448 MINING INDUSTRY. 



The Mine. — The work in the mine has been done slowly and in a small 



way. The principal shaft, or incline, which was worked by a horse-whim, has 



been sunk in the vein, following its varying inclination, to a depth of 400 feet. 



At this depth an influx of water from a spring caused them to abandon the 



lower works, as they had no pumps; these were filled up even with the 



300-foot level with second-class ore, but are now being reopened. On the 



300-foot level, drifts have been run 150 feet to the southwest and nearly the 



same distance to the northeast. In the former the vein has maintained an 



average width of 5 or 6 feet of good ore throughout, and the hanging v^^all 



shown — a clean, polished surface of decomposed slate ; the vein is divided into 



two parts by a thin clay selvage, which runs through its whole length ; some 



two and a half feet toward the hanging wall are of first-class ore, while the 



remaining three feet toward the foot-wall are second-class ore, which has 



hitherto been rejected and used for filling up old works. The whole is a mass 



of iron-stained quartz, so much broken that it can almost be taken out with 



the pick ; occasional spots of soft, black matter, probably resulting from the 



decomposition of a concentration of sulphurets, are said to be very rich. At 



the end of the drift a piece of ground about 6 feet high by 15 feet long has 



been stoped out above the gallery. In the northeast drift the vein pinches to 



about 2^ feet; at a distance of 100 feet from the shaft the quartz becomes 



whiter and more compact, but it opens out again at the face, and shows the 



same character of ore as in the other drift. From this level to the surface are no 



other workings ; the incline is said to have been in good ore, and in the same 



width of vein throughout its length. Just at the surface, to the northeast of 



the shaft, a small body of ore has been stoped out, which yielded in the mill 



$18,000, being an average of $200 to the ton. This incline was originally so 



narrow and crooked that its extracting capacity was very limited, and it was 



found necessary to enlarge and straighten it. This work was commenced in 



March, 1868. As it now stands the shaft has two hoisting compartments 



and a ladder-way ; it is well timbered and ceiled with two-inch stuff. To 



the northeast of this shaft, at a distance of about 150 feet, a prospecting 



shaft has been sunk to a depth of 75 feet on the vein, and said to be in good 



ore; at a distance of 300 feet, in a re-entering angle of the hill, a second shaft 



is down to the 300-foot level, which it is designed to connect with the main 



shaft and use as an air-shaft; in it the vein averages about 8 feet wide, and is 



