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Show 4 INTER-MOUNTAI- are the Muldoon, Bismarck, Boston, Mahogony, Tiger, Jumbo and Queen of Sheba. In the Clifton district are located the Cane Springs group of twenty-thre- e patented claims, producing high-grad- e gold ore, and many other properties, showing gold, silver, lead and copper. Then there are the Fish Springs and Willow Springs and districts in Utah, and the Ferber, Kinsey, Silver Mountain and White Cloud districts in Nevada, each of which is prepared to op- erate its mines as soon as railway transportation is provided. Two mines now being worked in the Fish Springs district, the Utah and Galena, are transporting their ores seventy-fiv- e miles by wagon and paying regular monthly dividends. The estimated output of the Deep Creek country, by districts, is as follows, including Ophir, on the line of the road: Ophir, 150; Death Canyon, 40; Indian Springs, 30; Dugway, 200; Fish Springs, 200; Willow Springs, 30; Clifton, 200; Dutch Mountain, 70; Ferguson Springs, 30; Ferber, 200; Spring Creek, 50; Kingsley, 100; Muncie, 300; total, 1605. Information in greater detail concerning the Deep Creek mines will appear in The Mining Review in the near fu- ture. A Railroad Year. This promises to be a railroad as well as a mining year for Utah. The Rio Grande Western is building south to Marysvale, thus providing cheaper transportation for the mines of that district, and it 'is believed to be its intention to continue coastward, taking in the iron and coal fields of Iron county. It is announced also that this company will construct a line up Provo canyon to Park City, to be extended eventually to the Uintah reservation, where rich mines will be opened up if Congress can devise some way to compel the Secretary of the Interior to execute the law. Construction work upon the road westward to the Nevada line will be commenced now within a few days, and this line wrill open up a reregion of magnificent mineral sources. It is possible, also, that the Salt Lake & Pacific will start a road to the coast, by way of the rich mining districts of southern Nevada, which will thus be placed within easy reach of Salt Lake. Then, should the Short Line plan of reorganization succeed, its management be placed in the hands of a Western man, and the system operated with a view to the greatest possible revenue to itself, instead of as a Union Pacific feeder, Salt Lake City would not only become a most important railroad center, but she would also take rank with Denver as a supply point and smelting center. By all the lawrs of transportation and trade, the Lake territory directly tributary toofSalt mineral Includes that vast expanse and agricultural territory extending from the Coeur d'Alenes to the southern Nevada line. The railroad situation is shaping itself most favorably, and now, if the intermeddling priesthood, the knavish politicians and the alarmist contributors to the daily press could all be dropped to the bottom of the deepest shaft in Utah and the shaft corked up for five years, the pathway to increased prosperity would be cleared. N MINING REVIEW. The Bingham Placers. lower boxes of the sluice, throwing the larger cobbles high up on the dump Now that the people of Bingham are with a shovel. One piece rolled off his preparing to advertise the mineral re- shovel, and thinking it to be an iron sources of the West Mountain mining rock which they were saving for the district, which is practically the birth- Winnamuck smelter he picked it up place of the mining industry in Utah, to save it and immediately discovered they should not forget, nor should they that it was a gold nugget. Its weight pass over with a brief mention, that was 7 ounces and 15 pennyweights, and particular branch of the industry that its value at the price of Bingham gold first attracted the attention of miners ($18.65 per ounce) was $128.65, the nugto the mineral values in the Oquirrh get later passing into the hands of an range, namely, the placers. Lode min- attache of the banking firm of McCor-nic- k erals in Bingham and vicinity have & Co. of this city. disbeen the means of giving to the This is undoubtedly the largest nugtrict the title of the 'Old Reliable get ever taken out in Utah, its nearest but only those who have been closely rival being one recovered from the Aroutand the its with camp acquainted gonaut placers in Bingham, between put for a generation past know how Markham gulch and Canyon Fork, by much the reliability and stability of Italian Cherignino, which weighed the district has been dependent upon the 120 pennyweights. the placers. At every period that unIt seems almost incredible, but it is favorable legislation placed the prices nevertheless the fact, that the main of silver and lead (the two predominant metals in the veins) at such a channel of the canyon in which these low figure that the miners could not placers are located has never yet been make wages in working them, they worked, and with one or two exceptions have always gone back to the placers the bedrock has not been touched. as a means of making a living, and in From the mouth of Bingham canyon not a few of these instances have they to the divide between Bear gulch and made big money. Sometimes these Black Jack, a distance of about fourreturns to gravel working took the teen miles, the placers have been miners to portions of the rim that shown to exist where the rim rock has had been worked previously, and in been encountered, and all along this other cases they entered into unex- stretch gravel working has been rewarded with good returns for the miplored ground, but always on the rim and the bars leading from the rim; ners. At points where the lateral same the result being always the gulches enter the main channel comwages, at least, and frequently a stake. paratively extensive placer work has In many instances wrages ranging from been done underground, but even this $7 to $20 per day to the man have has left the main channel yet unbeen made in sluicing over again the worked. Between Markham gulch and tailings from abandoned placers, and Carr Fork, a distance of about 1000 feet, in this connection an interesting story the old Heaton & Campbell drain ditch is related of the Clays brothers, and touched the main channel and pay dirt the largest nugget ever discovered in was common, while better than $25 to Utah. the pan was obtained. With this sinPrior to 1868 the placer claim later gle exception, it does not appear that known as the Clays Bar, situated Bingham's main channel has been even nearly opposite Dry Fork, had been prospected. worked by the Clays boys and others, Charles W. Watson started a drain and in the neighborhood of $100,000 in ditch at the Lead mill, just above gold had been taken out, a shaft havthe mouth of the canyon, in 1886, and ing been sunk, directed toward the after 3600 feet abandoned the channel, to a depth of 120 feet, which work running on account of the enormous flow was abandoned on account of the water. Later the attention of the Clays broth- of water, without yet having reached ers was directed to other pursuits, but the bedrock. The drain tunnel, howin 1875 they ran against the stump ever, found one of the original chanthat so many Western miners strike; nels of the canyon, and out of this that is, they went broke. Their re- some splendid returns were obtained, course for another stake was the bar the gravel frequently running as high and to that they went, and in company as $12 per yard for many consecutive with Dan W. Heaston, who is now shifts, while individual pans of dirt were dead, but has left some sons who are taken from the crevices that ran from today leaders in the development of $20 to $40 per pan. Other concerns have Bingham, proceeded to open up the old attempted to reach the trough of the ground. Old Dan Heaston called atten- main channel, notably the shaft sunk tion to the possibility of pay in the old by A. M. Spooner, but the subterranean tailings and suggested that they be flow of water has always been the worked over, and as it was desirable, cause of shutting down the work at in any event, to get rid of them, they about the time the pay dirt was were thrown into the sluices. The re- reached. sult was wages to the three men of Taken in the aggregate, there are at never less than $7 per day each, with least fourteen miles of the main Bingfrequent rewards of as high as $15. ham channel that have not yet been Afterwards the bar (which was away worked, and the estimate of the most above the rim) was reopened and the conservative men who have operated Clays boys were once more placed upon in the placers of the district, is that their financial feet, but during the run there is a good $2,000,000 net to the mile of the tailings the big nugget was yet lying in the Bingham channel. found. Others assert that if all the placer gold Dan Clays, the youngest of the Clays in Bingham, with the lateral channels brothers, was one day cleaning out the and the bars, could be recovered, the 1 |