** Lost Gold At The Dead Man's Mine ** A Miners Journal **

[GhostMiner]

   i AM ENJOYING POSTING THE 1950 PROJECT LOG ALONG WITH MY 2002 PROJECT JOURNAL. Lots of memories here. 

[GhostMiner]

   About the 1950's projects on the claims  :  From what I have read in the trunk of information I received on the work done in the 1950's these crews were not after a gram or two per cubic yard. This would be very rich numbers for any tipe of larger scale mining through a washplant running over 10 - 20 yds/hr or more but the scale of this operation was small and slow. They were not hard rock mining rich quartz deposits but were working placer gravel deposits. The depth of the rich deposit was such that they decided to continue the tunnel work done previously rather than run a drag line to excavate although there was an attempt at that later on by another crew and we will get to that later on in the 1950's work. This crew was after the big strike of ounces per yard that the 1936 crew had hit. Over 1000 ounces of gold taken off an area of raised bedrock about 20' X 30' in diameter. They wanted the deeper deposit rumored to be in the thousands of ounces that was expected to be lying at either side of the raised bedrock deposit. Now we will begin to find out what happens here.

[Mike Furness]

12 hours ago, GhostMiner said:

   i AM ENJOYING POSTING THE 1950 PROJECT LOG ALONG WITH MY 2002 PROJECT JOURNAL. Lots of memories here. 

Good for you. I think I can speak for most that we are enjoying your journals as well!

[GhostMiner]

13 minutes ago, Mike Furness said:

Good for you. I think I can speak for most that we are enjoying your journals as well!

Many thanks Mike.

[GhostMiner]

   May 9   1950

   The drift is now well underway to the northerly direction. We are keeping a uniform tunnel being 6 ft in width and 6 ft in height. To date Drift 2 is well timbered and stable. We have made 5 ft of headway. There has been nearly 11 tonnes of material removed with nearly a quarter of it being heavy stone 6 to 10 inches in size. Gravels were washed and some light gold was extracted although it failed to pay for the work done to remove it. We are working the bedrock up to 6 ft above of gravel and rock in search of the heavy coarse gold we believe is in this channel. The old workings were completely mucked and washed providing nearly one ounce of gold. That was the remnants of the big strike of 1936. The Stevens brothers crew did not miss much and left us little.    

   TO BE CONTINUED ................

[GhostMiner]

Just now, GhostMiner said:

   May 9   1950

   The drift is now well underway to the northerly direction. We are keeping a uniform tunnel being 6 ft in width and 6 ft in height. To date Drift 2 is well timbered and stable. We have made 5 ft of headway. There has been nearly 11 tonnes of material removed with nearly a quarter of it being heavy stone 6 to 10 inches in size. Gravels were washed and some light gold was extracted although it failed to pay for the work done to remove it. We are working the bedrock up to 6 ft above of gravel and rock in search of the heavy coarse gold we believe is in this channel. The old workings were completely mucked and washed providing nearly one ounce of gold. That was the remnants of the big strike of 1936. The Stevens brothers crew did not miss much and left us little.    

   TO BE CONTINUED ................

   So there we finally have it in the 1950 log. The Stevens brothers were mentioned in this tunnel project of 1936. This area was alluded to by Jacob in 2002 but I was never told this story. I highly doubt he would have forgot such an undertaking as he seemed to recall most everything else. These old logs from the 1950's have given me confidence that much gold still remains trapped beneath the ground on the western side of the northern faultline. The reasons that give me this confidance will unfold here as the logs continue. 

[GhostMiner]

   May 11   2002 

 

   The cleanup this morning brought us one ounce. Jacob said the ground is very rich. There is no way for us to know how much gold is here. We just need to keep working the ground as best we can. I am actually starting to get used to the hard work now and have already lost a little weight. I have a good place to stash my gold. I have no idea what the others are doing with theirs.

   Up at the mine we worked a total of eleven hours today and washed about sixteen yards of pay gravel. It is dark and we're ready for supper. We’ll do a cleanup first thing tomorrow.

   TO BE CONTINUED ................

[GhostMiner]

   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 .............

[GhostMiner]

Just now, GhostMiner said:

   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 .............

   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.

[GhostMiner]

   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 ...........