SaltwaterServr
Sr. Member
A couple of things are keeping me up at night about this mine.
1. At 1:06-1:09 into the video, you can see that hole on the sill on the hanging wall side of the mine. As best as I can recollect, it's looked about 6' deep. Is the cut face then on top of a backfilled winze? Doubtful. It sure is interesting. Put this on the list of projects for the mine, to dig down at the cut face and see what's under the gangue.
2. The adit is backfilled at two spots. At 9:31 you can see the adit backfill.
There's no cave-in or slide from the back or ribs, so that's an intentional backfill. Judging by that, and the change in amount of gangue on the floor behind the backfill as opposed in the front of the backfill going to the adit, this mine was worked on two different occasions. I'm thinking it was probably by a different set of miners. The gobbin stacking in the alcove at 1:29 is a lot more haphazard than the perfectly orderly stacking at 6:15.
The more dramatic version is that one miner offed the other and came back to keep mining.
3. So why backfill the adit way back there? There's no indications of flooding from the portal side of things. No mud on the ribs or sill. I think they were hiding how deep the mine went, or they had something stashed behind that backfill, like their tools or a cache of gold. Probably just tools.
4. If you do return to the mine to start mining again, why leave the backfill in the adit in place? You have to get across that narrow gap on your hands and knees, and the rock isn't dull. It's too small to bring a wheelbarrow or cart out if you were recovering those tools. The way it's been worn down, someone did dig through there to get to the working face of the mine.
5. If there were two sets of miners working the mine, the second set could be responsible for the backfills of the portal and the adit.
6. There's an old magazine no longer in print called "Desert Magazine." You can still find every issue online in an archive. It ran from about 1932 until the 70's. I've read a few of the early years, and every single month they have a story of a lost mine. Knowing the population of this mine area was between 100 and 500 persons at the time of the mine activity, this could be one of those old lost mines.
1. At 1:06-1:09 into the video, you can see that hole on the sill on the hanging wall side of the mine. As best as I can recollect, it's looked about 6' deep. Is the cut face then on top of a backfilled winze? Doubtful. It sure is interesting. Put this on the list of projects for the mine, to dig down at the cut face and see what's under the gangue.
2. The adit is backfilled at two spots. At 9:31 you can see the adit backfill.
There's no cave-in or slide from the back or ribs, so that's an intentional backfill. Judging by that, and the change in amount of gangue on the floor behind the backfill as opposed in the front of the backfill going to the adit, this mine was worked on two different occasions. I'm thinking it was probably by a different set of miners. The gobbin stacking in the alcove at 1:29 is a lot more haphazard than the perfectly orderly stacking at 6:15.
The more dramatic version is that one miner offed the other and came back to keep mining.
3. So why backfill the adit way back there? There's no indications of flooding from the portal side of things. No mud on the ribs or sill. I think they were hiding how deep the mine went, or they had something stashed behind that backfill, like their tools or a cache of gold. Probably just tools.
4. If you do return to the mine to start mining again, why leave the backfill in the adit in place? You have to get across that narrow gap on your hands and knees, and the rock isn't dull. It's too small to bring a wheelbarrow or cart out if you were recovering those tools. The way it's been worn down, someone did dig through there to get to the working face of the mine.
5. If there were two sets of miners working the mine, the second set could be responsible for the backfills of the portal and the adit.
6. There's an old magazine no longer in print called "Desert Magazine." You can still find every issue online in an archive. It ran from about 1932 until the 70's. I've read a few of the early years, and every single month they have a story of a lost mine. Knowing the population of this mine area was between 100 and 500 persons at the time of the mine activity, this could be one of those old lost mines.
