526 MININa INDUSTEY. 



The present openings of the mine are near the west end of the property. 

 Several shafts were sunk there by the earlier owners, only two of which have 

 been adopted by the present management as the means of working the mine. 

 Of these the westernmost is about 75 feet from the west boundary ; the other, 

 the east shaft, about 130 feet further east. The first level at 160 feet depth 

 passes through good ground, some productive stopes having been worked 

 above it, while the second level, 60 feet deeper, was just being opened when 

 visited by the writer ; an excellent vein of ore was said to have been opened 

 in this level and in the bottom of the shaft, but it was under water at the time 

 referred to, owing to a temporary interruption of the hoisting work. The North 

 Star Company assumed the management of the property in 1866 or 1867, and 

 devoted the first year or something more to putting the mine in shape for per- 

 manent and systematic working. The two shafts required straightening, en- 

 largement and retimbering, and as the mine had no productive ground then 

 opened and ready for stoping, a considerable outlay was required in preliminary 

 work. Hoisting and stamping machinery was needed, and as this was provided 

 on a liberal scale and with a view to extended operations, the expense in- 

 curred was large. Meantime the product of the mine was little or nothing, 

 and as the capital furnished by the company was hardly adequate to the exe- 

 cution of the plans proposed, the work has constantly been. embarrassed. 



The two shafts are well timbered up, divided into two compartments, one 

 for a ladder-way, the other for hoisting. The levels are provided with tram- 

 ways and wagons ; the stoping is carried on overhand ; the broken rock is first 

 assorted on the stulls, so that whatever is too poor to pay for hoisting is left 

 underground, while the ore is dumped into chutes, or "mills," constructed at 

 convenient intervals along the level, and thence is loaded into the tram- 

 wagons without handling or shoveling, and so moved to the hoisting shaft and 

 dumped into the bucket or "skip." This last-named contrivance, which is a 

 self-discharging apparatus, is illustrated in Fig. 3 on Plate XXXII. 



The body of the skip, S, is a rectangular vessel, or bucket, made of boiler- 

 plate, and capable of holding about 20 cubic feet of ore or water. Moving in 

 the shaft it is carried in an upright frame consisting of two sides, a, a, and two 

 cross-pieces, b, h. The sides of this frame are bars of wrought iron, the lower 

 ends of which are so formed as to furnish support to the lower cross-piece, h, 



