GOLD MINING IN COLORADO. 503 



water was cut, driving the men out and filling the shaft ; and on being suf- 

 fered to stand in that condition for a season, the crevices and clefts about the 

 bottom of the shaft, formerly affording passage to the water, may have 

 become choked with clay and thus impenetrable. 



The next two claims on the east, the Black Hawk and the Field, have 

 been worked to a depth of about 400 feet and have been very productive, 

 especially, it is said, the latter. 



Trust. — The Trust mine, claiming 662 feet, next east of the Field, has 

 been worked to a depth of about 540 feet or little more. Nearly all the produc- 

 tive ground has been worked out to within a few feet of the bottom, where 

 the vein, at the depth just mentioned, was four or five feet wide, with two 

 feet of pay-ground. The mine has a good shaft five feet by ten in the clear, 

 divided into two compartments, one for hoisting and one for a ladder-road. It is 

 well timbered with roughly framed sets, six feet apart, and lined up with three- 

 inch plank. There are no hoisting works belonging to this company. Power 

 is derived, by means of a line-shaft, from the neighboring mine. This claim 

 has not been very productive of late, the shaft having been in poor ground. 

 Some of the first-class ore, however, is of high grade; one lot of four or five 

 tons, taken out at the time of the writer's visit, contained eleven ounces of 

 fine gold and twelve ounces of fine silver to the ton. The average value of 

 its ores is not essentially difierent from that produced by the other claims on 

 the lode. 



Sensenderfer. — The next claim, and the eastern limit of the developed 

 portion of the lode, is the Sensenderfer. This mine has the enviable reputation 

 of having not only the richest ore, but the most uniformly productive ground, of 

 any of the claims on the vein. It is worked by means of two shafts to a depth of 

 more than 500 feet, and although pretty much worked out above, the bottom 

 of the mine, when work was suspended, showed a strong vein, two feet wide, 

 filled with ore of high grade. During several years this claim was worked 

 by Mr. John Sensenderfer, who is reputed to have taken from it a large 

 amount of gold. It has also been idle for various reasons during much of the 

 time since its first discovery. Since 1866 it has been worked by a company, 

 consisting chiefly of a few gentlemen residing in Central City, and during 

 that time has been one of the most profitable enterprises in the Territory. 



