eral feet in width, and shows many points of similarity to the great Comstock vein of Mt. Davidson. The Discovery shaft on the Belmont is twelve feet deep, shows a vein of white quartz about nine inches wide, carrying cubes of galena and specks of sulphuret of silver, the assay value of which is not far from $1000 a ton. A second shaft, some 400 feet east, discloses the same kind and three times as large a vein, the assay value of which is from $300 to $500 a ton. The Wheeling Lode, near the Belmont, and occurring in the same syenitic formation, has been opened in three places covering a lineal extent of 500 feet; Discovery shaft is fifteen feet deep, and contains on the surface three distinct veins of ore, varying in width from three to eight inches, and separated by four or five feet of gangue rock, or more properly, country rock; toward the bottom of the shaft these veins approach each other, and doubtless unite at a greater depth. The Baker Lode stands out on the eastern slope of Kelso Mountain,* like a great tree which has been stripped by the storms of all but three or four of its principal branches. Wm. Brückner, a mining and metallurgical expert, describes it as follows:

"The two principal ramifications, called the north and the south crevices, bear a course of S. 72° W., and S. 60° W., dipping 65° and 85° to the north. They are traced and disclosed by many prospecting pits, showing bodies of uncommonly

*Kelso Mountain is at the head of the right upper fork as Mount McClellan is at the head of the left.

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rich ores, varying in width from twenty inches to twenty feet. The crevices consist of sulphuret and bromide of silver and argentiferous galena; all these ores being more or less interspersed within the vein matter of quartz and feldspar. Samples of ore, taken from these crevices, yielded by assay, as high as $800 to $2000 per ton. At the junction of the north and south crevices, a tunnel has been commenced, which shows a large body of ore, seven feet in width, consisting of sulphuret and bromide of silver and argentiferous galena, and a gangue, of quartz and feldspar. In order to ascertain the average value of this ore, samples of all the different classes of ore, more or less intermixed with gangue, were taken from all the different tunnels and surface pits, pulverized and equal weights of each mixed together. This average ore yielded by assay-gold, $6.11, silver, $69.00, $75.11 per ton of 2000 pounds. This is an uncommonly rich average yield for a lode of such enormous dimensions; from which, with a comparatively small amount of labor, hundreds of tons may be taken out every day; and in a locality, where good facilities for working the ore are very near.

Another account says:

"

"The ores which fill this vein are of varied caracter. The great body of them are chlorides, filling nearly two-thirds of the crevice, occupying a middle position in the vein nearly four feet wide. Next to the west side, along the underlying wall-rock, is a seam of bromide of silver about one foot in thickness, easily mined. To the side of the eastern wall-rock

there is found a seam of galena, and closely united with it, brittle sulphuret of silver, and a small seam of fahlerz, in all from fifteen to eighteen inches in thickness."

It is believed that the most of the ore found in this vein is better adapted to treatment by amalgamation than by fire. Two tons of it, unselected, undressed, and without roasting, were smelted last Winter, yielding twenty-five pounds of silver-coin value $422.90—and 1500 pounds of lead, at ten cents a pound, $150. A piece weighing eighty pounds and assaying $532.12 per ton, was sent to the Paris Exposition. About three miles above the junction on the right fork and two thousand feet up from the creek, occur the John Brown, United States Coin, and Mammoth Lodes, parallel and within fifty feet of each other, standing above the surface, the Mammoth assaying sixty dollars a ton for thirty inches in width, the Coin $200 a ton for eighteen inches in width, and the Brown about $350 for sixteen inches. Some ore from the Brown has been smelted-they are all argentiferous galena-and the lead-riches, of which the yield is nearly one-half the weight of the dressed ore, assays about $1000 per ton. It will be seen that they constitute a somewhat remarkable group, possibly all coming together below. These items will give some definite idea of how the Georgetown and Argentine silver veins develop, and of their value. They are not the result of personal observation, but are derived from contemporary sources which are deemed trustworthy.

CHAPTER X.

Boulder County-Characteristics-Mining Districts-Gold Hill, Ward, Central-Boulder Valley, Boulder City, Valmont-Geology and Topography of the Coal and Iron Region-Bellemonte Furnace and Coal Beds-Black Hawk Foundery.

UNLIKE Gilpin and Clear Creek Counties, which are wholly within the Foot-hills, Boulder County takes in a large slice of the best agricultural land of the Valley-about eight townships. Long's Peak is the north-west corner-stone, and the crest of the Range the western boundary line. It adjoins Gilpin and Jefferson on the north, and is not far from thirty miles square. Watered by the Boulders, St. Vrain, Left-Hand, and Little Thompson Creeks, which divide it into so many all but equal sections and flow through it from west to east; occupying the end of the Great Mineral Belt which approaches nearest and is most accessible to the Plains; abounding in coal and deposits of valuable iron ore accompanied by all the materials used in the construction and running of smelting furnaces; and having no less than two hundred and fifty square miles of the finest agricultural land admirably situated in every respect for irrigation,

Boulder may be not inaptly termed the gem of all the counties of Colorado.

Its numerous streams escape through the featheredge of the Foot-hills by the abjectest kanyons, worthless but as avenues of access; but above these the surface has been fretted by thousand rivulets making down from the Range until it is one vast park, chiefly covered with forest, but still presenting sunniest openings on the banks of clearest and most musical waters. It affords a pleasing and beautiful landscape from any elevated point on its circular enclosure. It was early invaded by the adventurous gold-hunter. Seven years ago, the Boulder Diggings at Gold Hill made quite as much noise as those of Gregory. Gold Hill is not properly on either of the Boulders, however; it is between Four-Mile and Left-Hand Creeks, say 1200 feet above them and eight or ten miles from the Valley. There used to be half a dozen mining districts in the county, each the size of a township, the precise boundaries of most of which either never were recorded or the record has been lost. Now-a-days, only Sugar Loaf, Gold Hill, Central, Ward, and Phoenix are ever heard of.

Ward District lies at the Head and on the North side of Left-Hand, extends east and west eight miles, and north from the creek, five. Gold Lake District adjoins Ward on the north, and is as much noted to date for containing a lake of 160 acresDr. Parry's "Osborne's Lake"-as for its gold mines, which, although they prospect well in a pan, do not seem to have interested anybody much in