OCR Text |
Show CINNABAR DEPOSITS FOUND BY ACCIDENT Men Tracking Lost Steers Discover Red Mineral Veins in Limestone. Two stray steers caused the discovery of a deposit of cinnabar in the Pilot mountains, western Nevada. On the day of the discovery Thomas Pepper and Charles Keough had been tracking the two steers, when, near nightfall, the trail led over an old prospect in which a face of limestone traversed by small vein lets of red mineral was exposed. The red mineral was recognized by Keough as cinnabar. After finding the steers and taking them to Mlna the two discoverers returned to Cinnabar mountain, as the hill on which they had made the find ha d be en n a meel . where t n ey spent te n days in careful search and located seventeen seven-teen claims. They later went back to Mina and made known their find, causing caus-ing Intense excitement, and that afternoon after-noon almost every citizen of the town left for the site of the discovers by automobile auto-mobile and by other less expeditious conveyances. con-veyances. A large number of claims were staked by the first comers and many more were afterward staked by claimants from Tonopah. The discovery was widely heralded as the rediscovery of the "lost Hawthorne quicksilver mine," named for Judge Hawthorne; In whose honor, it is said, Hawthorne, the seat of Mineral county, was named. According to local report In the seven t les Judge Hawthorne discovered dis-covered a rich quicksilver deposit, which is believed to have been situated at the site of the recent dlscoverips. in returning return-ing from the mountains, so tt Is said, Hawthorne lost his bearings, and although to the end of his life he attempted annually an-nually to find the "quicksilver mine." he remained Unsuccessful. This tradition seems highly improbable. The original discoverer who he was is unknown had done some very substantial exploratory explora-tory work on the prospect. Tn his efforts to prove his find he had blasted out a considerable mass of solid limestone, and as further tokens of his activity sticks of powder, fuse and picks lay ahandoned at the prospect. That this energetic pros-portor pros-portor lost his way and was unable to find the prospect at which he had labored la-bored is not easily credible. Tt Is more likely that h abandoned the prospect as. in bis Judgment, not sufficiently- valuable. The newcomers have found considers bly richer deposits than the unknown pioneer did. and have shown that the cinnabar extends along a considerable belt. The quicksilver deposits on the claims of pernf,r and Keough. as well as those In th rest of the district, are described In bulletin fi20 -D, "Some Cinnabar Deposits in Western Nevada," by Adolph Knopf. recently Issued by the T'nited States geological survey. A copy may he had freP on application to the director of the survey, Washington. P. C. |