MINES OF RAVEN AND GUYOT HILLS. 
337 
between the Elkton and Thompson shafts on various members of the broad fissure 
zone, which here seems to represent the Walter lode. 
The best ore of the Walter lode occurs along the portion of the fissure zone 
that is accompanied by the Raven dike. North of the point where the dike, turn¬ 
ing olf to the northeast, is known as the Raven vein the Walter pay shoot usually 
contains ore of somewhat lower grade than between this branching point and the 
Elkton shaft. The richest of the Walter stopes thus far worked are said to have 
been between levels 5 and 6. The width of the stopes ranges from 3 to 15 feet, 
the widest stope seen on the Walter lode being on level 5, where the lode crosses 
the small phonolite dike about halfway between the Elkton and Tornado shafts. 
Where the dike is present the ore usually occurs in the small parallel fissures in 
the basalt, which are practically abundant near the walls. It is not restricted to 
these, however, some of the small irregular fissures in the middle portion of the 
dike being sufficiently mineralized to allow of the whole of the dike being stoped 
as ore. The portions of the dike containing ore are usually abundantly impreg¬ 
nated with small crystals of pyrite, this pyritic mineralization being so character¬ 
istic that it is used as an indication of good ore. In many instances, however, the 
calaverite or sylvanite occur with quartz, fluorite, and dolomite in minute veinlets 
in the basalt, the rock between the veinlets exhibiting very little pyritic minerali¬ 
zation. One of this character was seen in a stope above level 6, near the point 
where the basalt and the Walter lode separate. The ore is not always confined to 
the basalt, but sometimes extends for 6 or 7 feet into the breccia on either side, as 
was seen in a stope between levels 7 and 8, south of the Elkton shaft. Here the 
breccia on the east side of the dike shows abundant fine pyrite disseminated through 
it. It has been locally shattered, the interstices between the fragments now con¬ 
stituting little vuggy cavities lined with small crystals of adularia, quartz, fluorite, 
pyrite, and probably sylvanite or calaverite, though the tellurides are not as a rule 
distinctly visible. There are no definite walls to this ore. It passes gradually into 
the country breccia. On level 7, 350 feet south of the Elkton shaft, the east wall 
of the basalt dike, here a part of the phonolite laccolith already described, is also 
locally brecciated and mineralized with pyrite. In this case, however, the pyrite 
is accompanied by visible crystals of sylvanite in the drusy cavities of the rock. 
North of the junction with the basalt dike the Walter lode is a sheeted zone in 
breccia. The average stoping width is about 4 feet, though the zone of distinct 
sheeting is in many places only about a foot wide. The ore, however, is not con¬ 
fined to the regular fissures of the nearly vertical sheeted zone, but extends for 
varying distances into the less regular fractures of the breccia on each side. In 
other words, the lode has no walls. The unoxidized ore occurs exclusively in the 
small vuggy veinlets in and near the sheeted zone as crystals of calaverite or syl¬ 
vanite associated with quartz, fluorite, and in some cases calcite or dolomite. 
More or less pyrite always accompanies tne tellurides. 
Bodies of ore were formerly stoped in the Raven tunnels along the ‘‘basalt” 
dike, but nothing could be seen of these ore bodies in 1903, and the Raven dike 
has not proved productive in the Elkton workings proper, except where it coin- 
