Anaconda Mining Company.—The returns of the recent shipment of ore to Denver smelters have been received. Twenty-two tons of high and low grade ore was sent.
The high grade ran $430 to the ton, and the low grade $130. These are the best results from Anaconda ore which have yet been had.

Anaconda Mining Company—The mine resumed work on the 1st inst., after being shut down for nearly five months. Only a small force was put to work, the intention being to develop the property and get it into shape for an extensive output when the French mill is started in April, as the company is under contract to furnish the mill 40 tons of ore daily.
The mine will be in charge of Mr. Hoskins.

Principal Producing Cripple Creek Mines - 1898:

Name: Anaconda
Owner: Anaconda Gold Mining Co.
Capital: $5,000,000
President: D. H. Moffat
Vice-President:
Secretary: R. H. Reid
Treasurer: Geo. E. Ross-Lewin
Superintendent:
Manager: N. H. Cone
Lessees:
Description: 4,500-foot tunnel; steam
Employes: seventy-five employes
Contact: postoffice. Anaconda.
Notes: own Anaconda group

FREMONT, Colo., June 12.—Cripple Creek is proving not altogether a low grade camp. An assay of Anaconda ore taken from across the breast in a recent strike on a mill run of 1000 pounds, gave a return of six and a half ounces in gold.
And a shipment to Denver of twenty-three tons of Anaconda ore passed through the streets to-day.

The mines of the Anaconda company are regarded as the greatest wonders of the Cripple Creek district. They consist of three claims on the southeastern slope of Gold hill, the Superior, Great View and Anaconda; one across the gulch, on what I believe is called Little Bull mountainEnnis Mountain [aka Raven Hill], the Rose Maud; and three in Squaw gulch, directly south of Gold hill, the Excelsior, Oro Fino and Grover Cleveland.

The principal developments have been in the three first named, although a shaft is being rapidly sunk on the fourth, the Rose Maud, with gratifying results.

The chief interest in the Superior, Great View and Anaconda is in the manner in which they are being opened, the counterpart of their workings, present and prospective, being found nowhere else in this country, I believe, save at the Father De Smet mine, at Deadwood.

A very extensive dyke of mineralized porphyry runs across Gold hill northeast and southwest, and these claims extend along its coarse their entire length. The apex of the vein is in places scarcely more than six feet from the surface. On the southeast a distinct wall of porphyry is outlined. On the northwest seventy-five feet of prospecting had, at the time I visited the property, failed to disclose any wall.

The company started in on the southeast end-line of the three claims, and are working northwestward, by a series of open cuts and shallow shafts, it being intended to strip the vein, its entire length within their lines, of the shallow surface, and quarry from the top, precisely as granite is quarried.

To a certain depth this of course can be done more economically than any other way, and the future is already being provided against by the running of a tunnel into the hill from the level of the gulch.

At present the development has the appearance of a wide cut in the hillside, as if made for a railroad. Timbering will of course not be necessary, or at least only a small amount of cribbing on the upper side line, to prevent the surface ground from falling into the workings.

There will be, for a long time to come, and until water level is reached, no water to contend with, no timbering and no bad air. The work of extracting the ore will be carried on in the sunlight, the product will be loaded on to wagons at the surface, and transported down to the mill or the railroad in the gulch below.

Thus it will be seen the Anaconda's chief property constitutes an ideal mine.

The Rose-Maud, and the three claims in the same consolidation down the hill and across the gulch, are separate propositions, but if the reasonable expectations of the owners are realized, the Rose-Maud is likely to develops into a bonanza itself.

The vein material which I saw being loaded from the mines on Gold Hill was complex, and I should say that if the same general characteristics continue, the bulk of the product will be shipped to the smelters in the valley, as but little of it, comparatively speaking, is free milling.

There are thin streaks of crystalized quartz found in cavities, resembling some ore I saw taken from the Amethyst mine at Creede; there are also streaks of tellurium, not dissimilar to that of Boulder county, and again rich streaks of coarse free gold.

In seams between the rocks is found considerable quantities of a coarse mineralized gravel, and the manager told me all of this was being shipped, its contents being about as valuable as the quartz or the tellurium.

I washed several pans of this dirt, and found colors, as well as black sand, said to be rich in gold contents.

The Anaconda company owns a fifteen stamp mill, which I have before referred to, at the mouth of Squaw gulch, now running on selected lots of ore, but of insufficient capacity to handle any large percentages of the possible product.

A comfortable office has also been erected at the foot of Gold hill, where some very seductive samples of mineral from the various properties in the vicinity are exhibited.

From statements made to me by different parties, and which pass current on the ground, as to the precious metal contents of the ores, I have compiled the exhibit of values appended, and is given for what it is worth:

Claim.	Average Assays.	Smelter or Mill Returns.	Picked Specimens.
Rose Maud (stamp mill)		$200	$2,000
Great View	$50 to $500	$90
Anaconda		$217.87	$1,050

Col. Ed F. Browne, of Aspen said that "contrary to the general opinion, I do not find that the porphyry is generally mineralized, or that there is a second deposition of porphyry in fissures; but the fact is, there are well defined leads of quarts that pass through this massive porphyry, and it is the gangue of the veins.
While there are parts of the porphyry rock that is mineralized, those parts that are rich at all are lying between stringers of the quarts, and it is easily seen how it should be mineralized, lying in such a position."

"In the Great View and Superior there are good examples of this class of mineralization. In the upper workings the quartz seams are quite narrow, but give great evidences of the passage of silicious water, that formed chrystals and cavities in the rocks, and being near the surface, where great breaking of formation has occurred, shattering the porphyry greatly, the mineralized waters made low grade ore of the whole surface rock for a distance of seventy feet.
But in the Superior, on the same vein, and only about five hundred feet south, the vein is in place, and shows the exact manner that just such mineralization occurred.

"There is no mineralization of the whole country, but there is undoubtedly several great fissure veins, running through this porphyry, and possibly on into the granite adjacent. The veins stand nearly perpendicular, and one of the greatest, if not the greatest, one of the camp is the one on which the Great View, Superior and Gold King are located. These three mines are on the same great fissure, and the vein is from twenty-five to thirty feet wide.
The strike of the vein is not over five degrees east of north, and the present developments show that it extends two miles in that direction, and I think that it will be found continuous for a mile or more. So that it is safe to say that six to eight great mines will be opened up on this immense vein."

"I am thoroughly of the opinion that there will undoubtedly be six great mines on the Anaconda or Superior vein. I am also of the opinion that the greatest mine of this camp will be found in a locality not yet developed.

Dr. A. J. Lanterman, having resided in Leadville and at Buena Vista for the past fourteen years, and being everywhere, is recognized as a person of the highest integrity. Since November last, he has spent more than half of his time in the Cripple Creek district and is doubtless second to none in possession of information concerning its resources. He has watched the progress of events with painstaking interest from the beginning, and his simple relation of them constitutes a pretty succinct history of the camp.

"When I first came here, the only mine with any development whatever was the Great View. The Anaconda group is a great property. It embraces seven claims — the Great View, Superior, Anaconda, Rose Maud, Grover Cleveland, Excelsior, and a mill site.
This company's first shipment was made one week ago last Thursday. It consisted of one carload, the smelter returning $211.37 per ton on the lot. Subsequent shipments have been so recent that the returns have not been received at the mine.
On the 5th I saw fifteen wagons loaded with ore leaving the mines, and on Monday last twelve more. Shipments are made to the Omaha and Grant smelter at Denver. Only the first grade ore is sent out; the second grade is treated at the company's mill, on Cripple creek.
This is a small ten-stamp concern. It was built last fall, but only ran a few days, the water freezing up and compelling it to stop. It was started up again last Thursday, and is now treating two tons per stamp, or twenty tons daily. Only forty-seven to forty-nine per cent. of the Great View ore is free milling.

"Regarding the other claims of the Anaconda? Well, I regard some of them as very promising. The Rose Maud has just made a strike of seven inches of tellurium ore, the value of which has not yet been determined. Roasted in a forge, globules of free gold cover its surface, and, judging from the tests made, must be very rich.
Some work is being done on the Excelsior, nothing on the Grover Cleveland. The company's manager informs me that he expects to ship two hundred tons a day within a very short time.

"I am not a geologist or a mineralogist, although engaged in mining for many years. I am not, therefore, bold enough to entertain a theory of the formation of this district. The generally accepted idea, however, is that the porphyry has been thrown out through the fissures in the granite, and the mineralized quartz has formed true fissures in the porphyry.
I know of but two true fissure veins which have granite walls. Upon these are located the Washington and the Blue Bell. The other claims have walls of porphyry, I should say that in the Great View is twenty-five feet and the Anaconda vein is between fifteen and twenty feet.
The vein matter is all mineralized, and no sorting is done, except in the Great View."

"What others think of them will be of more value than will my opinion. I am more than pleased with the outlook, and I am spending my money with confidence. I have been much encouraged by the visit of Professor Jones, of Utah, who spent six days here in the interest of Gen. Palmer and the Rio Grande Western railway.
He said to me before leaving: 'I have been examining mines for the past eight years—probably averaging one hundred a year. I have never seen a more promising district than this. In fact, the Anaconda is the greatest prospect I ever saw. The Buena Vista is doubtless a splendid mine. Rich however, as some of the vein matter is, I do not believe the mother vein has yet been found. I believe it and the greatest mines are yet to be discovered!'
When the professor was here Anaconda stock was selling at 25 cents. Knowing that he had bought some of it, I questioned him as to how long he intended holding it, to which he responded: 'When it reaches $2.50 I will sell, and it should go to that point very soon.'"

According to Col. H. W. Comstock, the surface ore covers a larger area, exists in larger bodies and carries a higher average value in gold than in any lode mining district yet explored in the Rocky Mountains. It has been demonstrated in the Gold King, Buena Vista, Great View, Superior and Rose-Maud, all of which are producing high grade shipping ore from solid masses measuring from four up to twenty-five feet across.
In the Great View and in the Superior, while the ore at the surface was good, ranging from $38 to $96 per ton, it is still better at the depth attained that it was at the surface, where they made their first shipment. The same is true of the Rose-Maud, in the immediate vicinity of the Superior. At one other point, where a shaft was sunk in the gulch, between granite and porphyry, everything taken from the shaft from the surface down, as indicated by rigid tests made daily, has a productive value, and can all be treated in a stamp mill.
The ore from this shaft is better at the deepest level, now sixty-five feet, than at any point above, and it bids fair to become one of the largest producers of the district. This shaft is the only one that has been sunk to any depth from the surface down on the contact of the granite and porphyry.
There is no free milling ore, strictly speaking, in the district; but there is a vast tonnage, already uncovered and tested, that can be treated in the ordinary gold mills with little if any preliminary treatment. This is, of course, surface ore, and as we approach water level we may, and shall, undoubtedly, find it necessary to roast most of the product in order to save a reasonable percentage of its value, as much of it is exceedingly complex in character.
In the deeper workings of the Great View and Superior, tellurium is found in all of the ore, while in the Rose-Maud sylvanite abounds. The grade of these telluride ores is so high, exceeding $100 to the ton, that it will be a profitable shipping ore, notwithstanding its complex character and excess of silica.