A Report on Washington TerritoryRuffner, William Henry
History
A Report on Washington Territory
Ruffner, William Henry
Washington (State)
The mining district is on Conconnully Creek (misnamed Salmon River),
which enters Okinagane River from the northwest, about twenty miles from
its mouth. There are two wagon roads to the Conconnully, one from
Spokane Falls, with a branch from Sprague, distance 150 miles, on which
stages ran last summer. Another road starts from Ellensburg on the
Yakima, and is 195 miles long. With an expenditure of a few thousand
dollars on the channel of the Okinagane, the mouth of the Conconnully
could be reached from the Columbia by light-draught steamers, from which
a railway fifteen miles long would reach the mines. Mr. Burch says that
he and his father sounded the river, and also the Columbia, and that
steamers can start at Rock Island Rapids and go to the mouth of the
Conconnully, and, in flush water, can ascend the creek. Mr. Clayton
makes the same statement as to the river. The country rocks in the
mining districts are of the same character as those associated with the
iron ore on Mount Logan and the Denny Mountain--hard metamorphic and
plutonic rocks.
The principal mineral lode is described by Mr. Clayton as "composed of
true quartz gangue carrying the silver ore in disseminated grains of
black sulphurets of silver, with some copper-silver glance, and a
brittle sulphuret, resembling tennantite, giving a dark, red, powdery
streak, approaching the characteristics of dark antimonial ruby silver.
In addition to this is found galena and zinc-blende."
Assays made by Mr. Wm. H. Fuller, of Spokane Falls, gave for first-class
ore from this lode: Silver, $186.45, and gold, $4.50 = $190.95 value per
ton. Second-class ore assayed $34.16 silver and 45 cents gold. Mr.
Slater thinks that one-third of the vein will yield first-class ore. It
is a rich vein, averaging eight feet so far as opened. There are two or
three lodes in the district. Years will be required to ascertain their
limits. But all the indications point to large mining operations in the
Okinagane country as soon as the transportation can be supplied.
My chief authority for the following statements concerning the Colville
region is Mr. Kearney, one of the firm of Kearney Brothers, owners of
the two largest mines of that country, namely, the Old Dominion and the
Daisy. I incorporate some statements also from two articles published in
the Spokane Falls _Review_, one by W. E. Sullivan, and the other by J.
B. Slater.
[Sidenote: The mines in the Colville region.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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