the 100-foot level, which is in 16 inches of very high-grade ore, assaying as high as 600 ounces and sampling 300.

The Saturn has its shaft to the depth of 30 feet on a vein 5 feet wide, wherein the pay streak varies from 6 inches to 3 feet. The ore is disposed of by the lessees to the Colorado smelter and averages 200 ounces. Levels have been run 25 feet east and west, and the shaft is being rapidly entended.

The I. X. L. lode is also operated under a lease. At the depth of 40 feet an east drift has been run which is in a 2 to 4 foot ledge, assaying from wall to wall 70 per cent. of manganese and 52 ounces of silver. The stopes of the east drift are yielding about 10 tons of ore per day, which is reduced at the Colorado smelter.

The Placer lode, joining the Saturn on the south, has a shaft 50 feet and a drift run on the ledge 50 feet westward, where an upraise has been started and considerable ore taken out, assaying from 30 to 130

ounces.

The Orphan Girl has become one of the best known ore producers in the district. The shaft is 250 feet deep. At 170 feet a level has been run about 25 feet. Cross-cutting is actively progressing from the bottom of the shaft. During the past summer aud autumn this mine supplied the Dexter mill with 30 tons of free-milling ore daily, all of which was obtained from the upper part of the ledge. The pay shoot has proved to be 300 feet long and from 12 to 25 feet wide, and all of it of a workable quality. The product for the year 1884 has been 300 ounces of gold and 210,000 ounces of silver, of the value of $231,700. The Carrie lode lies west of Butte, and has recently been bonded for one year for $50,000. The shaft has been sunk already 50 feet with very gratifying results. At the depth of 30 feet a 2-foot vein of good ore was discovered. At the depth the shaft had then reached the vein had widened to 3 feet. A drift was then started from the 50-foot level, and rich ore is being extracted daily. The average assay from several tons last extracted runs from 80 to 90 ounces of silver.

The Little Darling, 4 miles west of Butte, is under lease for one year, and also bonded to the lessees for $75,000. The shaft, down 50 feet, encountered the ore-body at 45 feet. At the bottom of the shaft the vein was opened to a width of 30 feet in the cross-cut, and the drift is being pushed west. The ore assays 90 to 130 ounces. Sinking is going on to the 300-foot station, and thorough explorations will be made.

The Champion has several shafts, the east down 65 feet and the main shaft 125 feet, and on the vein; both are well timbered. Sinking is going on in the main shaft, where the vein is widening as depth is attained. A level has been run east from the 80-foot station, and good ore found all the way. The ore extracted is free milling, and has been treated at the Moulton mill; it assays about 36 ounces in silver and several dollars in gold.

The Anglo-Saxon has its shaft down 210 feet. Below the 100-foot station the shaft is sunk on an incline, following the foot-wall and going down on the ledge. The west shaft has a depth of 100 feet. At a point 50 feet from the surface drifts east and west have been extended 75 feet each way, showing the ore shoot to have a developed length of 150 feet. Levels are being run east and west from the foot of the main shaft. The general width of the ore-vein is 10 feet. The daily average product is 30 tons. The ore is remarkably free milling, and is a mixture of decomposed porphyry and quartz, carrying chloride of silver and a little iron. The hoisting works, engine, and pumps, are in firstclass shape, as is also everything connected with the mine.

H. Ex. 268--22

The Self Rising is a fine silver manganese property, lying about 2 miles west of Butte, now under lease to Henry Olsen, who is taking out daily between 25 and 30 tons of ore, which, after treatment at the Colorado smelter, nets him about $2,000 per mouth.

The Mono, owned by Gassert & Riding, has its main shaft 85 feet deep, worked by a windlass. The average width of the vein is 2 feet, carrying 20 to 50 ounces of silver and about 80 per cent. manganese. The ore has proved continuous as far as the east level has been run, a distance of 300 feet; 150 feet has been stoped, showing good ore. The Golden Rule, also under lease, is developed by a shaft 100 feet in depth, on which further sinking is in progress. Cross-cuts are being made and east and west levels are being run. A new steam hoist has recently been put in place. The average assay exceeds 100 ounces of silver per ton.

The Anselmo property has had until recently little work done upon it. A force is engaged running a cross cut from the main shaft south to a depth of 90 feet, for the purpose of intersecting the discovery ledge. A very considerable amount of 100-ounce silver and $15-gold rock has been taken from the west level of the mine, 95 feet from the surface. The main shaft is down 450 feet, but the mine is filled with water from the 150-foot level. Recently a streak of ore carrying a high percentage of molybdenite, a mineral not heretofore found in this district, was encountered.

CHAPTER VIII.

NEVADA.

Nevada has increased its production of the precious metals during the last year, reversing its retrograde movement since the exhaustion of the immense ore-bodies in the bonanza mines of the Comstock. Information from many parts of the State indicate an increase in the total yield of both gold and silver during the year. The deposits at the San Francisco and Carson mints and New York assay office of unrefined gold, stated to have been produced by the mines of Nevada, were over $2,300,000, and of unrefined silver about $3,500,000. The Nevada bullion refined at private refineries and afterwards deposited at the mints, is estimated to have been not less than $300,000 of gold and about $400,000 of silver. To these amounts must be added the bullion produced from Nevada ores which was directly exported without going to the mints. The reports of bankers who handled such bullion show the export of at least $2,000,000 worth of Nevada silver that had not been deposited at any of the mints or assay offices. The Manhattan Silver Mining Company alone, as appears from their annual report, shipped directly during the year to London silver bullion of the value of $1,128,000.

Messrs. Wells, Fargo & Co., in their published statement, show that there was carried from this State during the year $1,527,859 worth of gold dust and bullion by express, against $1,097,595 carried the previous year, and that there was carried by express silver bullion of the value of $5,905,304, estimated at its commercial value, against about an equal amount in the prior year. Ores and base bullion were also carried by railroad from this State of the value of $1,455,776 which contained a large proportion of silver bullion.

Reports of the county assessors do not show quite as large a production as in 1883; but the State comptroller at the time of furnishing the report had received no returns from the assessors of Churchill, Ormsby, and Douglas Counties, which, however, are but small producers. The following statement shows the returns made by the mines to the county assessors for the years 1883 and 1884.

The mines of this once marvelously prosperous mining State have frequently asked their stockholders for large advances with which to prosecute researches in hopes of finding lost or new ore-bodies. The names of the mines which have levied assessments during the year and the amounts levied by each were as follows:

The Sierra Nevada and Union Consolidated each levied $250,000 during the year. Four assessments became delinquent on the California mine and one on the Consolidated Virginia. Each of these were at the rate of 20 cents a share, and each of the assessments, had all the shares been assessed, would have amounted to $108,000, or in all $540,000; but, owing to the large amount of stock forfeited the assessments of the Consolidated Virginia amounted to only $93,000 and of the California $34,000; so that instead of $540,000 from the above assessments the amount collected was only $259,000. This is probably the largest forfeiture of mining stock on the Comstock. Most of the other mines of the Comstock collected the amounts levied.

Late in October the Consolidated Virginia and California mines were consolidated under the name of the Consolidated California and Virginia, with a capital of $21,600,000 in 216,000 shares, in place of a capital of $103,000,000 divided in 1,080,000 shares. The new corporation levied its first assessment of 30 cents a share on the 5th of November. The assessments levied during the year by all the mines of the State were less than during the previous year, which is a healthful sign. Storey County has undoubtedly called for a much larger amount of money from its stockholders during the year than the value of the bullion produced.

It is encouraging to know that five mines in this State have been able to pay dividends to their stockholders during the year as follows:

I have estimated the production of the State to have been: Gold, $3,500,000; silver, $5,600,000, obtained from the various counties as follows:

I am indebted to Mr. James Crawford, the superintendent of the mint at Carson, for the annexed information.

CHURCHILL COUNTY.

There has been but little change in the mining industry of this county, and the yield of the precious metals, which is small compared with the other mineral-producing counties of the State, has not varied materially from that of the previous year. The most marked improvement has been in Bernice district, especially in the property of the Golden Crown Company.

I am indebted to Mr. Wallace Goodall, the owner of the Golden Crown mine, and to W. W. Hoyt, the owner of several promising claims in the same section, for much of the following information in regard to the mines of this district.

As

The Golden Crown is the principal mine and the one on which most development has been made and upon which work is being most actively prosecuted. The ore has become richer as greater depth has been attained. The upper tunnel is in 380 feet, the lower 390 feet. The ledge in the lower tunnel averages 18 inches in thickness and mills $100 per ton. On July 1, 1884, the company leased the Bernice 5-stamp mill and Broekner furnace, which have been operated steadily since the 15th of that month on the ore of this mine, reducing 500 tons of free-milling ore, which yielded $5 per ton. The ore was worked to 90 per cent. of its assay value, and the bullion turned out averaged .900 fine. greater depth was attained the ledge became solid and the ore slightly base, carrying a small per cent. of arsenic and antimony which compelled roasting. The increased richness of the ore more than compensated for the additional cost. Wood and salt being cheap, the expense of roasting is not very great. The last ore worked yielded $65 in silver and a small per cent. of gold. During the year 21 men have been employed at the mine and 7 in the mill, and 500 feet of tunnel and 900 feet of inclines and upraises have been run. The lowest depth yet attained is 370 feet. A third tunnel is being run to cut the ledge at a depth of 500 feet.

The first extension north of the Golden Crown is the Hoyt claim, which shows outcroppings of a large ore-bed of the same formation, but sufficient work has not been done to demonstrate its value.