Three years ago the Black Hawk District, 40 miles east of Victor, on the
north side of the San Bernardino range, attracted considerable attention
through the extensive operations of an English syndicate at those mines.
Development was in progress at that time, and it was planned to build a
sixty-stamp mill. The quantity of gold rock, however, proved to be
smaller than had been anticipated, and a small experimental mill was
built; but from a short time after the completion of this mill to date
all operations have been suspended, and the probability of the
resumption of work is not bright.
The gold occurred in a reddish oxide of iron in bunches and stringers
scattered through a crushed zone of limestone, lying along the flank of
the mountains. A party, who for a time was in charge of the property,
informed the writer that he had worked the rock without sorting, had
endeavored to sort it, and had tried screening it, but that
notwithstanding every precaution was taken, he had concluded that it
could not be made to pay. The gold-bearing rock was quite rich, but it
occurred in too small quantity to make it profitable.