I 
UNDERGROUND WATER. 245 
shafts have always been dr 3 T . The Blue Bird reached water in March, 1902, at 
an elevation of 9,057 feet, or 30 feet above the portal of the Standard tunnel, which 
had been dry since the preceding year. This water slowly receded, and in August, 
1902, the sump, elevation 9,026 feet, was dry. The Last Dollar first reached water 
at the same elevation as did the Blue Bird. This soon receded. It was again 
reached at 9,010 feet, hut disappeared after a short period of pumping. After 
the completion of the El Paso tunnel sinking was resumed and no water had been 
encountered up to April, 1904. These facts indicate that the mines of the western 
and southwestern slopes of Bull Hill are effectively drained by the El Paso tunnel. 
The mines of the second subgroup lie on the eastern slopes of Bull Hill and on 
Bull Cliff. They include the Isabella, Victor, Vindicator, Lillie, Findley, Hull City 
Placer, Golden Cycle, and a number of other mines of less depth. These mines 
have all had to contend with water, the burden of pumping falling in recent years 
most heavily upon the Vindicator, which in 1903 was draining the Findley, Hull 
City Placer, and probably the Golden Cycle. Whether the Isabella belongs to the 
same drainage basin is doubtful. 
In the early part of the year 1903 the Vindicator kept down its water to the 
lowest level, 9,012 feet above sea, by pumping from 300 to 550 gallons a minute. 
Under these conditions the Findley, with its sump at 9,103 feet, was dr}\ The 
Findley sank another hundred feet, and in June, 1903, there was a little water 
on this bottom level, apparently corresponding in elevation to the pumping level 
of the Vindicator sump at that time. The water in the Hull City Placer then 
stood at 9,052 feet above sea, the pumps discharging 70 gallons a minute. The 
Golden Cycle, with its sump at 9,066 feet above sea, was kept free of water by 
pumping 50 gallons a minute. During the labor strike in the autumn of 1903 the 
pumps were stopped and the water rose at least 200 feet in the Vindicator, Lillie, 
and Findley mines. The rise in the Hull City Placer and Golden Cycle mines 
appears to have been slightly less. The position of the water on April 19, 1904, 
when the Vindicator had resumed pumping and was discharging 180 gallons a 
minute, is shown in PI. XX (p. 242). At the date of writing (February 1, 1905) it is 
reported that the Golden Cycle mine is holding the water at an elevation of 9,066 
feet by pumping 300 gallons a minute and that the Vindicator has stopped pump¬ 
ing, with its water at approximately 9,200 feet. The Golden Cycle is thus dis¬ 
charging nearly the same quantity of water that the Vindicator was raising in July, 
1903, before the opening of the El Paso tunnel. In other words, the burden of 
drainage has been shifted to the Golden Cycle mine, and that burden has not been 
perceptibly lightened, although nearly a year and a half has elapsed since the 
opening of the tunnel. 
The behavior of the water in these five mines shows that they have a common 
water basin, an artificial change in the water level of any one mine being followed 
.in reasonable time by adjustment in the others. The fact that on the cessation of 
pumping in 1903 the water in this basin rose only to a level 500 feet below the 
original water surface indicates a considerable permanent reduction of the water. 
How much of this is due to the pumping of the Victor and west side groups of mines 
and to the drainage tunnels and how much to the persistent pumping of the Vindicator 
and near-by mines can not be determined. The water of the Vindicator stood, in 
