The Findley Gold Mining Co.
Pages 16-20
author: Findley Gold Mining Company of Georgia
extent: 21 p.
publication place: [New York?]
date: 1878
repository: Chestatee Regional Library System, Lumpkin County Branch
collection: Madeleine K. Anthony Collection
box: III-7
folder: 7
More information: About the Digitized Version
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they have on the extent and richness of the deposits. One of the most remarkable is the "Findley Vein," now being worked, and from which a short time ago several masses was [were] taken consisting of nearly equal bulks of gold and quartz. In conclusion I desire to express my conviction, after the extended examination I have made, that success cannot fail to attend the delivery of the 'Yahoola' waters upon this tract -- with proper management the yield of gold would be enormous."
As this Company was the first to apply to the New York Mining Stock Exchange to have its stock listed under the stringent rules lately adopted, it was necessary that an expert should be employed to examine aud [and] report upon the property. Mr. J. C. Randolph, a mining engineer and geologist of large experience and wide reputation, was selected by the Exchange, and we append a synopsis of his report.
Report on the Findley Gold Mine, Dahlonega, Ga. [Georgia]To the Security Committee of the New York Mining Stock Exchange:
GENTLEMEN: -- At my recent visit to this mine, at Dahlonega, Ga. [Georgia], I examined carefully into the extent and character of the property, the developments and work already done, the character and cost of the operations needed for the production of gold, and into the feasibility of their plans for the future.
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I found a property which for eighteen months has been the object of a small, legitimate and paying private enterprise, systematically worked with shrewdness, economy and skill, using novel methods of reducing the cost of handling ores of a very low grade, and thereby extracting a profit from them.
The gold ores on the property, hitherto worked, are of so low a grade that in most districts they would be deemed unworkable, and my surprise was great at finding they were extracting a profit from them.
My examination also brought me to the conclusion that a much more extensive enterprise on a paying basis was possible, using the same methods, with the expenditure of a not large amount of additional capital.
In order to obtain the additional capital needed by the sale of a fractional part of their stock, they are seeking the rights of the market of your Board.
The facts concerning the property are these: It lies one mile southeast of Dahlonega, on the Yahoola River, and consists of 120 acres, in absolute ownership, lying on a ridge trending northeast and southwest, and a lien on forty acres of lowland by the river.
The 120 acres, which is the present object of exploration, lies on a hill 480 feet in height, pitching steeply at the eastern end down to the Yahoola River. The whole hill consists of a series of beds, containing interculated masses of white sugary quartz, carrying gold. The beds have the same strike as the hill, namely, northeast and southwest, and dip 30± -- 40± to the east.
They are in every way conformable in strike, and dip with the chloritic slates, enclosing them and, in this respect resemble the majority of gold-bearing
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deposits in North Carolina and Georgia. The thickness of the beds is very great, and the whole hill seems composed of them. My time being limited, I tested the whole series of beds, by panning ore taken from the test holes driven in each, by pounding up the samples selected, and working them in a miner's pan.
In each case I got a very satisfactory showing of gold. This test is of a practical character, for when it is considered that a twenty dollar gold ore contains but 480 grains of gold in the ton, it may be fairly believed that when a pan full of ore (three or four pounds) gives a large series of colors, it contains a good deal of pure gold to the ton.
The order of these beds, counting from the end, at the foot of which is placed the stamp mill, towards which they dip, is as follows:
I. The black surface ores on the end of the hill are highly quartzose and were at one time full of sulphurets [sulfurets], which have been decomposed, certainly the whole depth of the hill, and probably much deeper.
They are the only ones which have been steadily worked up to this time, and carry seventy-five cents to one dollar and twenty-five cents to the ton in free gold. They hardly show a color in the pan. Their width is very great.
II. The Sand Vein is back of these, and has been opened to the full width, at the top of the hill. It is twenty to thirty feet wide, and consists of a loose, white sugary quartz, carrying gold, intermixed with a dead blue quartzite. A recent assay of large samples was made by Booth & Garrett, chemists,
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of Philadelphia, with the result of twenty-five dollars per ton. I made pan tests across its whole width, obtaining a large showing of gold from all except the blue quartzite. My pan tests would seem to confirm the above assay. The amount of ore in this bed is very great.
III. The Findley Shute lies immediately behind this, is narrow and has been very rich. Large amounts of gold have been taken from it by panning alone; and $3900 are said to have been taken from it in this way from a streak ten feet long. It has been slightly opened by a slope, but it has never been worked for mill ore on account of deficiency of hoisting and pumping apparatus.
IV. and V. Behind this lie two other quartz ore beds, from which I obtained very good indications by the pan.
These beds are together of very great thickness and all of them containing gold. The placers in the neighborhood were undoubtedly formed of the debris from the outcrops from these very beds, and were at one time famous for their yield of nuggety gold. This fact, and the fact of the rich strike in the Findley Shute, indicate beds containing rich bunches. Although such bunches, when they occur, are very gratifying, in judging from the property, I have left them out of account.
My belief from my examination is that the main body of ore in all the beds will range from $1 to $10, and that there is an enormous amount of ores of these grades.
In any other district such ores could not be made to yield a profit, and could not be the object of mining enterprise.
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In this district, not merely at this mine, but at several other mines in the neighborhood, having the same facilities and using the same method, ores of the lowest grade are being handled with a profit ranging from $1 to $3 for every dollar expended.
The conditions which makes [make] this possible are four: 1. Cheap labor at seventy to eighty cents per day, and skilled labor at $1 to $1.50 per day. 2. The fact of the ores lying on the surface at a low dip. 3. The fact of the ores being greatly disintegrated and easily worked by the pick without blasting. 4. Plenty of water at a high head.
These conditions have given rise especially to the very unique method pursued at the Findley and several other mines.
Without plenty of water it would be impossible. This is furnished by the "Hand" mining ditch twenty-two miles in length, which takes water from the Yahoola River at a much higher level than the mines, and brings it by slight grades along the mountain sides [mountainsides], crossing the valleys no less than four times by inverted syphons [siphons] of wrought iron, and carrying from 1500 to 2000 miner's inches of water. It has an extension two and one-half miles long, to the Findley mine, and another extension amounting to seven and one-half miles, and has cost nearly a half million of dollars.
The water is delivered by the extension to the Findley mine to a level about 150 feet below the crest of the ridge. Could it have been delivered on the top of the ridge, nothing more could have been desired. By the use of this water, the mode of mining has been of a semi-hydraulic character.
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