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Mercur, USGS, 1920

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Mercur, USGS, 1920

Camp Floyd Or Mercur District.

History And Production.

By V. C. Heikes.

(from Ore Deposits of Utah, USGS, Professional Paper 111, 1920, pages 382-387)

(Download the full edition, 745 pages, from the USGS website)

[382]

The Camp Floyd district is about 55 miles south of Salt Lake City, in Tooele County, adjoining the Ophir mining district. It contains three distinct camps — Mercur, the most important, in Lewiston Canyon; Sunshine, about 4 miles south of Mercur in Sunshine Canyon; and West Dip (on the west dip of the anticline), about 2 miles west of Mercur near the western part of the range. The Salt Lake & Mercur Railroad, which was dismantled in 1914, connected with the Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad at Fairfield Junction and furnished transportation for the district. The district was first organized at the beginning of a silver excitement on April 16, 1870, and later was practically abandoned until the discovery of gold ore, which was successfully treated by cyanidation in 1891. On June 24, 1894, it was reorganized.

The early history of the district is reviewed by Huntley, who says:

The production of the district from 1871 to 1881 is estimated by Spurr at 46,000 ounces of silver; the ores then worked contained no lead, copper, nor gold. The gold production of Camp Floyd district, which became important in 1892, amounted in that and the succeeding year to about 19,000 ounces.

[Note: Spurr, J. E., Economic geology of the Mercur mining district: U. S. Geological Survey Sixteenth Annual Retort, 1894-1895, Part 2, 355, 1805]

[383]

Gemmell gives the following history of the district up to 1897:

[Partial quote from Engineering & Mining Journal, Volume 63, Number 17, April 24, 1897, page 403]

(Read the text of the Gemmell history in EM&J, including both parts of the original two-part article)

The successful treatment of the gold ores being assured, prospectors again swarmed in. Arthur Murphy and C. L. Preble located two claims on the old site of Lewiston, staked them out into town lots, and saw a new town (Mercur) grow to be about the same size as Lewistown in its palmy days, about 1,500 inhabitants. By 1897 Mercur had become a regularly organized municipality, with a water system and fire department. In 1900 the population reached 2,351, but dwindled in the next decade to 1,047 inhabitants, and in 1913 was almost entirely abandoned on the closing of operations by the Consolidated Mercur Mines Co.

[384]

From 1890 to the close of 1917 there were produced in the Camp Floyd district by the Mercur, Delamar, Geyser-Marion, Sacramento, Sunshine, Overland, Daisy, and La Cigale properties 5,583,513 tons of ore valued at $19,034,984. All had mills, and all except the La Cigale were successful in extracting fair values from the ores. The first five properties paid $3,881,323 in dividends to stockholders, the total amount paid during the greatest activity in the district. The old Mercur Gold Mining & Milling Co. paid dividends of $1,481,000 and the Delamar Mercur Mines Co. dividends of $689,812.99 to August 1, 1900. These two companies had mined up to that time 1,045,136 tons of ore at a profit of $2,181,401, or about $2.09 per ton. From August 1, 1900, to 1913, inclusive, the Consolidated Mercur Mines Co. produced gold in precipitates and bullion valued at $10,549,377, recovered from 3,291,485 tons of ore (including some tailings), or an average recovery value of $3.20 per ton of material treated at a total cost of $2.82 per ton. Dividends paid aggregated $1,374,500 to July 31, 1913. The Mercur & Brickyard-Golden Gate (Delamar) property yielded 4,336,621 tons of ore, from which $16,419,541 was recovered, an average of $3.78 per ton. Dividends paid during the life of the combined properties amounted to $3,445,312.

After the first test was made on Marion and Mercur gold ore by amalgamation at the Marion mill in Lewiston Canyon, the mill erected at Manning in Fairfield Canyon for the treatment of the ore in 1890 was similarly equipped, using pan amalgamation.

[Note: Howard, L. O., and Maguire, D., Cyanidation in the Mercur district of Utah: Pamphlet published by Salt Lake Mining Review, p. 20, 1913]

In a personal communication G. S. Peyton, discoverer of the process that made Mercur famous, gives the early history of the Mercur mill as follows:

As experience was gained in the handling of the ores by the new cyanide process the mill was enlarged. In 1896 the mill was treating 225 tons of ore daily, or altogether 63,480 tons for the year, averaging in value about $12 per ton in gold, of which about 80 per cent was saved. The average cost of mining and milling was about $2.80 per ton. The total amount paid in dividends up to January 1, 1897, was $600,000.

During 1897 and 1898 the Golden Gate mill was built at Mercur, and in 1900 the Delamar-Mercur Mines Co. and the Mercur Gold Mining & Milling Co. were combined and thereafter called the Consolidated Mercur Mines Co. All of the ore from the Mercur and Delamar mines was afterward treated in the Golden Gate mill, the Manning mill being used intermittently by the company and lessees for the re-treatment of tailings. The original capacity of the Golden Gate mill was 500 tons but by 1900 it was increased to 1,000 tons of ore daily.

[Note: For a full description of the original plant on the Delamar property see Director of Mint Report upon production of precious metals for 1899, pp. 181-187, 1900]

[385] [table]

[386]

The character of the oxidized and base ores of the Golden Gate claims in Camp Floyd district are discussed by D. C. Jackling: [See: Director of Mint Report upon production of precious metals for 1899, pp. 181-182, 1900]

The Marion was the first mill to be built in the Mercur area. It was part of the old Sparrow Hawk works erected for the treatment of silver ores in 1872-73, operated again on silver ores in 1880, and again, for the last time, in March, 1889, when it treated 12 tons of ore daily by pan amalgamation with poor success. In 1893 it was changed to a cyanide plant, the second in the district, and was equipped for a capacity of about 50 tons of ore daily.

In 1893 the Camp Floyd district produced between 14,000 and 15,000 ounces of gold from the Mercur and Marion mines. The scarcity of water was a decided obstacle to milling in Lewiston Canyon until a pipe line was run from Ophir district in 1893. Ore from the Marion was crushed to a size that would pass through a 7/8-inch mesh screen. The average cost of mining and milling was said to be about $2 per ton.

The next summer, 1894, the Geyser Co., whose claim adjoins the Marion, commenced work on a cyanide plant with a capacity of about 100 tons of ore daily, but finished it too late in the year to permit much production. The ore took 90 hours to leach, as it was not put through screens but was simply crushed in a Gates gyratory crusher. The amount of cyanide consumed was about three-eighths of a pound per ton of ore treated, and the cost of mining and milling was said to be about $1.60 per ton.

In 1897 the Geyser-Marion interests were combined, and the Marion equipment added to the Geyser mill. The yield in gold from this property was reported to be $120,000 in 1899. The property was last operated under its old name in 1900. It was sold at sheriff's sale shortly after and worked with little success by a new company until put into the hands of a lessee, who barely succeeded in making the property pay expenses. The dividend record shows nearly $100,000 was paid to stockholders, and it is estimated that close to $500,000 in gold was recovered between 1893 and 1913.

A fourth cyanide plant was built on the Sacramento property in 1895. Success was poor at first, owing to the baseness of the ores, and thereafter only oxidized material was handled. Roasting furnaces were added to an enlarged mill in 1901 and slime tanks the following year. The ore treated at the mill averaged $4.60 in gold per ton in the beginning and as low as $3 per ton at the end of operations in 1907. The costs of mining and milling are said to have been about $1.50 per ton, and the loss in the tailings averaged about $1 per ton. The total value of the gold recovered during the life of the mine is estimated at $1,500,000 and $308,000 was paid in dividends. In addition, the Sacramento mine was for several years the most important producer of mercury in Utah.

[387]

Sunshine.

A few years after the first gold discoveries were made in the Camp Floyd district the Sunshine and Overland mills were built at Sunshine, 4 miles south of Mercur, to treat gold ores similar to those of Mercur. The Sunshine property was the first to be equipped with a cyanide mill, which operated from December, 1895, until October, 1896, milling about 9,000 tons of $3 to $4 gold ore and obtaining about $7,000 in gold at the expenditure of several times as much. In 1898-1899, according to Charles Butters, another unsuccessful effort was made to treat the ore. In 1902 the mill was again started but was closed at the end of the year after producing about $70,000 in gold bullion. In 1908 the mill was overhauled by the Boston Sunshine Gold Mining Co., which treated 125 to 150 tons of ore daily, beginning in May, 1909. By July, 1910, the ore supply of the Sunshine mine was exhausted after slightly over 50,000 tons had been treated with an average recovery of $2.81, or a total of $141,532, extracted at a milling cost of 88 cents per ton, with only 20 to 40 cents left in the tailings. Dividends from these last operations aggregated $27,261. In all the Sunshine mine is believed to have yielded about $221,000 in gold.

The Overland Co. erected the second mill in the camp, starting operations in November, 1898, on ore from its property. It was the first mill in the district to use electrical power. Development in the upper levels of the mine was by an incline shaft and in the lower by a vertical shaft that cut the ore bed at 1,600 feet on the dip. The first ores treated ranged from $6 to $8 per ton in gold, but decreased to about $2.30 a ton at the last, yielding all but 40 cents of its gold, which remained in the tailings. The mill was closed for alterations in 1899 and was started again in 1901, having been enlarged to treat 500 tons of ore daily. It is reported that the cost of mining was 85 cents and milling 25 cents per ton. The last work on the property was done under a receiver in 1904-1905. No dividends were ever reported, although the property had a record of producing $219,646 in gold from about 156,000 tons of ore.

West Dip.

West Dip is 4-1/2 miles northwest of Mercur and was so named from the fact that the rocks at that point dip about 45 degrees West, in contrast with the east dip in the Mercur camp, on the opposite side of the anticline.

Mining began in 1897, and in July, 1898, the Daisy mill, with a capacity of 112 tons a day, was erected. It is said to have produced $75,000 in gold precipitates up to the end of 1899. In July, 1900, the Daisy mine and mill went into the hands of a receiver. The Daisy property is opened by an incline shaft to the 700-foot level and had ore assaying from $4 to $8 per ton. The total costs of mining and milling amounted to $3 per ton. Equipped about 1910 with modern machinery consisting of classifiers, mixers, and filter presses, the mill was the first to make a success of the West Dip ores. It was completely destroyed by fire in 1917.

In December, 1898, a mill was started on the La Cigale property, which is developed by several shafts, the deepest in 1897 being 410 feet sunk on an incline of 45 degrees. The ore is difficult to treat, and at the end of 1899 work was abandoned. No other attempts have been reported.

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