GhostMiner

Here is what the project looked like when Jack Murphy started. It shows the old workings from 1936 where over 1000 ounces of gold were taken and the operator murdered for the gold. Murphy is extending the drift northward at the 56 ft level along bedrock. They are of the belief that bedrock will drop away at some point where a major gold cache awaits them. However, the values have been weak along the bedrock at 56 ft so he is now seeing hope of better gold above bedrock and ready to raise 20 ft up to a higher level. In short, he needs gold now. We'll soon see what the results of this are. I think it's a make or break deal at this point.

Reading this confirms some of the old geology reports in this area which state that in some areas the best gold values are far above the bedrock due to all the upheavel. Of course as miners we almost always expect the best gold at or near bedrock. Confounding. At this point Jack Murphy seems to be running out of not only money but options. He needs some good results in order to secure some investors and keep the dream alive and also keep his house. I'm rooting for him.

May 25 1950 I am switching the current operation from drifting of bedrock to raising in the channel gravels. I have found that the fine, silty material immediately overlying the bedrock is nearly barron in gold but the cleaner quartz gravels higher in the channel carry much higher gold values. I have decided to put up four raises to test these gravels. The raises will be 4’ by 4’ and 20 ft long at an angle of 45 degrees to vertical and timbered solid. Because of the timbering the estimated cost will exceed the previous expense budget. However, I remain confident of good values to be found. I am also awaiting the decisions to invest in the project by several interested parties. TO BE CONTINUED ...............

May 23 1950 To date we have processed 150 yards. The gold value is $102. Drifting continues along the bottom of the gravel channel. One raise has been driven upward 20 ft into the gravel in search of better sorted strata that might carry higher gold values. Most of the gravel thus far is poorly sorted and contains abundant clay and decomposed volcanic rocks. The gold content is extremely fine grained and ranges from a trace to as much as $10 but is averaging less than $1 per yard. TO BE CONTINUED ...............

May 15 2002 This morning’s cleanup gave us ½ an ounce. It wasn’t exactly great but the gold is there. Jacob said we’ll get hot spots and cold ones as well. We just need to keep working consistently as far as putting yards of gravel through the tom. We’ve had really good weather for working. Temperatures have been starting out in the low 40’s and climbing to about 70 each day. We worked the site hard all morning, broke for lunch, and got back to it until nearly dark again. We started hitting some rounded rock about six inches in diameter along with some smooth flat rock maybe a foot long. I think we’re into a good channel up here. Our trench is eight feet deep and about twenty feet in length. Jacob doesn’t think anyone has worked this area. We have not hit bedrock but Jacob thinks it may be close. Maybe another five to ten feet down. He said we may be working good pay in the streak above it and it should improve as we go deeper. We ended the day with sixteen yards of gravel processed. We’ll do a cleanup in the morning before we come back up here. We are getting faster at it and gaining experience each day. TO BE CONTINUED .................

Cheers.

The bedrock locations in that area are confounding to say the least. I've seen exposed bedrock in some areas & in others it's 100 ft deep. The fault broke everything up and threw it around just to confuse miners. It's enough to drive a person to drink.

May 14 2002 Last night I dreamt of gold. It is the first thing on my mind when I wake. I have the fever and it is bad. I think it is like that for Vern and Jim as well as possibly Jacob. Last night before retiring to his camper Jacob took me aside and thanked me again for including him on our team. I told him it was me who should be thankful to have him with us with the wealth of knowledge and experience he brought with him. When we arrived at the dig site we immediately could see that something was not right. Things had been disturbed. Nothing had been taken but everything had been knocked all over the place and the wash tub was tipped over and on the ground, not on the table. We figured a bear may have been up there rousting around but we couldn’t find any tracks. We put everything back in order and got to work without losing more than fifteen minutes. Like Jacob says, time is money. We are widening the hole into more of a deep trench while still gaining depth. The work is a little slower now. We gave it all we had until nearly dark and ended up with fifteen yards of processed gravel. We pulled the mats and headed back to camp to get cleaned up some and have our supper. We will do the cleanup early tomorrow morning as we are just too exhausted from our day’s work. The life of a gold miner. TO BE CONTINUED ...............

May 22 1950 We have advanced the drift on the northerly direction 42 ft. Careful examination of gravels found on or near bedrock (within 6 ft) of the bedrock contact reveal no values whatsoever. This is the first time such occurrence has been noted. The possibility of entering an area some 150 ft farther along the present course from the surface is being considered as it appears that bedrock may ly nearer the surface than originally suspected. On the subject of the loan application, I have heard back from the bank and they advise I am unable to secure the funds requested without putting up sufficient collateral. I am looking into this as well as contacting several potential investors who previously had shown interest in the project. If sufficient funds are not procured I may need to terminate the project soon. TO BE CONTINUED .................

Here is another geologist sketch of the ground being considered in the 1950 project.

This is one of the sketches from the geologist of the 1950 project. I have an entire trunk lode of information on thie 1950 - 1959 projects at the northern faultline area. I think because of the 1000 ounce gold strike of 1936 there was a lot of interest in the area after WW2.

May 21 1950 From the geologist – For 800 ft in the area along the west fault from the original portal and going in a northerly direction in the channel show good potential for significant pay streaks. Gold values per cubic yard from drill samples #3851 9.3 cents #3852 1.12 #3853 22.2 cents #3854 93.4 cents #3855 4.6 cents TO BE CONTINUED ............

So I thought i'd show a map of where the 1950 work is taking place in relation to the area I worked with Jacob in 2002. The 2002 work was done at what the Stevens brothers call the Eastern Drift Mine and was about 2000 ft east of the 1950 project at the faultline. The 1950 crew reopened the glory hole and reopened the drift that went down to 56 ft and over 1000 ounces of gold sitting on raised bedrock according to the U.S. Dept of Interior report of 1965. Now they are opening a new drift along bedrock at the 56 ft level & heading north to see what is there. At some point the bedrock must fall away to deeper areas according to the geologist of that time and that is where the main deposit will be. Possibly thousands of ounces. I would have chased it just like they are doing. That is an area I plan to open up again.

May 19 1950 The churn drill holes. The first hole was drilled 50 ft north of the portal. Blue gravel was struck at 68 ft and remained in blue gravel until reaching bedrock at 110 ft. A second drill hole was placed 50 ft north of #1 hole. This hole also struck the blue gravel at 75 ft but was stopped out at 85 ft due to large boulders. A third hole was drilled 50 ft west of the portal and reached a depth of 100 ft before being stopped out before reaching bedrock. There was no blue gravel encountered in hole #3. This seems to indicate the deposit is located in close proximity to the fault on its westerly side. Due to the expense and failing to reach bedrock in the 2nd and 3rd attempts I have decided to cease drilling in order to retain as much capital as possible. We will evaluate the churn drill values on site. Cost per foot of drifting $36 Miner’s daily wage 19 Hoistman’s daily wage 15 Geologist 95 TO BE CONTINUED ............

May 13 2002 We got up to our new dig site bright and early. It was still below 50 degrees when we started digging at 8:00 AM. We were all anxious to see what this new spot would provide us in the way of gold. We cut some steps into the side of the hill to make going up and down a little easier, especially for Jacob who would never ask us to do something like that for him. He took several samples in the morning and hollered out to us from down below. He said he was seeing gold. We broke for lunch at 1:00 PM. We were all in a good mood, especially since there was some gold being found again. When we got back to work we went right at it and I was in a real shoveling mood. We had seen some gold in the top of the sluice box matting and we were on fire. By 6:00 PM we were beyond tired. We had picked and shoveled our way to eighteen yards of gravel sent through the tom. Vern shut down the pump and we pulled the mats. We had one hell of a hole going into the side of the mountain now. We were going nearly straight down. We cut a walkout ramp at an angle so we could walk the gold out and dump it in the sluice. We had to start using buckets to do it. When we got back to camp we decided to do the cleanup. We were just to darn curious about what we had in the mats. We finished up just after dark and Jacob set the gold down in front of us. He had a smile on his face so I knew it was good. There was 1.25 ounces. I saw fine gold but lots of coarse as well as a bunch of pickers. I can’t wait to get to town and phone my wife. We are back in business. TO BE CONTINUED ................

Yes, if you were looking for Jacob and my crew to get into gunfights & bar room brawls when I was working out there in 2002 you're definitely in the wrong place LOL. My wife would have skinned me alive LOL. I could just imagine when I was writing this jornal back in 2002 and went into town to call the wife and give her an update. She'd ask me how we were doing & were we getting much gold. Then I'd have to tell her I got into a shootout and a bar fight and am sitting in jail. Not exactly what she would want to hear LOL. YIKES!!

This just shows us all how risky and far out on the curve someone can get when chasing big gold. The drilling seems like a good idea. Too bad he had to put his house on the line to do it. The results are in the log and I will get them up a bit later today. You can't help but root for these guys.

May 15 1950 Seeing as we are still not sure of any definite investors coming into the project I have applied to borrow the sum of $10,000 from the Sacramento Deposit Bank. Previous exploration now seems to conclude that the body of the blue Neocene gravels being sought runs along the fault and is contained in this location. At great cost, I have brought in equipment to conduct some churn drill exploration in the northerly ground. I was able to secure a second mortgage on my house for immediate funds which are needed. I am very confident of the success of the drill reports. We continue drifting along the 56 ft area and have made slow progress. TO BE CONTINUED ............

So to my understanding, these guys are spending a lot of money chasing a dream. Man, that sounds familiar.

May 12 2002 Part Three We panned the samples and there were some fines but nothing much to speak of. Jim, Vern, and I went back up on the hill and decided to open up a pretty good hole and attempt to get some depth. After an hour and a half of hard digging we were down about six feet and the diameter of the hole was about five feet across. We took some buckets of the gravel down to the tub and started panning again. This time we saw some fines but also a bit of coarse gold and three pickers. We looked at Jacob who was still holding his pan and looking at the contents. He gave us a wink and said we should work it. We went to work cutting a flat area into the hill where we could set the tom. This would make it possible to shovel directly into the grizzly instead of carrying buckets down the hill. We also had to cut a shallow ditch for tailings runoff down to the tailings pond. Then we re-routed the water line across the side of the mountain so it wouldn’t have to try to push water uphill. By the time we had finished it was well after 5:00 PM. We were all bushed and decided to call it a day and get some food in us and a good night's rest so we would be in shape to mine in the morning. Tonight we had ourselves a treat. Jacob made up some hot water corn bread using his brother's recipe. He used bacon grease in the meal as well as the pan. We had it with cans of his favorite stew heated up over an open fire. I have never eaten anything up in the mountains that tasted so good. We all joined Jacob in a toast of Bushmills to his brother Jed. TO BE CONTINUED ..................

May 10 1950 We advanced another 4 ft north and are against very heavy ground. The work is slow and requires timber support. Not much in gold values to speak of at this point. I have talked with the geologist and he tells me we are on the correct course of action here. The gold may be dispersed in widely scattered deposits from what I understand. Drifting and crosscutting the channel is costing about $29 /ft and the long hole drilling another $1.05/ft. When I am able to show some good values there will be participation by several small investors in the project. The investment has to be justified. We are now using air lines of 3 inch in size as well as vent lines of 10 inch in size. TO BE ANNOUNCED ...............

Thanks for reading.

May 12 2002 Part Two JACOB CONSULTS WITH JED? When we got started digging gravel Jacob was taking samples every half hour. We didn’t stop for lunch and by 2:00 PM we had dug over eleven yards of pay gravel and sent it through the tom. Suddenly, Jacob came over and told us to shut down the pump. We did as he directed and Vern came back down from the source pond. Jacob called a quick meeting. We were all tired and hungry. He said that every sample he took today was a blank. No gold. He was not seeing anything in the top mat of the sluice at the tom either. We were just burning gasoline while keeping the pump running. He was of the belief that we had only found a small pocket of virgin gravel and this area of the hill might have been mined out by the thugs who had run him off back in 1937. He said he needed a minute. We were not sure what he was doing. He walked away from us and stood near the tom by himself. I could hear him talking. He was asking his dead brother Jed for help. He told Jed the crew needed his help. He asked him to guide us to a gold deposit. Jacob was saying that it wasn’t for him but for the greenhorn crew who were working very hard and needed gold. Then he just stood there in silence for a few minutes as if waiting for something. After a few minutes he pointed to a bench about forty feet up the mountain. He said we needed to dig up there. He rolled a smoke while Vern, Jim, and I looked at each other with some disbelief but we grabbed up our shovels and went up there with some buckets. We took some samples down to Jacob who was standing at the big wash tub waiting. He told us to start panning the gravel. The four of us went to work. TO BE CONTINUED ...........

That entry brought back some memories. We were talking the night before about that next cleanup being well over an ounce so it was like a punch to the gut. Jacob saw the wind go out of our sails and quickly rallied us. We were still greenhorns and needed to see gold. We were beginning to learn patience and what hard work gold mining is.

May 12 2002 Part One GOLD IS A FICKLE FRIEND Jacob and I did the cleanup early this morning. The result was very disappointing. We got a quarter of an ounce. Jacob shook his head and just said that was gold mining. You take the good with the bad and keep going. When we showed Vern and Jim they were surprised to see the drop off in production, especially seeing as we had worked so hard yesterday. Jacob picked up our spirits as best he could and told us we needed to be patient and keep pushing hard and the gold should come. It was just that we were so convinced we were on our way to big numbers and then everything changed in an instant. But we can’t let one bad day worry us and we are ready to get back to work with even more determination than ever. TO BE CONTINUED .............