502 MmmG industry. 



has not been made to work satisfactorily, and, under these circumstances, the 

 pump was worked by the engine on the Black Hawk property, the power 

 being transmitted by a line-shaft and thence by belting to the pump-gearing. 

 These appliances are unsubstantial and ill-arranged for work so important as 

 the drainage of the lode, which is very abundant in water, and the ineffi- 

 ciency of the apparatus has been the cause of great hinderance to the several 

 mines dependent upon it, especially as most of them are almost as deep as the 

 pump-shaft and are frequently obliged to suspend operations altogether on 

 account of water. The pump, while running, worked on a six-foot stroke, 

 making from seven to ten strokes per minute, and was obliged to run night 

 and day steadily. 



The Drainage Company is an association of the several working companies 

 on the lode. The costs of operation are allotted among them according to 

 the length of their claims, the pump-shaft being sunk by the Sterling Com- 

 pany, except under certain conditions, when the expense of sinking is partly 

 borne by the association. But the number and diversity of interests of the 

 several parties do not serve to promote good management, and their expe- 

 rience affords evidence of the disadvantage that arises from subdividing what 

 might be one good mine, if conducted as a whole, into a half dozen independ- 

 ent and sometimes conflicting parts. The Drainage Company, since its 

 organization, have expended over $100,000. The running expenses, when 

 in operation, were about $1,600 per month. 



An intimate connection between this lode and the neighboring lodes, 

 the Fiske and Gregory, is said to be shown by the drainage ; the last-named, 

 when worked to a deeper level than the Bobtail, having drained the latter 

 completely ; while under reversed conditions, the Bobtail drained both the 

 Fiske and Gregory. The Running lode, opened a half mile east of the mines 

 on the Bobtail, and regarded by some as a continuation of the same, and by 

 others as a separate lode,^ is said likewise to be drained by the Bobtail pump. 

 Nevertheless the west shaft of the Bobtail mine is filled with water some 40 

 or 50 feet above the bottom of the pump-shaft. With regard to this it is 

 stated that the shaft was perfectly drained, until, in sinking, a large stream of 



^ The writer did not visit it. 



