CENTRAL AND EASTERN NEVADA. 



429 



solutions or other agents that have deposited or caused the formation of the 

 quartz, spar, and metal-bearing mineral, in manner similar to that by which it 

 is believed that fissures have been filled ; with the difference, in this case, 

 that the operation of these influences have extended laterally into certain beds 

 of limestone, the composition or character of which rendered them especially 

 subject to such an action. 



On the Genesee, one of the claims on Chloride Flat, is an east and west 

 seam, 3 or 4 feet wide, descending vertically, on which a shaft has been sunk 

 over 100 feet. This shaft was closed at the time of the writer's visit, and was 

 inaccessible. The work is said to have shown a regular break or fracture in 

 the limestone beds, and to have furnished ore throughout its entire depth, but 

 not in quantity suflicient to pay as well as the surface deposits, and it was 

 therefore abandoned. 



All the ore produced on the Flats, up to the time of the writer's visit, 

 had come from within 20 or 30 feet of the surface. Deeper shafts had been 

 sunk through the bedded limestone, all of which, with the exception of the 

 Eclipse shaft, were reported to have been unsuccessful in finding ore at greater 

 depths. The Consolidated Chloride Flat Company had sunk a shaft to the 

 depth of 140 feet, which passed through distinctly stratified limestones, lying 

 in beds from 4 to 6 feet thick, nearly flat, but sometimes dipping slightly, 

 showing numerous seams of spar in and between the strata, but without a 

 trace of ore below the surface deposits. 



The Eclipse shaft, a little further north and near the edge of Bromide Flat, 

 was sunk with the same view of exploration, and, at the depth of 112 feet, a 

 bed of ore-bearing limestone is said to have been struck, resembling, in many 

 respects, the stratum near the surface, except that the ore was less pure, the 

 silver being associated with baser metals. A few feet had been drifted on 

 this bed at the date referred to, but no extensive or decisive developments 

 had been made. Nine tons of ore are said to have been produced from this 

 stratum, near the bottom of the shaft, that yielded $116 per ton. 



The Flats are covered by hundreds of mining claims, that have been 

 located under the laws which were devised and intended to apply to veins, and 

 the attempted application of such laws in the present case, where no veins 

 exist, has, of course, produced a great conflict of interests. Within an area 



