CENTEAL AND EASTERN NEVADA. 39 



o 



and all mining operations were suspended. The amount of indebtedness was 

 comparatively small, not exceeding the actual value of the supplies and material 

 on hand and available for use; saying nothing of the mill, hoisting machinery 

 and improvements that had cost about $250,000. In the summer of 1869 

 the property of the company was sold by the assignee, and was purchased by 

 a new organization known as the "Cambridge Silver Mining Company." The 

 new owners employed a small force in the autumn of last year in draining the 

 mine and extending the explorations; but this work was shortly after sus- 

 pended without obtaining definite results. 



Philadelphia or Silver Bend District. — This district is situated in 

 the range of mountains next east of the Toyabe, and is about 85 or 90 miles 

 south from Austin. The following notes on the geology of the region are 

 furnished by Mr. S. F. Emmons. 



Geology. — The range of mountains parallel to the Toyabe, which forms the 

 eastern border of Smoky Valley, is called the Smoky Valley Eange. At the 

 point where the overland stage-road crosses it, at its northern end, it is composed 

 of rhyolite ; from here south to Charlotte's Pass, which is about opposite Ophir 

 Canon, it is a low, flat-topped ridge, whose form and general appearance would 

 suggest a predominance of volcanic rocks in its formation. At Charlotte's 

 Pass, through which runs the stage-road from Austin to Belmont, the entire 

 mass of the range is rhyolite and rhyolitic breccia. Out of the ravine, on the 

 western side of this pass, rises a conical peak of reddish-white porphyritic 

 rhyolite, which has a remarkably regular columnar structure. The upper part 

 of the ridge is of rhyolitic breccia, out of which this long ravine has been 

 gullied; while on the eastern slope are strata of rhyolite, dipping east at an 

 angle of 30°, of highly colored varieties — white, purple, yellow, brick-red, and 

 reddish-brown. South of Charlotte's Pass extends a group of high, smooth- 

 topped peaks, whose summits carry snow until the middle of the summer. 

 These are probably composed of limestone and metamorphic slates ; on their 

 eastern flanks, however, are several outcrops of rhyolite. The southern point 

 of this group, some 30 miles south of Charlotte's Pass, is the Granite Moun- 

 tain, from which runs out the spur or ridge to the southeast, where the mines 

 of this district are situated. This ridge separates Monitor Valley on the north 



50 



