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Show MINING AT SILYEK REEF. A Steady Output Looked For if the Silver Question Be Favorably Settled. Silver Reef has a livelier appearance at present than it has borne since the halcyon hal-cyon days of the camp, with strongindi-cations strongindi-cations of the spurt of activity becoming permanent. There has hardly a day passed for the last few weeks but what the stage from the north has brought in a load of commercial travelers, speculators specu-lators and mining experts, while Main street is crowded with prospectors and miners who have come down from the north in order to winter in this mild climate. Including teamsters, wood-choppers, wood-choppers, coalburners, mill-hands and miners, there are between 350 and 400 men at work in and.around Silver Reef; and if plans for contemplated enterprises are carried out, as expected, this force will be doubled within this year. Every dwelling-house and cabin in town has an occupant, and all the old shacks around camp that have been deserted for, years have been patched up and made temporarily habitable, while the Harrison House is crowded, with transients, which state of affairs has sent real estate up 50 per cent, within the last three months. The active companies here are running on a very close margin at present. If the Drice of silver will hold above $1 per ounce the mines and mills will in all probability continue to run ; but if it should go below that figure, it would not surprise us to hear something drop. If, on the other hand, silver takes a rise, as it is apt to do after Congress has laid out the national bankers and gold sharks, we confidently look for a boom. The great problem that our mining men have been trying to solve is a process by which low grade ore can be worked to an advantage for without exception there is more of this character of silver rock in sight on the dumps and in abandoned stopes in this district than there is in any one mining camp on the coast. You can Dick no a niece of country rock anywhere on the Buckeye or White reef that will assay from three to four ounces, while there are thousands ,of tons of .ore scattered through the waste dumps in camp that will sample 15 ounces per ton. The Stormont and Christy companies have been working ore right along during the past year that does not average 15 ounces, while until a few months ago the chlorider could get nothing for rock that went less than $30, as the mills of the present two companies were the only places in this part of the country where custom ores were crushed. Sine the new leaching works have been nearing completion, com-pletion, however, the Stormont and Christy companies have been offering bet ter terms to chlonders, as many of them were piling up their ore on the dump and holding it in reserve until such time as the new leachers operated. The new leaching ' works will have turned on steam by the time this reaches you, when its progress will be carefully noted by our resident mine-owners, who devoutly wish to see it succeed. The new plant is located in the old Leeds mill building, - about one mile from town. The leaching and precipitating tanks are made of California redwood, and the other parts of the apparatus are constructed con-structed of the best quality ot material. The tanks have a capacity of 100 tons of slums, and the managers are confident that they can easily handle seventy-five tons of ore every twenty-four hours. The company ha3 been working tailings during the last year, in comparatively small works, with such success that they were induced to erect this new leacher on a grand scale. The Russell process will be used, as the managers have during dur-ing their past experience found out its advantages and obtained the sole right of using it in this county. Cor. Pioche Record. |