A TYPICAL DESERT MINING TOWN
From photograph by C. C. Pierce & Co.
The gold belt of the Mojave Desert has been traced from the town of Mojave to Death Valley, a distance of one hundred and fifteen miles. The belt varies in width from two to ten miles. Death Valley is known to contain rich deposits of gold in other portions of the desert. All along these gold belts, silver is also more or less abundant.
The silver mines of the Calico district have become famous for their yield of silver bullion. These mines are about six miles north of the Santa Fé railroad and near the station of Daggett. The belt extends in an easterly and westerly direction, and has been traced and developed for a distance of ten miles. The rocks of this region are violet or brown rhyolite, often porphyritic; green, yellow, and white tufa; greenish hornblende andesite; yellow and green breccia.
Copper, lead, tin, zinc, iron, manganese, baryta, gypsum, sulphur, onyx, marble, asbestos, and gem stones are also found in the deserts.
The minerals are scattered over the many thousands of square miles of territory. The difficulties of transportation, coupled with the lack of water, have greatly retarded the development of the known mineral fields, as well as prevented the finding of other rich deposits which doubtless exist.
The character of the mineral rocks is multitudinous. In the Waterloo Mines in the Mojave Desert, ore is found in a belt of jasper which yields more than one thousand ounces of silver to the ton.