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Show THE SEARCH FOR GOLD INTENSE IN COLORADO It may be stated as a general fact that development for silver ore as such has ceased in Colorado, This at least is a lesson now being taught by such noted producers and dividend payers as the Commodore group at Creede and the equally great Revenue group at Ouray. From 1897 to 1900 inclusive the Commodore paid its Denver owners $1,000,000 per annum, and had plenty to spare for fresh work in tunnels and levels. The Revenue paid its- owners very largely Denver men 12 per cent on the $3,000,000 of capital stock, or $360,000 per annum, in addition to acquiring; fresh territory and making improvements on a large scale. The latest item, finished only last spring, was $250,000 for an electric power plant, to be used when the water power at the mills ran low. In 1900 and 1901 the Commodore employed em-ployed a force of 350 to 400 miners; the Revenue group a force ranging from 450 to 500. Each was the big shipper in the camp where located. Today the force at the Commodore does not exceed seventy-five men, including officers, of-ficers, while the entire force at the Revenue tunnel, mines and large mill has been reduced to 100. At both of these properties development for silver ore has ceased. There is another side to this picture. In Clear Creek, Summit, Park, Lake, Chaffee, Hinsdale, Mineral. San Juan, Dolores, San Miguel and Ouray counties coun-ties there are mines heretofore classed as silver which yield liberally in gold, lead or copper, and sometimes all three of these' metals. This class of property which seems to grow from year to year in Colorado, will, of , course, be developed, the silver in the ores being looked upon as a by-product, precisely precise-ly in the light in which lead was regarded re-garded in such mines up to 1893 and gold and copper until 1S94, when the smelters recognized these metals by making therefor a more liberal allowance. allow-ance. As silver disappears in the annual total to-tal of the Colorado mines, gold, lead, copper and zinc will move up, so that the general figure will contain as many units as in 1900, when silver averaged over 61 cents per ounce, copper $2 per unit at . the smelters and lead in the neighborhood of $4.33 and $4.50. . As in 1S93 and the years immediately following, the search for gold in Col-orado Col-orado is once more intense. The recent rich strike at the Livingstone property in Boulder county shows that the northern end of the state's great belt is in evidence. The progress of the Denver, & Northwestern railroad will be marked by other discoveries of the yellow metal, accompanied in many cases with lead and copper. The increased- supply of' this class of ore will create a demand for silver-lead concentrates, so that many properties now idle can be worked on .a. scientific scale' and with up-to-date concentrating, concen-trating, machinery, which, leaves the valueless rock near the mines. Summit. Park. Lake, Chaffee. Gunnison. Gunni-son. Hinsdale and Custer counties give signs of gold-copper revivals. Pyritio smelters conveniently located, as at Golden, Robinson and Buena Vista, i" not hampered by the . big trust and the Unted Metals , Selling Co. the trust's metal broker can do much to encourage this revival,.- because they furnish" a martvet for gold-cppper ores which are too low in value for present pres-ent use at the general smelting plants, and in turn gives the trust refineries a profitable business. . At Creede new developments in the Commodore and other mines is in the direction of the gold-bearing ores in the lower levels, as pointed out by the experience cf the Amethyst..- The revenue reve-nue Mines & Tunnel Co, which shares i with the Camp Bird the honors of Ouray, is liable to emerge from its present retirement very early in 190", as a full-fledged gold mine. The Montana Mon-tana lode, a recent acquisition of the company, is located near one end of the Revenue tunnel, three mile's - from the Revenue mill, but connected therewith there-with by electric transportation. The tunnel cuts the Montaria vein at near--ly 2,000 feet from the surfe, and. where the connection is made the ore vein is fourteen feet in width and runs $15 gold to the ton, without sorting. Small portions of this value are in copper and lead. Machines will be employed in mining. It is estimated that three of them will knock down or cut 100 tons'of ore per day. This means another an-other Camp Bird in the next six months. Rocky Mountain News. |