USA > California > Amador County > History of Amador County, California, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 34
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it continues to do until the want is supplied. An automatic feeder is required for each battery. When the pulverized quartz has passed through the shak- ing tables, and other machinery for saving the free gold, it passes to the machine known as the "Frue Concentrator," for saving the sulphurcts. This machine is a recent invention, and considered a great improvement over either the Buddle or the Hendy concentrator. The pulp is caught on a wide rubber belt, which, with an oscillating motion, is made to carry the tailings up an incline against a gentle stream of water, which washes away the lighter particles, leaving the sulphurets, which are heavier, to adhere, by their own specific gravity, to the endless belt, which passes into a water-bath, removing the sulphurets, which are thus saved in a very concentrated condition.
THE PLATNER PROCESS
Of reducing sulphurets was introduced into Cali- fornia by a miner by the name of Deakin, and is now in general use. By this process the sulphurets form- erly lost are made to pay from fifty to six hundred dollars per ton, amounting in some instances to twenty per cent. ofthe entire gold produet. The "chlorination works " is a long building with a furnace some forty feet long, and sixteen feet wide with arched roof from one to three feet above the floor. There are several openings along the sides to put in and withdraw the charge, (which, in a furnace of the above size, would be about three tons,) also to observe the pro- gress of the work. The first heat is moderate and is intended to expel the moisture, after which the heat is increased and the sulphur is set on fire. This burns for some hours, keeping the mass at a dull red heat; after the sulphur has burned out the fire must be increased so as to drive off the arsenic and other base metals. Too much heat will now volatilize the gold, which will be found gilding the roof of the areh. Too little fire leaves the fine particles of gold coated with a metal that would prevent the last and most important process (to be described hereafter), so that constant watchfulness is requisite, though a trusty man, without being a chemist, soon learns the necessary treatment. The mass, after being roasted from twenty-four to thirty-six hours, is allowed to cool off, and is then place in tubs five or six feet wide and two feet high with tight-fitting covers, where it is subjected for thirty-six hours to the action of chlorine gas which dissolves the gold, forming the chloride of gold which is soluble in water. The pro- eess of making gold soluble is particularly deseribed, because it may be necessary to remember this when we consider the origin of the gold deposits in the quartz veins. The chlorine gas is obtained by the action of sulphurie acid on common salt and oxide of manganese, all cheap artieles. It is a corrosive gas eating up other metals as well as gold, and also destroys animal matter, purifying the atmosphere of offensive odors. Water is now turned into the tubs
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and the gold comes out as a greenish-brown liquid; in fact, gold is of a green color, notwithstanding the ordinary opinion, as may be seen by looking through a very thin film of gold, which will appear of a beau - tiful green. Water is run through the mass until no green tinge is left. Sulphate of iron (copperas) is now added to the solution and in a short time the gold begins to settle in the shape of a brown powder, which, upon being put in the crucible, melts into gold 995. fine, worth twenty dollars per ounce. The cost of reducing sulphurets this way is about seventeen dollars per ton. It is expected that the cost of extracting and redueing ore at this mill will fall below two dollars per ton. If this can be aecom- plished, it will, perhaps, eause many other mines of low grade ore to be worked. The works, with the powerful and massive machinery, form a wonderful contrast to the mills at Amador thirty years ago.
THE HINKLEY MINE
Is a poeket mine and was discovered in 1863 while the owner was digging a post hole. Some four thousand dollars were taken out in a few days. The vein is two and a half feet thiek at the surface; at a depth of forty feet it was five feet thick; turned from a perpendicular to a horizontal for thirty feet, and then ran down nearly vertically again. It has pro- duced eighteen thousand dollars at an expense of six thousand dollars. It has many times made its owner happy, but the rock when away from a poeket is distressingly poor. Mr. Hinkley owns about four hundred feet of the vein.
A few hundred yards east of the Zeile mine is a slash vein, so called, running nearly at right angles with the ordinary course. At the Gate is another of great width and nearly a thousand feet long. They are seen occasionally in other parts of the county, and, although they have never been worked to any extent, they are important as throwing considerable light on the formation of quartz veins.
The Monteriehard is a cross vein in the hard metamorphic slate about two miles west of Jackson. It was diseovered in 1876 by a Frenchman who gave his name to the mine. It has paid very well, making for thirty-two months from two thousand to three thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars per month with a mill of ten stamps. The vein is narrow, vary- ing from six inches to two feet, with walls well defined. It was run by James Meehan, Sanguinetti,. and Muldoon, until March, 1880, when it was sold to Lloyd Tevis, of San Francisco, for twenty thousand dollars. The new owner put in ten more stamps, making a twenty-stamp mill. The vein pinched out soon after and the mine is suspended. It is generally thought Tevis got the worst of the bargain.
THE KENNEDY MINE,
So named from its discoverer, was developed by John Fullen, James Fleming, and James Bergon, working the rock at the Oneida mill. In 1871 it was
taken by a joint-stock company, the Richlings being large owners. The mine has hardly been a suceess, and in 1880 it was closed down. The vein is close to the foot-wall and has pitched rapidly to the east, following a pitch of nearly forty-five degrees, which is considered very flat. It is believed that it will eventually join a vein about six hundred feet to the east, ealled the " Volunteer." The lode does not fol- low the rift of the slate and consequently is not a true fissure vein.
THE TUBB'S MINE
Was on the eastern part of the lode near the Gate. It did not pay and was shut down. Stephen Kendal was the manager of the works. There seems to have been no substantial wall rock and consequently no permanent vein.
THE ONEIDA.
This location was made in 1851, by a number of men from the central part of New York. Like all the companies engaged at that time in quartz min- ing, the Oneida had extravagant expectations. When a run had been made, the interested parties gathered around to see the batteries cleaned up. The sand, quicksilver, and amalgam were gathered, and the operator commenced the panning process, turning off the quicksilver as it ran together. As the sand was washed out the amalgam grew less and less as did the prospects of the miners. The whole pro- ceeds of several days' crushing finally shrunk to a handful containing a few ounces of gold, not half enough to pay expenses, to say nothing about a fortune. The mill and mine were leased, in 1854, to Dr. E. B. Harris for a nominal rent, for the purpose of having it developed. He was endowed with great physical strength and indomitable energy, as well as good judgment, and by selecting good rock, and acting as fireman, engineer, amalgamator, machinist, miner, and superintendent, by turns, making about a dozen men of one and that one him- self, he made the mine pay, for that year, about twenty thousand dollars over expenses. At that time machinery was generally taken to Sacra- mento for repairs, necessitating long delays and much expense. One day a eam-seat, or groove, on the shaft which holds the key gave away, and the cam was dangling like a broken leg. To take out the shaft and send it to Saeramento was expensive, both in time and money, and it was resolved to drill a hole through both cam and shaft and put a large pin through them to hold the cam. By superhuman exertion this was done in about three hours, the order to " fire np " ringing simultaneously with the coming through of the point of the drill, and in half an hour the mill was pounding away. A year or two afterward the mine was rented to Swain of Ione, who in one year lost as much as Harris made.
The mine afterward fell into the hands of Fullen, Flemming, Bergon & Co., who worked it with but moderate success for some years. About 1865, it
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HISTORY OF AMADOR COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
was purchased by William M. Stewart, then U. S. Senator for Nevada, James Morgan, and others, forone hundred thousand dollars, of which sum the share- holders received eighty thousand dollars, the other twenty thousand dollars going to the negotiators of the sale, Seaton and Farley. The mine was retim- bered, the mill enlarged to sixty stamps, and new hoisting works erceted, making the mine an invest- ment to the stockholders of something over a quarter of a million. The vein was fifty feet thick, though of low grade, and with improved machinery it was expected to realize large dividends; but the mine was an expensive one to work, the walls being soft and apt to swell or crawl, and also full of water. Sometimes great masses of soft earth, mud, and gouge would break loose and run down the stopes and shafts, burying up or clogging the lower works. Sometimes a shaft would close up, timbers two feet in diameter being slowly crushed endwise into kin- dling-wood. Where there was so much movement underground, the surface must become unstable also, and the hoisting works required frequent rebuilding or adjustment. The mine proved a losing concern and became a grave for aboutfour hundred thousand dollars.
It is now owned by a Boston company, and is under the superintendence of Robert Robinson. Water-power has been substituted for steam-power, making a saving of many thousand dollars in a year; the water is to some degree exhausted, and at a lower level the walls become harder and more easily timbered, so that the mine, almost for the first time in its history, has been, perhaps, put on a paying basis .*
The depth on the slope is eleven hundred and fifty feet, but at the lower level the vein is nearly flat, and the vertical depth is not much over six hundred feet. The eastern or lower workings are about in a line with the buddle house, perhaps four hundred feet east of the shaft. At this point the vein, which seems to have followed the rift of the slate, and is, therefore, the true fissure, is nearly pinched out, and a drift of six hundred feet length- wise the vein, failed to discover any swell or deposit. A single boulder or bunch of quartz weighing a few hundred pounds, and very rich, was all that was found at this depth that was encouraging. How this was deposited, or perhaps lost there, is a question for geologists. As the lower level has been allowed to fill up with water, it is probable that no deeper explorations are contemplated.
There are some encouraging indications of a vein or body of ore in what is called the west wall. In working out bodies of ore left in the upper levels, a stringer, or thin vein of quartz, was found leading to the west, which experienced miners think indi- cates another ore body. If this should be realized the mine may have a brilliant future.
North of the Oneida, the range is buried for some distance under a pliocene river, with perhaps two hundred feet of gravel, sand, and boulders. As this has not been found to be rich, no explorations under it have been made, and if the lode crops out it has not been seen. Farther north is the
SUMMIT MINE,
Or, more properly, a prospect hole, for no paying quartz was found, though the shaft was sunk several hundred feet deep, at a cost of some twenty or thirty thousand dollars. The experiment was made by Hall McAllister of San Francisco.
IIAYWARD MINE.
The next mine north of the Summit mine is the Consolidated Amador, better known by the name of the man whose energy, with a good share of luck, developed it into, probably, the best-paying gold mine in the world. In 1853 three mines on the south side of Sutter creek-Wolverine, Eureka, and Badger-were struggling for existence, Alvinza Hayward owning the largest interest in the one last named. None of the quartz mines at that time were giants ready at the asking to bestow fortunes; on the contrary, they were always requiring enor- mous outlays for sinking shafts, running cross-cuts, timber, wood, and machinery-all making quartz mining a precarious employment. The Wolverine was among the first to fail. The Eureka was divided into about sixty shares, most of the holders being working men. The Badger was equipped with hoisting works and a mill on the creek below the town. The quartz was hauled on wagons to the mill. Whether because the rock was inferior or unskillfully handled, it hardly ever paid expenses, oftener less than more, to such an extent that the mine, though a promising one, had promised so much that its credit was utterly destroyed. Ninety thousand dollars or more hung over it, not like the sword of Damocles, suspended by a single hair, but due for wood, steel, provisions, and labor, besides borrowed money. Many times the proprietor was tempted to throw up the works and turn them over to the creditors; but they as often told him to go on; that he could make it pay if any one could. Often on a Sunday morning, when the laborers came for their pay, a dollar or two for tobacco money was all that could be spared. On one occasion, the propri- etor was seen carrying wood on his back from the side-hill to keep the engine running. A Mr. Norton furnished wood on long time, and relieved that source of solicitude. Four or five years of such struggling had broken down, one after another, the most of those who had commenced quartz mining in 1851. In 1857 the struggle still- continued. There was a change impending. The pay chimney was struck, and now the double eagles, instead of scant half-dollars, were paid to the men. The pay-streak was likely to run into the Eureka ground, and the owner quietly commenced buying up shares of that
* Since writing the above, we learn that the mine has indefi- nitely suspended work.
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QUARTZ MINING.
company's stock. Five hundred dollars a share, considering the mill which they had ereeted at an estimated expense of thirty thousand dollars, just the amount at which the shares were rated, was not too much. It was soon known that a majority of the stock had passed into his hands, and the bal- anee hastened to part with their stock, selling as low as four hundred dollars per share; though assured that no freezing out was intended, the shares all passed into Mr. Hayward's control. It now became known that it had been placed on a permanent, pay- ing basis, yielding from twenty-eight thousand to sixty-five thousand dollars per month.
GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE HAYWARD MINE.
As this was not only the best mine in the range, but the deepest, the explorations having reached the . depth of two thousand two hundred and fifty. feet, a particular description of its locality, wall rocks, and surface indications, will be interesting, as throwing light on the nature of quartz veins in gen- eral. Although there were large masses of roek in the vein, and covering the ground in the vieinity of this nine, the ravine below was only moderately rich. The surface rock that was within a few hundred feet of the top, paid from eight to twelve dollars a ton only. In the early days of quartz mining, when the means of closely saving the gold had not been discovered, this would hardly pay; though after the mine passed into other hands, the same rock, by means of improved machinery, being taken out and redueed for two dollars and seventy-five cents per ton, according to the report of the superintendent, J. C. Faul, paid one hundred and fifty thousand dol- lars in dividends. The wall roeks of the range, which here was only two or three hundred feet wide, were firm, metamorphic slate, ealled by the miners, gran- ite, a term which often misleads persons seeking information. It scarcely ever has any of the appear- anee of true granite, and in most instanees is simi- lar in texture to the great reef of rock lying west of the quartz belt, or range of mining towns, which has already been spoken of as one of the axes of elevation, and the western boundary of the ancient valley. This wall rock, on the east side of the vein, went down, solid and firm, about one thou- sand seven hundred and fifty feet. after which it was much broken up, the quartz paying to this depth. There were two principal veins; perhaps deposits would be a better term, as but one of the deposits was in the shape of a vein, the other being called a boulder vein, from its being in detached masses, like boulders, through occupying a regular rift or fissure in the slate. The continuous vein was next to the hanging or eastern wall, and both veins had a pitch or slope to the east of about twenty feet to the hun- dred, so that a perpendicular shaft, to reach the vein at a depth of two thousand fect, must be started about four hundred feet east of the croppings. It may be as well to mention here that experienced miners never expect to find the true course of a vein
until they have sunk from four to eight hundred feet on it. An ore-bearing vein or fissure, if an extensive one, is always more or less open, admit- ting water. A few calculations as to the power of displacement in a seam containing water may be interesting. " Water presses in proportion to its perpendicular height." At a depth of thirty-three feet the lateral pressure is two thousand one hun- dred and sixty pounds to the square foot, at sixty-six twice that, at one hundred three times, and so on as far as the water reaches, which is usually as far as any ore is found. Let us now estimate the thrust or lateral pressure on a hill one thousand feet high, and exposed to the action of the displacing foree along a distance of another thousand feet, though hills containing ore are not often elevated above the surrounding country more than a few hundred feet; but the power of displacement acts in other instances as well as in mineral veins, as a powerful agent in the formation of valleys, and more especially, as we shall hereafter see, in the formation of the mineral veins themselves. Making the pressure at thirty- three feet a ton, (in round numbers, for the sake of convenience,) at one hundred feet it is three tons; at five hundred feet, fifteen tons, which will be the average of the one thousand feet in depth, or fifteen thousand tons for the column, one foot later- ally, and one thousand times that for the whole thrust of the little seam of water of, say, an eighth of an inch in thiekness, making fifteen millions of tons. What wonder then that we find the surfaces of quartz veins thrown hundreds of feet out of line, or in some instances doubled quite over. If those per- sons who are so ready to invoke the agencies of earthquakes for every displacement of rocks and mineral veins, would study the effect of agencies, silent and slow, yet irresistible as fate, now at work, they would not be obliged to conceive of mountains being tossed from place to place like foot- balls.
Both veins had a dip to the north, the boulder vein soon leaving the other, which only dipped slightly, so that it passed into the Eureka ground some hundred feet below. At a depth of six hun- dred feet, the hanging-wall or eastern vein pinched nearly out. As the pay was mostly in this vein, the other paying only in spots, the mine for awhile appeared to have been worked out; but the same pluck which had developed it eame in play, and the gouge, or soft clay in the fissure, was followed down two hundred feet further, and the vein opened better than ever. A vein of sulphurets, one inch in thick- ness, ran diagonally across the main lode, that was half gold. Immense quantities were surreptitiously taken by the workmen, who were compelled to strip themselves on coming out of the shaft, step across the room, put on other clothes, leaving the mining suit to be examined by the inspector, a person appointed for the purpose. All sorts of devices were employed to conceal the gold. One miner
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HISTORY OF AMADOR COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
threw away a pair of old boots. The inspector examined them, and found several ounces of speci- mens, which the owner expected to get after night- fall should enable him to get the boots unobserved. Some concealed specimens in their hair; and even the anus was used for that purpose. A small quartz mill was set up in an abandoned tunnel, for reducing rich rock. Notwithstanding all possible vigilance on the part of the superintendents, a great deal was stolen. A kind of demoralization existed among many of the miners, especially those of foreign birth, which caused such abstractions to be considered as commendable, sharp tricks rather than crimes.
A great number of persons have lost their lives here, some by carelessness, and some by unavoidable accidents. Any one may see that familiarity with danger will breed contempt for it, by watching the miners going up or down the shaft. Three or four will get into the tub, and as many more on the out- side, aud go up or down as though they were riding along a smooth road instead of being suspended, where a fall would precipitate them a thousand feet, against timbers and rocks. An indisereet movement of the head, when the bucket is in rapid motion, has resulted in shaving a man's head half away. Sometimes incorrect signals are made with the bell wire, and a bucket is raised when it should be low- ered; at other times, a trap along a level will be left open, and a man walking along with a dim light will fall a hundred or two feet, to be killed or maimed for life. Sometimes a ladder will give away, and a man will fall from the carelessness or awkwardness of the carpenter who put up the lad- ders. Some sixty men had been lost in the first twenty years of its working.
Although the mine was called the Hayward mine, several other men have had interests at different times. When the mine was in debt, partial inter- ests were disposed of to obtain necessary means to work it.
O. L. Chamberlain, Dan Fiddler, Charles MeNe- mair, and A. H. Rose, have been at times part owners. The latter's interest was a result of a piece of questionable enterprise, not, however, unusual with that smart operator in quartz mining. In 1864 or 1865 a number of persons were willing to take the usually unprofitable position of Public Administrator. After the election it was learned that not only a share in the rich Hayward mine. but a hundred thousand dollars in dividends, were the unclaimed assets of Charles MeNemair, who went to Frazer river in 1857, before the Hayward mine had become a paying insti- tution, and was supposed to be lost. In due course of time Mr. Tynan, the Public Administrator, filed a petition for letters of administration, showing at the same time probable proof of the death of MeNe- mair, who was last seen going up the river in a boat, which was reported to have foundered with all hands on board. A stay of proceedings was obtained by the introduction of an affidavit to the effect that
McNemair had been seen in British Columbia subse- quently to the alleged loss of the boat, and conse- quently might be still living. It is said that this affidavit was procured by A. II. Rose, to delay events until he could purchase the interests of the different heirs of the MeNemair estate. At all events, he soon appeared as claimant, he having sent a trusty agent to Illinois, the former home of McNemair, who had purchased the whole estate, a share in the mine, as well as the accumulated dividends, for about three thousand dollars, a mere bagatelle compared to its real value. What representations were made to effect this transaction is not known; but several visits were made to California by lawyers in the interests of the heirs, and it was some years before the matter was hushed up. It is needless to say that no more information of the missing man was received after the purchase of the estate by Rosc.
After the mine had been successfully worked for about fifteen years, it was sold to a joint-stock com- pany for six hundred thousand dollars, and was listed on the mining market at the Stock Exchange as the Consolidated Amador. The mine was too well known to be used as a bait for the public, and was not called on the board a great while. The mine perhaps paid for itself but did not equal the expectation of the stockholders. It was twice burned out, the immense amount of timber in the mine and the great cham- bering, making it an impossibility to stay a confla- gration after it had once got fairly started.
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