Page 205 - calmining1890

FRESNO COUNTY. 199

dred and fifty feet long. The shoots all pitch to the south about 55
degrees. Round pine timber is used in the mine, and costs 4 cents per
lineal foot. The explosive used is Hercules powder. About three miles
of road have been built by the company, at a cost of about $500 per mile.
The ore on the surface is mostly of a decomposed character, carrying 1-J
per cent of sulphurets of iron and galena, and the gold contained is
very coarse, a great deal being in a crystalline and wire form. With
depth, the ore has more of a calcareous appearance, and the percentage
of sulphurets increases to from 3 to 5 per cent. In this ore the gold is
also coarse, but less crystalline, and also of a lower grade, containing
more silver per ounce. The average value of the gold extracted is $12 30
per ounce. The ore from this mine has been latterly reduced in a custom
mill situated about one and one half miles from the mine, and previously
by arrastras owned by the company. The ore has averaged, in free gold,
$23 per ton. Sulphurets have not been saved. The ore is hauled on
sleds to the mill. The company intends soon to erect a mill and make
many improvements in the mine. The average wages paid in the mine
is $3 per day; outside men, $2 50.

ZEBRA MINE.

This mine is situated in Sec. 23, T. 9 S., R. 20 E., at an altitude of one
thousand five hundred feet above sea level. The mine was located in
1876, and consists of four locations, comprising five thousand two hun-
dred and fifty feet in length by six hundred feet in width. The mine
is situated one and a half miles from the town bearing the same name,
in a westerly direction. The shipping point of supplies for the mine is
Madera, distant by wagon road twenty-five miles. The course of the
vein is northeast and southwest, with a dip to the south of 40 degrees,
and averages in width sixteen inches. The hanging wall is porphyry,
and the foot wall is granite. The mine has been opened by four tunnels
driven on the ledge. No. 1 tunnel is one hundred and twenty-five feet
below the surface, and six hundred and forty feet long. Two air shafts
have been sunk from the surface to this level. No. 2 tunnel is fifty feet
below No. 1, and has been driven on the vein four hundred and sixty
feet. No. 3 tunnel is fifty feet below No. 2, and has been driven five
hundred and ten feet on the vein, and No. 4 tunnel, which is sixty-five
feet below No. 3, is five hundred and eighty-three feet in length, giving
in all, as far as run into the hill, in No. 4, three hundred feet in vertical
depth below the surface. Near the mouth of No. 4 tunnel a shaft has
been sunk one hundred feet in depth, and at a point on the surface
which would strike No. 1 tunnel about one hundred and forty feet from
its face, a shaft has been sunk on the vein eighty-six feet deep. About one
quarter of the distance of each level has been timbered with round pine
timber, which costs 5 cents per lineal foot. The tunnels have cost an
average of $4 per foot.
There are three ore shoots in the mine, the middle shoot being the
only one whose average length has been ascertained, and that is one
hundred and twenty feet. A great deal of stoping has been done on
each level, the longest continuous stope being three hundred feet. The
ore shoots pitch south at an angle of 45 degrees. The cost of mining is
$1 75 per ton. Giant powder is the explosive used in the mine. Lum-
ber is delivered at the works for $22 per one thousand feet. A road has