ransome] LODES OF CANYON CREEK. 203 
lode suddenly contracts and splits into a few small stringers. Beyond 
this point the country rock on the south side of the drift is lighter 
colored than elsewhere and is full of irregular quartz stringers, some 
of which appear to strike southerly into the hanging wall. I was 
unable in the field to discover any contact or fault in the exposures 
in the drift, but microscopic study shows that the country rock at 
this point is a devitrified and altered rl^olite. It is probably an 
intrusive mass or dike cutting the San Juan breccia. It is exposed 
in the south wall of the drift for 15 or 20 feet, but has never been 
found on the north side. West of this contraction no ore was found 
on this level for nearly 900 feel. A barren stringer was followed for 
a portion of this distance, which finally led into the main lode, which 
was found to be offset into the hanging wall. The rhyolitic dike is 
older than the Cam]) Bird lode, but its presence has probably caused 
a local deflection of the generally straight simple fissure. The newly 
found portion of the lode has been drifted on for 600 feet, and is 
being followed back toward the rhyolite and point of original deflec- 
tion. This irregularity is apparently not due to faulting, but is an 
example of linked-vein structure. The western deflected portion of 
the lode has an average width of 9 or 10 feet of good ore. The dip is 
slightly flatter than in the eastern portion of the workings. In the 
present bottom level of the Camp Bird the galena ore, commonly 
found on the foot wall above, is less abundant and more bunchy. 
The dark, curving lines described in connection with the rich ore are 
less regular and continuous. 
Power drills are used almost exclusively for drifting, crosscutting, 
and stoping. The air compressors are run by electricity from Ames, 
in the Telluride quadrangle. The ore from the present main level 
is carried on a temporary Iluson wire-rope tram to the tram house 
near the mouth of the new adit. Thence it goes over the permanent 
Bleichert tramway to the mill, situated at the mouth of the gulch, on 
Canyon Creek. This tramway is about 2 miles in length and has a 
transfer station at the turn in the gulch, in Richmond Basin. In 
L899 about 45 buckets were running over it, carrying about 700 
pounds of ore each. ( )ne man can dispatch 350 bucket loads in a day, 
of which the mill, then running 30 stamps, required from 325 to 330. 
All ore goes direct to the mill without sorting. The mill, as equipped 
in 1899, contained 2 Blake crushers, 40 800-pound stamps, dropping 
90 to the minute, and 20 Frue vanners. In 1900 20 more stamps 
were being added. The pulp from the batteries passes through a 
40-mesh screen over silvered copper plates 17 feet long. Thence it 
passes through classifiers onto the vanners. The latter are so arranged 
that all the slimes must pass over two vanners before escaping as 
tailings. The ore passing through the mill is often worth $200 per 
ton. The average, when visited in 1899, was said to be nearly $150. 
About 75 to 80 per cent of the total gold is amalgamated on the plates. 
