Show BUFFALO HUMP MINING DISTRICT this district is situated about sixty miles from the town of grangeville Grange ville and eighty miles from the town of stites on the palouse branch of the northern pacific railway in idaho county ida it is reached by wagon road from these towns or from elk city about twenty five miles distant it derives its name from the mountain called buffalo hump a mass of granite and the highest point and center of upheaval of this section the general formation is granite carrying both muscovite and quite extensively ten disturbed and fractured and exposing many dykes of various plutonic rocks the surface has been eroded laid bare and rounded by glacial action making a quite general exposure of the bedrock the mountains are generally neither very high nor precipitous the elevation is from to feet the buffalo hump mineral belt as developed ve loped has a northerly and southerly orient of about seven miles and an easterly and westerly extent of about three miles it is claimed however that this same zone can be traced northerly as far as newsome creek twenty or twenty five miles distant the vein system consists principally of strong well defined fissures nearly parallel of a general northerly and southerly trend and varying in dip from vertical to 65 degrees both easterly and westerly from the horizontal these northerly and southerly fissures are remarkable in their hortz horizontal extent and width several perhaps a dozen of the veins can be traced for two miles or more showing large quantities of outcrop and float at various points for this distance their width varies from five feet to fifty or sixty feet as in the big buffalo and mother lode veins development shows that the line of separation between these veins and the country rock is invariably well defined in several instances under my observation the line of definition was marked by well defined smooth walls with clay selvege separating the vein filling from the country rock in some instances there appears to have been a of the country rock in the neighborhood of the veins how far or extensive this is I 1 do not know the vein filling consists of quartz bisin tre gated country rock talc and claya clay quartz largely predominating sulphides Sulp hides of iron and lead are found in nearly all of the veins these appear to carry the highest value which consist principally of gold the ore chutes seem to have an extent of to feet and values are fairly uniform there do not appear to be the small rich pockets found in many other districts in idaho the most extensively developed mines are re the jumbo with about 1400 feet of drifts and feet of depth the greatest depth attained in the district the big buffalo the cracker jack wise boy atlas concord group fortune and several others with less development there are stamp mills on the jumbo cracker jack wise boy and big buffalo results from these show chow that the value consists principally of gold prom from 50 to 60 per cent of the value is obtained on the plates about 25 per cent by concentration of the sulphides sulp hides and undoubtedly a portion of the remainder can be extracted by chanid ing from all information obtainable I 1 should judge that mills are saving from 10 to 25 per ton there is considerable increased activity in n the way of permanent development such as tunnels which will obtain considerable depth engine shafts larger mill capacity etc and it is evident that the inactivity of the past couple of years has ceased the district will necessarily be one of large operations the size and strength of the veins will need expensive machinery and I 1 think it quite probable that within a few years the district will support a large mining population frank C loving E M in mining spokane wash |