350 MINING INBUSTEY. 



future, especially under the more favorable conditions of easier access, cheaper 

 labor, and improved methods of work. 



Austin and vicinity.^ — The city of Austin is the central point of the 

 oldest mining district in this part of the State, and, at the same time, the com- 

 mercial center and source of supplies of the outlying districts that have been 

 gradually formed along the Toyabe range. It has several thousand inhabit- 

 ants, and is one of the most important cities of the State. Until the com- 

 pletion of the Pacific railroad it lay in the great overland route ; now it is 

 connected by a line of stages with Argenta, on the railroad, 80 or 90 miles 

 distant, by way of the Reese River Valley. The distance from Argenta to 

 Sacramento in California is 396 miles. 



The principal mining developments in the region of which Austin is 

 about the center are comprised within a belt a half a mile or a mile wide and • 

 five or six miles long, extending in a northerly and southerly direction. 



The main points within this belt are locally termed Union Hill, in the 

 southern part of the ground, then, further north. Central Hill, Lander Hill, 

 Telegraph Canon, Emigrant Canon, and Yankee Blade. The prevailing coun- 

 try-rock of this belt is granite, and all the veins that have so far proved to 

 be valuable are inclosed in that rock. These veins are very small, and occur 

 in series that have a generally parallel trend from northwest to southeast, though 

 not without considerable variation, and dipping to the northeast at various 

 angles between 15 or 20 to 60 or 70 degrees. They vary in width from a 

 mere seam, that may be traced with difficulty, to two or three feet ; the pay- 

 streak seldom maintains for any considerable length a greater width than two ■ 

 or three inches, though frequently expanding, for short distances, to five or six, 

 and, in a few exceptional cases, measuring eighteen or twenty inches. These 

 veins have been disturbed in a remarkable manner by movements of the in- 

 closing rock, by means of which they have been broken and displaced. Some 

 of these faults are extensive, and are apparently caused by cross-fissures trav- 

 ersing the system of northwest and southeast veins in a northerly and southerly 

 direction, and affecting them all to a greater or less extent ; others are more 

 local in their character and of less importance, as will be illustrated further on. 



^The writer is indebted to tlie Hon. J. A. Boalt, Gen. E. A. Wild, Messes. C. A. Stetefeldt, A. 

 A. Curtis, C. T. Horn, C. C. Lake, and otlier gentlemen of Austin, for aid in obtaining information con- 

 cerning tbe mining developments of tlie Yicinity ; also to Mr. J. M. Burns, formerly of the Keeso Eirer * 

 EeveiUe, for some statistical records. i 



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