252 GEOTX)GY OF THE BLACK HILLS. 



Hills, to prevent any strsigglers from working the liar during their enforced 



absence : 



Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory, 



Atignst 30, 1875. 

 To the Editor of the Inter- Ocean : 



After prospoctiiifT a short time in the park we moved to Spring Creek or Jenney's 

 Gnh!h, and on tlie morning of tlie HOth of July we commenced i)ro.specting Stand-off 

 Bar. We did not work more than lialf an liour unljl we ])anne(l out 25 cents to the 

 l)aii, found coarse gohl, and ran across the bar about .'};j feet. From the last pan of 

 dirt taken out of the face of the drift we got one i)enny weight and three grains, or what 

 we term a good dollai", to the pan. This is about one mile up Jenney's Gulch, above 

 Professor Jenney's discovery. We i)anned several pans that weighed from 2") cents to 

 50 cents and from 78 cents to 93 cents to the pan ; it ranged all the way from 10 cents 

 to $1. * * * AVe prospected also on Castle Creek, and have i)roven beyond a 

 doubt there are good placer-miues there as well as on Spring Creek. AVe also found 

 good six dollar-i)erday diggings on liapid Creek; and had not the military order 

 arrested our work, we would soon have had plenty of the j-ellow metal out of the 

 ground to have shown the world that the Hills are very rich. AVhile we were i)repar- 

 ing sluice-boxes, whip-sawing lumber, &c., prei^aratory to working onr ground, we got 

 the " grand military shake," and had to leave our claims and the Hills. * * • 



JOHN W. ALLEN. 



Plaving returned to the Hills after the withdrawal of the militar}' 



forces, Mr. Allen writes me, under date Januaiy 2, 1876 : 



Our bar (Stand-oft") pays $1 in gold per hour per man employed ; have on haiul 

 26 ounces of bankable gold dust taken out inside of three weeks. 



Mr. James Allen, of Cheyenne, who visited Spring Creek at that time, 



writes : 



I prospected ten pans of dirt from Stand-oft' Bar and got for my trouble $5.35. 1 

 am perfectly delighted with the country. If anything, it is better and more extensive 

 than has been represented. A company known as the "Montana company" had only 

 been in the gulch three weeks when I got there ; during that time they had built two 

 houses, cut a ditch near a quarter of a mile in length, whip-sawed their lumber for 

 sluices and set them running, and had taken out near 81,000 in nice, coarse, bankable 

 dust. 



The claims worked by this company are situated below Stand-off Bar, 



and I understand that the pay dirt was obtained by a drift run in 50 feet 



on the rim-rock of an elevated bar, as high as SllO being obtained in one 



day's work by three men. The companies could not run their sluices more 



than six hours during the warmer part of the day, owing to cold and frost, 



yet obtained from 86 to $7 })er day per man as the result of this limited 



work. 



