MINING ITEMS.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 719, 27 August 1870, Page 1 (Supplement)

MINING ITEMS.

[FROM SAN FRANCISCO PAPERS.] The news from the mines in the Big Bug District, Arizona, continues good. On Tuesday last, a clean-up was made at the Big Bug mill, after a run of about ! eight days, with ten stamps, and the ] amount of gold saved exceeded 1200doi. i The mine is in good condition, and there is rewk enough to keep the mill running several months. News from the Walnut Grove, Walker's and Martinex Districts, is favorable, although no new developments of, note have .been made. In the Wickenburg District, the Vulture Company's 40-stamp mill is engaged, as usual, adding to the wealth of the world. The Burro mines, some 300 miles from PresDott, in a south-easterly direction, are at present attracting a great deal of attention, and we are sorry that the last mail irotn the south brought us nothing new regarding them. The placers recently discovered in Pima County, this territory, and which were at first pronounced immensely rich, have, it appears, disappointed many ardent individuals. Thera i 3 no water near them, and they are not sufficiently rich to pay by the dry-washing process. The San Diego mines, and the Yellow Pine mines, on the other side of the Colorado, are, it said, very promising. A man named Rochon, with two companions, left this city a few <reeks ago for the mountains, prepared to do mining or any kind of work that came in their way. Near Shasta they commenced prospecting, and finally struck a good claim, from which they took a specimen weighing 184£ ounces. They had it on exhibition here yesterday. —Sacramento Bee, June 20. The Brown mine at Georgetown, Clear Creek County, Colorado, is yielding immense quantities of ore, that runs 600oz of silver to the ton. Eighteen miles from Lowe Lake, ou the Sacramento road, are the quicksilver mi»ie3 of Manhattan and Knoxville. Here some 400 men ate employed in the different processes of manufacturing quicksilver. The Knoxville mine has been successfully worked since 1860, and large quantities of it has been shipped off. The Manhattan mine, owned by Knox and Osborne, has been lately opened, and is paying handsomely. They are about two mile.l apart. The Knoxville mine is said not to be turning out so n&uch q icksilver for a year part as heretofore. I have no statistics, however. The mine at this, place — correctly the Manhattan, I believe, but commonly designated hereabouts as I have written at the head of this letter — is not yet fairly open. They are running on what may properly be called surface ore. Their works have been built within, a year past and just completed. It. cannot be known yet how this mine will turn out. The chief point of public interest, however, is in the reduction works, which are on an entirely new plan as to both furnace and condenser. On the old plan the furnace has to be charged with ore, then fired up, and kept hot nntil the quicksilver is all out, and then cooled down, cleaned out, and the process repeated. Thus, the. furnace can only be run about half the time, and it takes as much fuel to hoat it up to the proper point as to vaporise all the mercury afterwards. But the greatest trouble of all is the diffusion of noxious vapors all around the works. If the men escape suffocation by sulpheretted hydrogen and sulphurous acids, they are killed by mercurial salivation. R. F. Knox, one of the owners of the mine, has invented a furnace and a condenser by which he claims that all those difficulties are obviated. First, it runs all the time till something gives out. The ore and fuel constantly go in and the quicksilver and debris constantly cornea oufc, and there is not a noxious exhalation about the work. To this last fact I can testify from my own observation. The air is as sweet and as pure there as in any spot in California, in doors or out. Mr Knox is well satisfied with the workings of his plans, though he thinks he can build both a furnace and condenser, with some slight improvements on these. Santa Fe (New # Mexico), July 2. A letter to the Daily Post from the Grant country new silver mines says they are 5000 feet above the level of the sea. There is a population at Ralston, the new village, of 200. It is about 25 miles from the nearest river. Two hundred and eighty-five ledges have been discovered, and over 50 miles of claims, not being made in conformity with the Territorial law, are being (thrown out, but are relocated as fast as they are open. A canal and railway company, with a capital of 10,000,000d01, has been formed to take the ore to the mills on the river, and to carry water on the canals to the mines. The miners are in the heart of the Apache Indian country, and the settlement' will be a great security to the pioneer settlers and travellers, New and very rich silver mines have been discovered eight miles from Fort Bayard.