CENTEAL AND EASTERN NEVADA. 301 



for the reduction of the ore and extraction of silver. This establishment had 

 hardly been completed and entered upon the regular performance of its work to 

 the full extent of its capacity, when the company, already deeply involved in 

 litigation, became embarrassed financially and their work was suspended ;^ 

 although it appears from the accounts of the mine that, up to the time re- 

 ferred to, the average yield of the ore was largely in excess of the costs of 

 mining and smelting. 



The method of treatment of the ores, at the time when the work was in 

 active progress and before the completion of the Pacific railroad, presents 

 some novelties, and is worthy of a somewhat detailed description, notwith- 

 standing the fact that a portion of it is no longer in use. 



In the early history of the enterprise a ten-stamp mill, furnished with 

 three grinding and amalgamating pans, was provided with the intention of 

 treating the ores by the ordinary Washoe method ; but as this was soon found to 

 be quite unsuited to the character of the ore it was abandoned, and furnaces for 

 smelting and refining were constructed. This process consisted of smelting 

 the ore in a shaft-furnace, by which means crude metal was obtained, amount- 

 ing to 45 or 50 per cent, of the charge of ore, and consisting of lead, antimony, 

 and silver; the last named being contained to the value of $160 or $200 to 

 the ton of metal. The metal was then subjected to treatment in a calcining, or 

 sublimation, furnace, by which means the antimony was removed, and the lead 

 consequently enriched by concentration, until it contained from $300 to $400 per 

 ton in silver. From this lead the silver was then extracted by cupellation in an 

 English cupel-furnace. Among the products of the sublimation-furnace was 

 an alloy of lead and antimony, marketable in San Francisco at a remunerative 

 price for the production of type-metal. The accompanying plates, illustrating 

 the construction of the furnaces and their general arrangement, were prepared 

 from drawings made by Mr. Sydney Tuttle, assistant superintendent of the 

 works, and kindly placed at the disposal of the writer. 



The shaft-furnace, employed for the smelting of the crude ore, is shown 

 by Figs. 1, 2, 3, and 4, on Plate XXV. Figs. 1 and 2 show a front and side 



' According to newspaper reports the mine and smelting furnaces were again in 

 operation in August, 1870. 



