Show condi conditions ti ons at tonopah BY LETSON BALLIET tonopah To nevada operations during 1915 have been practically identical with the operations erat ions of 1914 there has been no material reduction of working forces nor any decrease in tonnage produced although the low price of silver metal that prevailed through the year has given a reduced valuation to the bullion produced it is self evident that if the silver market had been 20 per cent higher the value of the silver production of tonopah would be 20 per cent greater I 1 mention this simply to emphasize the fact that the silver market has maintained a price about 20 per cent less than normal at this early date I 1 am unable to give a complete statistical report of the production in ounces of either gold or silver but it is approximately not far from that of last year and from the same properties but the most important matters to tonopah and to mining engineer the world is not the production from the old producers from the very nature of the mining business it must at once be realized that there is but one crop in any mine the old producing mines are harvesting their crops and can be expected to do so for many years until the harvest is completed from this source the world can expect about the same quantity of metal for some time however to perpetuate the life of any mining district there must be new deposits of ore discovered to keep up production when the older ones have ceased to produce the tonopah extension the tonopah extension mine has opened new deposits in virgin ground by extending its workings westward and by so doing has perpetuated its existence and is virtually a new mine and a bigger mine than any other in tonopah at the close of 1915 the cash boy still west of the tonopah extension the 11 cash boy mine has proven its ground by finding ore in the closing weeks of the year the west end consolidated the west end consolidated has also on ened up new bodies in its workings therefore hy by the development in these three properties the mineral producing area has been proven to extend one half mile further west than was proven a year ago I 1 this half mile of additional length to the I 1 producing area can be expected to add five I 1 years to the life of the district over the expectation of a year ago these developments just mentioned have stimulated prospecting and development for a mile even beyond the cash boy and the indications are that 1916 will add another halt half mile or more to the producing area of tonopah To and if so it will not be imps sible for the newly discovered ore deposits to equal the production that has already been found in the older mines but the development to the westward has not been any more important than the development to the eastward the halifax mine A year ago the belmont mine was the furthest east of any producing mine in the last sixty days of the year the halifax mine opened a big deposit of ore fully feet farther east than any other known knon body of ore had been found this body shows marks of being very extensive and the values are the most sensational ever found in any large body of ore in the district the buckeye in addition to this the buckeye mine opened a well defined vein of ore but of low values at the point where it was struck the development of this vein in the buckeye indicates increasing values competent mining men predict that the greatest bodies of ore ever found in the district will be opened east of the belmont and thus a stimulation of development has occurred in properties still east of the buckeye and halifax that gives great promise of big things to summarize the increasing price of silver and an increased production from double the area previously mined point to much larger possibilities for tonopah during 1916 |