The Mineral Wealth of the Black Hills

by Cleophas Cisney O'Harra

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902 edition. ...or fragments but further prospecting located the ore in long fissures or "verticals" both to the north and to the south of Ragged Top but chiefiy to the north on what is known as the Dacy.or Balmoral fiat. These so called verticals are perpindicular crevices in the 'massive limestone partially or wholly filled with a siliceous mass of brecciated limestone containing more or less iron oxide and calcite. Active mining operations were carried on along these verticals, seven in number. during the years 1896-97 and then ceased. the ore becoming too lean to be profitably worked. The greatest thickness of the verticals at the surface was approximately ten feet but all are said to have become narrower with depth. The average depth of ore of sufficient value to work, at that time approximately twenty dollars in gold to the ton, was about sixty feet, although the Balmoral andUthe Dacy considerably exceeded this depth. The Dacy vertical, the largest producer, has been traced along the surface a distance of two thousand feet or more. Its direction is N 35 W and the general. trend of the other verticals is about N 45 W. The walls are illy defined, lateral enrichments sometimes occur and the o're when not brecciated is scarcely different in appearance from the lean or barren limestone enclosing the ore body. The ore is usually slightly darker, however, and is harder owing to the presence of the silica. Professor Smith gives the following analysis of Dacy The Potsdam Gold Ores of the Black Hills, Am. Inst. Min. Eng., Trans., Vol. XXVII, p. 418. A few miles north of Ragged Top mountain on the Cleopatra property a small vertical has been found in the limestone, apparently similar in every way to those found on the Dacy flat. This...

32 pages, Paperback

Published September 13, 2013