| Coal | .44 | 34.17 | 72.30 | 3.09 |
| Coke | 1.35 | —— | 92.03 | 6.62 |
The railway having reached Crested Butte, the coking veins are now well opened “by three drifts on water level, working the seam to the rise.” The mines are prepared for an output of four hundred to five hundred tons of coal per day, and the coke can be furnished to any extent, by the Colorado Coal and Iron Company, who own the mines. At first this coke was made in open pits, but now a long series of ovens has been built, and the railway tracks run to the ovens and almost to the mine-entrance. The cars drawn up the incline from the “breasts” to the surface, are thence dragged by mules through a quarter of a mile of sheds, built to guard against the deep winter snows, down to the ovens and the cars. Forty or fifty miners are employed at present, and these live with their families in large log houses built under the edge of the forested hill close to the mine.
The coke of all coal, being composed of fixed carbon and ash, depends for its value on the minimum of ash. The coke from the coal of Crested Butte contains from two to six per cent. less ash than the coke of the best eastern coals, its total of ash amounting only to six per cent. For all purposes of steam, this bituminous coal is said to have no superior on the continent. A well known mineralogist is reported to have said of it that, while a pound of Pennsylvania anthracite will make twenty-five pounds of steam, a pound of this bituminous coal will make twenty-three pounds; but while one pound of eastern anthracite is burning, two pounds of this will burn. Therefore, while the pound of Pennsylvania anthracite is making twenty-five pounds of steam, this coal will generate forty-six.
These coal-beds can be traced without difficulty up Slate river, exposed here and there in the western bluff, and can be found hidden in the opposite hills. As it is followed, however (rising in altitude with the upheaval toward the mountain-center), a change is seen to take place in its character. Two miles above the village it is neither soft nor hard; a little farther on, a part of the bed is decidedly anthracitic; while four miles above Coal creek, and at an elevation of a thousand feet or so above it, genuine anthracite of the best quality is mined from the same seams that, four miles below, yield the coking soft coal. “Nothing could be plainer, nor more beautiful to see,” than this practical demonstration of how under different conditions of heat and pressure, the same carbonaceous deposit becomes bituminous or anthracitic.
The anthracite mine is at the top of a wooded hill and is reached by one of the most entertaining roads in all Colorado. The coal-beds form strata right across the hill, so that the miners can run their tunnels out to daylight in any direction, and need not fear the gas which is so troublesome in the bituminous diggings below. The vein now worked is five feet thick at the entry, but increases to ten feet in thickness within. It is solid and pure, and is thrown down by blasting. The men are paid seventy-five cents per ton for breaking it into convenient pieces and loading it into the little cars. These cars are then drawn to the brow of the hill and dumped into larger cars which travel on a tramway sixteen hundred feet long, and most skillfully erected on a curved trestle, down to the breaker at the river level. This breaker is the only one west of Pennsylvania, and is capable of transmitting five hundred tons a day, properly crushed, to the railway cars, which run underneath its shutes.
The highest excellence is claimed for this anthracite coal by its owners, not only for domestic purposes, but in the making of steam. In price, this company is able to meet the Pennsylvanians at markets on the Missouri river, and to furnish all nearer points at a much lower rate than eastern shippers can afford; while they hope to secure a large part, if not the whole of the California business, which amounts to about fifty thousand tons annually. The mine and breaker have now been put in shape to yield steadily a large product; they are hereafter expected to be able to meet the whole demand. The anthracite beds in this region are believed to be very extensive, so that undoubtedly other mines will be opened as soon as a large enough demand will justify it. The discovery of these anthracite beds caused an immense excitement, for it was the first true hard coal found in the State; and a mob of men rushed in as though to an old-fashioned placer-find.
This region in 1879, indeed, caused a great flurry in the minds of prospectors who began to enter it at the risk of their lives long before it ceased to be an Indian reservation. As long ago as 1872 argentiferous quartz had been found in Rock creek just over the divide between these waters and the Roaring Fork of the Grand river, where Galena, Crystal, Treasure and Whopper mountains are seamed with large veins of comparatively low-grade, but easily smelted galena ore. The center of this district is Crystal City, and from that point prospectors pushed their way right and left as fast as they dared, and thus led to the opening of the Gunnison region.
It was not until 1879, however, that the precious metals were found in the southern slopes of the Elk mountains, and the region in which we are now interested was heralded abroad as the long-awaited El Dorado. Hundreds of men flocked in, striving to be first on the ground. A few of the earliest comers chose a spot at the base of the sharp, white mountain so plainly in view north of Crested Butte, and decided that a town must be placed there to be called Gothic—a name suggested by the appearance of some cliffs near by. It was done, and the people came to fill it. To it came all the business of the Brush creek, Rock creek, Copper creek, Sheep mountain, and Treasure mountain silver and gold mines, besides those nearer at hand—Schofield, Galena, Elko, Bellevue and others.
Another somewhat separate mining locality was one that we looked down upon as we stood at the mouth of the anthracite tunnel and gazed across the deep gorge which sank between this and the opposite hills, and down which flowed the gentle current of Slate river. The wall on the other side rose above the line of timber growth, and one peak showed an exposed face of brilliant red rock in high contrast to the blue-gray of the rest. Beneath it lay Redwell basin. At the right frightfully rough cliffs and forested crags shut in Oh-be joyful gulch, at the head of which, just out of sight, was Poverty gulch, while Peeler basin showed its edge. It seems to us that we can perceive through the clear atmosphere every tree and stone and crevice on the opposite slopes, though miles away, and can almost hear the prattle of the great waterfall that shines white in the shady bottom of the gorge; but we can see no signs whatever that a human being has ever been in all that area. Nevertheless over all that mountain side there is said to be scarcely an acre of ground not partially covered by mining claims, and upon some part of each one of these a discovery-shaft has been sunk. Many of the fissures thus disclosed are of immense size, carrying veins of argentiferous galena from three to nine feet in width, assaying on the surface from forty to one hundred and sixty ounces of silver to the ton. In some cases ruby silver or gray copper have been reached at forty or fifty feet in depth, assaying over one thousand ounces. At night the coal men see the opposite mountains dotted with camp-fires, and the merchants of Crested Butte will tell you that many a wagon-load and train of burros is packed with provisions for those apparent solitudes.
“What’s in a name!” exclaims the Madame as we are riding homeward, while talking over these districts and discussing the notable properties.