78 MmiNG INDUSTRY. 



suddenly terminated on the south and gave out in depth, proving itself to be 

 a typical bonanza, and not by any means a sheet of indefinite continuance. 



From the central point of the Virginia chamber, occupied by the Hale 

 and Norcross and South Savage, there rises a diverging series of bonanzas, 

 arranging themselves in the same fan-like form, and reproducing, in most 

 remarkable parallelism, the main features of the Gold Hill group. To the 

 south are three bodies lying successively higher and further west. Of these 

 the most southern was of the least value, while they constantly increased 

 in size and in tenure of silver in proportion as they approached the point of 

 divergence. 



As the bonanzas rise to the north they lap one upon another, forming 

 almost a continuous ore-body from the bottom of the Savage to the out- 

 cropping of the Gould and Curry. From this northern half of the fan has 

 been mined in the neighborhood of $26,000,000. From the Gould and Curry 

 claim alone, which occupies, as will be seen, only the upper 400 feet of the 

 system, were taken $15,000,000. As in the case of the Gold Hill, nearly 

 two-thirds of the wealth of the chamber has been derived from the northern 

 half of the bonanza group. And here again all the structural evidences of 

 the lode point to the fact that the most powerful currents were thrown in that 

 direction. Not only have strong chemical currents followed the northern rise, 

 but, subsequently to the deposition of the ore, the greater dynamical effects 

 have also been concentrated in the northern half. 



The third chamber in the lode begins properly in the north part of the 

 Gould and Curry claim, extending from that point to the North Ophir. Those 

 bonanzas which occupied its southern portion, in the Consolidated and Cali- 

 fornia mines, were characterized by a small percentage of silver and a very 

 unusually large proportion of base metals, prominent among which were galena, 

 blende, and copper pyrites. The Ophir-Mexican body is the only true silver 

 bonanza in this group, and, singularly enough, it occupies a totally different 

 quartz body from the base metal group. The latter is found in the red 

 quartz, which, in the Ophir, was seen to separate two propylite horses, 

 while the former is inclosed in the white ore-channel quartz, occupying its 

 normal position near the east wall. The bonanza itself seems to be a minia- 

 ture development of the fan-like system. Its general form is a triangle with 



