizing all, each vein has within 

 its limits more or less changes. The common arrangement is in zones, 

 v/hich continue throughout the entire length of the sheet. Nearly all the 

 great ore-bearing bodies are in the form of parallel layers of crushed quartz, 

 rarely ever separated from each other by any strong line of demarcation, but 

 still so characteristically defined as to be traceable by the eye. A prominent 

 example of this zonal arrangement has already been given in the notes on the 

 Belcher mine. Here is, in fact, a single body of quartz, 61 feet in thickness, 

 composed of five layers, which, both physically and mineralogically, differ from 

 each other. Not only are the sizes of the fragments different in different 

 zones, but the deposition of ore has been confined to one. Another is tinted 

 smoke-color by minute quantities of silicate of iron ; a third is a mere seam 

 of quartz pebbles ; a fourth is composed of large, irregular blocks ; a fifth, an 

 almost equal mixture of clay fragments and bits of propylite country-rock. 

 Another interesting example occurred in the great ore-bearing chamber of the 

 Gould and Curry. Here the easternmost zone of the body was highly 

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