PRECIOUS METALS. 333 



have been made to show that in all probability no profitable returns can be 

 expected from any except the least disturbed districts, but the facts can not 

 be clearly interpreted without a better knowledge of the veins than has yet 

 been obtained. No very large bodies of silver ore have been encountered in 

 any of the workings. There is encouragement certainly in the quality of 

 the mineral taken from some of the mines, but the explorations should be 

 conducted upon a larger scale than has heretofore been possible with the 

 means at the disposal of the landholders. The ore must be won by shafts, 

 and pumping facilities will be required at an early stage. By judicious man- 

 agement, giving attention to the geologic structure and expending money 

 chiefly in one place, there is at least a reasonable prospect that a fair return 

 may be realized upon wise investments in this region. 



Not a few shafts have been sunk, some of them to a depth of more than 

 100 feet; but the mistake was made very often of excavating much larger 

 pits than were justified without better knowledge of the deposits. In some 

 cases, incompetent overseers did a large amount of wild work, such as the 

 sinking of several deep shafts side by side, at intervals of less than a dozen 

 feet, running trenches through wide veins of barren quartz already well ex- 

 posed by nature to greater depths in the immediate vicinity, and similar costly 

 and useless operations. The lack of pumps and the necessary appliances for 

 deep work has compelled the abandonment of nearly all mineral enterprises 

 in our region ; but when capital, advised by experienced engineers who know 

 where not to work, shall have entered this field prepared for extensive devel- 

 opments, a thorough test of the resources can be made with relatively low 

 costs. An advantage over many districts similarly placed is the occurrence of 

 valuable ores of copper in the same locality. 



The ores which have given the highest returns in silver come from several 

 shafts, known locally as the " Mexican Diggings," on a branch of Babyhead 

 Creek, south of Babyhead Mountain, in Llano County. The mineral is tetra- 

 hedrite (gray copper) in white vein quartz, with galena and chalcopyrite irreg- 

 ularly distributed. The sample (No. 11, Table I) was my own; not an 

 average of the vein, but made by "cobbing" the samples to a grade such as 

 could readily be prepared by hand assorting at the mine. 



Specimen assays would run higher, as this contained much quartz. It is, 

 however, next to impossible to say in what quantity the ore can be mined 

 from present development, as the shafts are flooded and the ore-streak is but 

 a few inches in width at the surface. The associated rocks are Burnetan or 

 Fernandan types, which abound in the vicinity. Outcrops of the quartz are 

 abundant. At present I am unable to say whether the veins are uniform or 

 "pockety." 



The Mexicans, who have periodically worked here, have erected two fur- 



