TREASURE HILL.

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 75, 17 July 1869, Page 5

TREASURE HILL.

(Erom the "Alta California.") The discovery of the mines of Treasure Hill, and building of the present city'u]3on it, now astonishes the world, and will long stand as one of its great wonders. "Whether its prototype in histoiy or not was known, we cannot at present tell, but- the nearest like it, in its discovery, isolation, wealth, and character, seems to be the great peak of Potoski, in South America. That lofty peak, of the Andes it described as reaching some thirteen thousand feet into the sky, is, from where it rises above the surrounding mountains, gorges, of valleys, some ten miles in circumference, and its silver, as every school-boy knows,' was discovered by an Indian, who, in pursuit of a goat up the precipitious rocky sides,- grasped a bush to help him in the ascent, and this giving way at the roots, exposed some glittering silver beneath. This was several centuries ago, and since then countless millions of the precious metal have "been extracted from that single mountain, until it is but a honeycombed shell, and it is not yet exhausted of its treasure. Treasure Hill is isolated like Potoski, is of a similar formation, of equal size, or perhaps a little larger at the base, and not quite so high ; its mines are of Indian discovery, and its future promises equal brilliancy, and equal if not superior wealth. Two years since, a degraded and starving Indian carried to a camp of miners a piece df the ore from the locality of the Hidden Treasure Mine, and this led to the exposure of the wealth of Treasure Hill. In the explorations following, quantities of pure silver were found where trees had fallen and burned, or where the Indians had built fires on the beds of chloride ore, reducing the easily smelted rock to metal. Such discoveries, made in different localities, naturally created a wonderful excitement, and plainly indicated its unexampled wealth, following the discovery of the ore which crowned the summit, came the discovery of the great Eberhault deposit, or vein, then those of Chloride Elat, Pogonip, Sunnyside, and the Base Range, all most surprising in their wonderful richness. The geological formation of the mountain is, as its riches are, rare. It is an isolated peak of fossiliferbus limestone, overlaying silurian rocks at a great depth, and these having a foundation on those of the primitive age. Into the crevices, caves, and chasms of the limestone, or in displacements occasioned by the action of thermal waters rising from the primitive and si.'urian rocks,. were deposited the lime, silicia, spar, and ores which now constitute the mines and veins of the hill. By such process of change has been formed that singular feature of mineralogy — fossiliferous quartz. The limestone has been carried away by the action of the water, while all its features, the form and character of the fossils, have bee a preserved in the obtruding silica. These crevices, chasms, caves, or displacements, are in every portion of the hill, and of every size, from that of a bull's eye to that of the mammoth chasm of the Eberhault, and the continuation of each, with increasing or varying richness, may be followed to an indefinite depth. A body of ore, small at the surface, may at a greater or less depth, expand to a great size, and vice versa. Such formation is very advantageous for mining, as the ores are in vast quantity, pure and rich, and easily mined. The exhaustion of the hill is almost a matter of impossibility, and none now living will see it accomplished. As of the mountain to which we have compared it, hundreds of years hence will see a prosperous mining community about the sides and base of Treasure Hill.