158 GEOLOGY AND GOLD DEPOSITS OF THE CRIPPLE CREEK DISTRICT. 
Ill Stratton’s Independence mine the Emerson and Grant lodes apparently 
die out near level 5, being unknown at lower levels. The No. 6 vein, on the other 
hand, is not known above level 5. In the Ajax mine the zone of Assuring known 
as the Apex vein is known only above level 4. In the Gold Coin mine the Dorothy 
lode first appears near level 8 and continues to the bottom of the mine. On the 
1,200-foot level of the Vindicator mine the strong No. 1 vein, known all the way 
from the surface to the 1,000-foot level, does not appear. Nonpersistence of lodes 
is shown also in the Molly Kathleen mine, where the fissures on the 700-foot level do 
not correspond to those on the 200-foot level, and in the Abe Lincoln mine. The 
Buena Vista lode remains well defined on the 1,200-foot level, but has been followed 
northeast on that level to a point where it becomes very indistinct. Fissures not 
known at the surface have been found in the lower levels of the Gold Coin and Hull 
City mines. 
Other illustrations of the fact that the lode fissures do not all begin at the sur¬ 
face and extend indefinitely downward, but that many of them are at least as well 
defined as regards their upper or lower limits as they are along their lines of strike, 
may be found in the detailed descriptions of mines in the latter part of this report. 
In some places the fissures are very irregular, the ore occurring in stockworks 
made up of many short veins and seams belonging to several fissure systems. Such 
are some of the deposits in the Anaconda mine near the Mary McKinney line, in 
the gneiss of the Midget mine, in the Sheriff, Homestake, and New Haven mines, 
and in the Stratton properties on Globe Hill. Many short veins in one small mine 
are shown in the Dante (fig. 42, p. 371) and also in the Monument and Dillon mines 
(PI. V, p. 26). 
The question whether the fissures are as large and as abundant at greater depth 
as they are near the surface is a very important one as regards the economic future 
of the district. Unfortunately it is a question which, considered independently of 
the vertical distribution of ore bodies, requires for its satisfactory answer more 
complete data than are at present obtainable. That some fissures practically die out 
below is certain; but it is equally true that others, which are not known at the sur¬ 
face, appear in the deeper workings of the mines. As the extent of a productive 
fissure is generally less definitely determined than the extent of its contained ore 
bodies, the decision whether with increasing depth of workings more fissures appear 
than disappear, or vice versa, is not easily reached. 
Detailed examination of practically all the accessible mines in the Cripple 
Creek district has, however, led to the conclusion that the fissures do, in general, 
become less abundant and less conspicuous as greater depth is attained. No mine 
exhibits this feature better than Stratton’s Independence, in which the very com¬ 
plex systems of productive fissures on the fifth and higher levels contrast most strik¬ 
ingly with the few insignificant and unproductive fractures visible on level 14. In 
a less degree the same feature is shown in many others of the deep mines. It should 
be clearly understood, however, that tins statement applies to the Assuring con¬ 
sidered as a whole, and is made with the knowledge that some fissures appear in depth 
which are not visible near the surface and that therefore some fissures, so far as 
experience goes, increase in size downward. 
