Page 145 - The Geology and Ore Deposits of Sierra County, New Mexico - Bulletin 10

144 GEOLOGY AND ORE DEPOSITS OF SIERRA CO., N. M.
pits and small open cuts. Several years ago a carload of ore was shipped from these workings, and more recently another carload was shipped. These shipments are said to have had a value of about $40 a ton. The quartz seam within the vein widens to 6 or 8 inches and contains $40 per ton in the valuable metals. The vein here is not over 2 feet wide, and it is entirely within the latite porphyry dike. The average value over the full width of the vein is from $8 to $10.. At the southern end of the Garfield claim is a 60- foot tunnel, driven in a southerly direction toward the pits and cuts just described, from which a 30-foot winze has been sunk. Shipments of $30 ore are reported to have been sent from here to the Bonanza mill. This ore came from an extension of the vein on the Butler claim, but the vein appears to split toward the northeast, and the ground between the two branches is highly kaolinized and slightly mineralized beyond the vein walls. The dike is locally much wider, and there is a 12-inch seam of gouge on the footwall side of the main branch of the vein. The por- phyry dike is fractured and brecciated for a width of 4 feet, and along the west or hanging-wall border of this fractured zone is a 2-inch streak of sulfide and oxidized ore, much stained with copper. Barren or slightly mineralized andesite breccia makes up the remainder of the zone, which is said to average $6 in value, with the high-grade portion averaging $40. Just north of this tunnel a fault striking nearly due west displaces the main vein and the split portion slightly to the west. Along the main part of the vein a tunnel 150 feet long has been driven into the hill in a northeast direction. From surface workings above this tunnel, Jose Arelet mined ore in 1878-1879, which is supposed to have netted him $10,000 after treating it in arrastres in Hills- boro. From 1897 until 1900, Robin and Macy drove the tunnel on the vein and stoped out ground above it which was not reached by the Arelet surface workings. They also sunk a winze frdm the tunnel level to a depth of 30 feet, and did considerable under- hand stoping at various places along the tunnel. The stopes have a total length of about 150 feet. At a still later date, A. L. Bird of Hillsboro extended this winze to a depth of 60 feet below the tunnel level. At 40 feet he encountered a quartz veinlet which was followed to the northeast for 108 feet, and from which ore worth $4,000 was shipped in two products, one averaging $100 per ton and the other $40 per ton in gold, silver and copper. North of the fault the ground between the two branches of the vein is well kaolinized and mineralized, but the split portion ap- pears to converge and join with the main vein at a point near the end of the tunnel.
BIGELOW GROUP
The Bigelow group, consisting of three full-sized claims end
to end, includes two parallel oxidized vein outcrops on the south- west slope of Richmond Mountain at an altitude of 6,000 feet. The westerly outcrop is known as Bigelow No. 1 and as the Frick