The Kenyon Gold Mining Company have a very large Bertola mill in Black Hawk, run by steam, put up late in 1863, but never much in operation, and a great amount of mining property, more or less developed, in the best districts of Gilpin and Clear Creek Counties. Joseph Kenyon, of Black Hawk, is their agent.

The Empire Gold Mining Company have an 18-stamp steam mill in Black Hawk, leased and at present running for the Smith & Parmelee Company. They have some considerably developed mining property on the Foote & Simmons, and other lodes in the vicinity of Black Hawk and Gregory Point. Maj. O. P. Rand of Boston, formerly represented the Company in Colorado, but they never did much, and latterly have done nothing.

Mr. J. B. Fitzpatrick owns an 8-stamp, steam mill in Black Hawk, leased and running for the Smith & Parmelee Company.

There are three or four other mills in Black Hawk including the Idaho Mill, which have been idle a long while and do not seem to have any owners. The Idaho Mill, however, has lately passed into the hands of an association of Judge G. B. Backus's friends in Pennsylvania, and is liable to be started most any time.

The Loker Gold Mining Company own 400 feet on the Bates, on both sides and crossing Chase Gulch not far from its mouth. F. W. Page, the agent, sunk a shaft on it to a depth of 150 or more feet, and was getting out some very fair ore when

they stopped work last Spring. Doubtless the Company own one of the idle mills in the gulch near the lode; we know not for certain.

The foregoing comprises nearly all the companies with their most important properties and operations, in the Gregory Diggings. It is possible some have been overlooked, and that some inaccuracies have crept in, but such has not been the intention. Lodes known to be very valuable, discovered within the last three years, we hardly know how to notice without seeming invidious, since we cannot notice them all.

The Pierce Lode is considered one of the strongest gold veins in the county. It is situate in Central City, crossing Nevada Gulch just below its junction with Spring Gulch, and seems to be formed by the junction of the Adeline, New York, Cork, Rich, and John Phoenix Lodes. The crevice is very wide-16 1-2 feet-and it is being worked, shaft 60 feet in depth.

The Adeline, a little further up and on the south side of Nevada Gulch, supposed extension of the Corydon, is another strong, rich vein. John Shumar is working it and recently got 96 ounces of gold from 50 tons of quartz.

On the eastern point of Quartz Hill is the Ulysses Lode, opened for 600 feet, and having four to five feet of solid ore, pyrites of iron and copper, at a depth of 50 feet, in Discovery shaft.

Near the head of Spring Gulch is the Wapello County Lode, shaft 100 feet deep, fair average crevice of ore.

In Spring Gulch, close by McIntyre's mill, is a new lode belonging to John Shumar, having a large ore-crevice almost on the surface, yielding by Keith process between $50 and $70 a ton.

Between the Bates and Gregory Extension, south side of the hill, is the Hope Lode, owned by John Tierney, opened for 500 feet by shafts from 25 to 188 feet in depth, vein five feet in width, paid in stamp mill from $18 to $25 a ton.

In Chase Gulch, half a mile from its mouth, on the south side, is the Etna, one of the strongest and richest and most promising veins in the county.

Near the head of Russell Gulch is the Jersey City, opened on four claims, to a depth of 30 to 50 feet, each shaft developing a strong rich vein of iron pyrites.

In Russell are also the Federal, Iron, General Birney, Jo Watson, H. D. Towne, Nemaha, Washcash, White Cloud, Sangamo, Watch, Banker, Rock Island, Pennsylvania, Nashville, Clinton County, Gorham, Sam Hackly, Timbuctoo, Windsor County, Prometheus, Big Horn, Pewabic No. 2, General Butler, and others, all of them developed to a good ore crevice, which is generally struck in Russell Gulch if at all within 50 feet of the surface.

In Saw Pit Gulch is the Genesee County, opened for 500 feet, showing a quartz crevice everywhere from six to ten feet wide; and in the Discovery shaft, at a depth of 30 feet developing a vein of solid, beautiful ore three to four feet wide. Saw Pit Gulch is a tributary of Russell Gulch.

But we cannot particularize further. If the reader

fail to get some idea of the net-work of gold veins that covers a circle three miles over of which Central City is the center from all we have said in this chapter, we despair of giving it. And there are perhaps a hundred good lodes in the space mentioned which are not named in this book at all.* *

*On the 1st of February last, forty mills and treating establishments were at work in Colorado. It may seem like a small proportion of the whole to strangers, but not to Coloradans. There was hardly ever a time when a larger proportion of the mills was in operation, and since the era of high prices, deep mining, and worst of all, speculation, set in-beginning of 1864-there has not been, as a rule, half so large a proportion at work. It indicates a great decline in the cost of living and working, and more and better than that, it proves that the mines are equal to their own development when extraneous help, which has really been a curse instead of a blessing, is withdrawn.

CHAPTER VIII.

Gilpin County Continued-Swinging Round the Circle-Independent, South Boulder, Central, Wisconsin Districts, Peck and Missouri Gulches-Their Improved Mines, Mills, Companies, Processes, &c.

As we have said before, the mines noticed in the last chapter, occur on that high tongue of land which comes down from the Range between the principal forks-called North and South-of Clear Creek. They are accessible from the Valley over three wagon roads, one entering the Foot-hills at Boulder City, one at Golden Gate, the other at Mt. Vernon, each about twenty-five miles in length. From Black Hawk on North Clear Creek, a wagon road winds up through Gregory and Spring Gulches, crosses the heads of Leavenworth and Russell Gulches and goes down Virginia Kanyon to Idaho on South Clear Creek, the distance about six miles, the elevation overcome, two thousand feet, the route toward the south-west, and passing through the improved mines of the old Gregory and Russell Districts. Another wagon road crosses the divide higher up at the head of Nevada or Eureka-descends on to Fall River, and follows that stream down