Show THE MACON CITY LEAD MINE EDITORIAL correspondence about a mile up the canyon from lane i city white pine county nevada and but three mi miles les from the now famous camp of ely is the old and justly noted macon city mine which is acknowledged to be the best developed as well as the most productive lead silver mine in robinson district and which under present improved mining and treatment methods should make a most gratifying record in the future under skillful and experienced management in the macon city group there are five full claims and two fractions this promis ing property being owned by john A steele of lane city and R A riepe of ely the macon city is one of the oldest claims in the district and was worked as long ago as 1870 about a thousand tons of ore from this mine averaging 35 per cent lead 26 ounces silver and about in gold being sent to the ward smelter twenty miles distant in 1872 to be used for fluxing flexing purposes and since 1897 the owners of this property have paid a bullion tax on an output amounting to 1370 tons A visit to the macon city would prove most interesting and instructive to the mining man and to the specialist in geology and formations and chiefly because of the rather uncommon ore occurrences here presented on the dumps at the mine there are piled UP ready for shipment to reduction works at least a thousand tons of ore that will yield handsome smelter returns while broken down and stored underground there are about 2500 tons of ore which accord according ng to tests made will assay from 26 to 32 per cent lead 24 ounces silver and 4 in gold this all being second class ore to say nothing of the to tons of first and second class ore all marketable that is blocked out and in sight in the mine ready for extraction and the smelter or mill it is rare that a silver lead mine is ia found in a formation such as is characteristic of the eastern portion of robinson district and anyone in making an inspection of the macon city might well imagine that he was in a coal mining region for here the veins exist in blanket formation with lime as the hanging wall and a rhyolite for the foot the veins being three and a half feet thick on an average and often widening out to six or seven feet or more the ore generally is a hard and soft A nl il I 1 i 1 C rap 44 t iak A G W W 7 surface workings on the macon GLY city mine lead carbonate with occasional occurrences of galena it is easily mined and no great depth is required to reach it the iron and silica percentage is about equal with about 5 per cent sulphur present underground a large amount of work has been done connections being made with the surface by means of two shaf shafts ts it would be difficult to describe the underground workings of the macon city as an area of feet in length by seventy five feet in width has been scoped out on a horizontal plane and the chamber so made has been replaced with second class ore which will be taken out and handled as soon as an e economical cono mical outlet is prepared this will be by means of a tunnel which has been already sta started arted on the west side this tunnel is now in for forty ty of the property eight feet and feet still requires require sto to be driven before a point is reached below the mine workings when a forty two foot upraise will be required to make connections when the accumulated and other ores in the mine will be dumped dum p ed to the tunnel level and carried out in cars to the dump where a good wagon road gives excellent facilities for transportation down the canyon the macon city mine is only about feet above the county road and is almost within a stones throw from lane city in the past it has been operated under the most adverse circumstances and yet it has a recorded production of from to with big reduction works being installed in its near vicinity and with two railroads heading for the camp there is good reason to believe that this property in the near future will make a record that will be pleasing as well as profitable to its owner |