Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1896 — Colorado Mines. [ARTICLE]

Colorado Mines.

The Silver Pick mine, a gold property of San Miguel County, has netted its owner over $30,000 a month for the last twelve months. One of the mist important mining enterprises ever undertaken in Colorado is the big San Juan tunnel to tap the Silver Lake basin district. Tills tunnel will be six miles long and will require about nine years for its construction. It has just leaked out that a big strike was made a few days ago in the Lone Star property at the head of Myers avenue, Cripple Creek. In sinking a shaft from thirty-five to seventy feet fifteen tons of ore were taken out which will average SIOO per toil. The ore carries both sylvauite and free gold. The Chicago tunnel, which starts in Poverty Gulch and runs east under Globe Hill, Cripple Creek, is {rushing work and is now in a distance of 1,200 feet. This Is one of the older tunnels and has been worked only spasmodically. It now appears that fibe compauy means to drive it forward until some of the rich veins In the hill are opened. The recent accident in the Anna Lee mine has In no way impaired the resources of the Portland Company, which has declared its dividend of 2 cents per share, amounting to $60,000, as usual. It is only just to the management of the company to say that everything is being done In all the workings of the company to prevent any recurrence of the sad accident which caused the loss of so many lives.

A correspondent of the Denver Republican has this to say of the Salida gold fields; The sooner the people of Salida and vicinity realize the fact that a ten-foot prospect hole is not a mine and that systematic development only can be expected to yield returns, the better off will be the newly-discovered district and the sooner the fact of its true worth be established. It is the universal opinion of every surveyer and geologist who knows anything of the formation of the region that depth is required to achieve the desired result. The most practical men are of all least discouraged, and these men are, as fast as their means at hand will permit,_ developing their claims in a systematic manner and are sanguinely hopeful of the final prosperous outcome of their efforts. There is more ore blocked out in the Smuggler-Union vein than in all the other mines of the State combined. In this great property there are thirty-two miles of drifts, shafts and winzes, and the vein shows more actual value than does any other single vein in the United States. It has a block of ore opened by twenty-three levels, shafts and winzes 7,000 feet long, with an average depth of 1,000 feet long, the width of the vein matter or ore between walls being from three to five and a half feet. With the development that has been done 1,000 men could be put at work, and they could not exhaust the ore body in fifteen years. The main tunnel is over 7,000 feet in length. The ore carries gold and silver in about equal values, running from one to three ounces In gold and from sls to S3O in silver to the ton. It Is low grade, but with the mill, tram and transportation facilities every bit of it is pay ore. It is capitalized at $2,500,000 and within the last thirty days it has declared a 5 per cent, dividend. The best good luck is immunity from bad luck.