Absolute BEST book on Oregon gold & silver mines; NONE BETTER, rare 1st ed, NICE

Description

Rare first edition describes and maps
all gold and silver mines in Oregon
BIG book
includes all 5 separate BIG maps, plus
30 in the text, all in good condition, not ex-library
Book is in good shape and huge —337 pages; also
has geology, mining methods, owners, photos, more!
Smoke belches from the many chimneys of the Oregon Smelting & Refining Company smelter at Sumpter, Oregon, in 1903. The huge plant serviced the many gold and silver mines in the area. It's just one of the striking historical photos in this book.
W
ithout a doubt, this is the most sought-after book about Oregon silver and gold mining.
T
his BIG first-edition book lists and locates every single gold and silver mine in Oregon. I would need an ebay ad 10 times the size of this one to even cover 10 percent of the info in this book. Yes, it has all five oversize maps.
Gold placers in southwest Oregon, near the Josephine-Jackson county line. Below right, miners stare at camera at the shaft collar at adit portal at Granite Hill mine, between 1902–1907, Josephine County.
If you are just starting a book collection on Oregon gold and silver mining, this is the first book you need. If you have a three-room book collection on Oregon mining but don't have this book, your collection is incomplete.
Usually an area the size of Oregon is split into into three or four books. Not this time. This huge 337-page monster covers geology and mining in the whole state.
Worth every penny
Gold has never seen higher prices. This book is worth every penny.
Lots of books are filled with empty promises about making the new owner millions of dollars. No empty promises here. Mine owners have already made millions from mining locations in this book. And there are still millions and millions of ounces of gold waiting to be mined in Oregon. Buy this book, and find what others missed.
Hard to find
This is the 1968 first-edition -- and it's rare. It's in good condition, except for some bumped corners; a few notes and some minor soiling here and there. In fact, it's one of the best copies that I have seen in 24 years.
This is the REAL official first edition, not some homemade CD or a cheesy Chinese reprint piece of junk. BEWARE of some mining-book reprints. Many do NOT include the separate maps and therefore are
absolutely
useless. If you can't use the maps to look up Oregon placers, what good is that version at any price?
This is NOT a copy of the book on CD.
(Ever try to use a CD on a laptop in the field? Or on your phone? Ugh!) This is a real book on paper.
It has the five oversize separate maps in the rear pocket. And all are in very good to near-fine condition, with strong folds and no soiling. These may be copies; hard to tell. But if they are copies, they're perfect.
This is quite possibly the most sought-after Oregon mining report of them all — and in tip-top condition to boot.
Copies of this 42-year-old report are increasingly hard to find. Collectors are holding onto their copies and not selling at any price. In the next couple of years, you will be hard-pressed to find one of these.
Don't miss out on this one, thinking more will be offered in the future. So buy it now or forever hold your peace. Once it's gone; it's gone.
The report is packed with geologic information, ore value, mine production stats and history. This report is considered primary source material; much of this info is available
nowhere else
.
Treasure trove of information
Gold and Silver in Oregon
is not some gift-shop tourist junk; it was prepared by the State of Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries.
It's a treasure trove of info for history buffs, bottle collectors, photographers, geologists, hikers, offroaders, rockhounds, prospectors, stock certificate collectors, metal detector enthusiasts — just about anyone interested in exploring or learning about old mine sites in both eastern and western Oregon, from the Blue Mountains to the Western Cascades, home of the most productive gold mines in Oregon history.
The book gives exact locations of all gold and silver mining sites, sometimes using landmarks, but almost always using
infallible range-and-township coordinates
. Road names or landmarks may have changed radically since 1968, but these coordinates have not. Just plug 'em into your GPS or look 'em up on the appropriate topo, and you're there!
Also valuable to stock
certificate collectors
Because this report also lists mine owners and different names for the same mine, it is also a valuable tool for collectors of stock certificates. Some mine descriptions contain brief histories of the mines in question (including dates of actual production) and previous owners.
We have many MANY more rare mining books! Just visit our ebay store, Rare Mining Books:
http://stores.ebay.com/Rare-Mining-Books?_rdc=1
Contains much on mines and subterranean workings
Unlike some other reports from the Department of Geology and Mineral Industries, this one has much on the mines and mining districts themselves, as opposed to just academic geology. This information includes history and locations of the districts/mines and maps of subterranean workings. Mines are listed by district and listed in the index.
Here are a few of the mines described, randomly picked by flipping through pages:
Granite Placers
— In the gold belt of the Blue Mountains, in the Elkhorn Mountains area, in Granite Creek and tributaries, especially Bull Run and Clear Creeks. These placers yielded "a large amount of placer gold," conservatively estimated at .1 million just up to 1914. "Several thousand ounces of gold" were also produced to the north, along the north fork of the John Day River. "Placering, mainly on a small scale, has continued off and on until the present time." Hey, small scale can quickly turn big. All you need is that five or six pound nugget that all the other miners missed!
Hungry Bat winze and tunnel
— 20 miles west of Cudahy, intermittent production from 1888 to 1912.
Veins become gold bearing after crossing the Bullhide fault.
Cornucopia mines group
— In the gold belt of the Blue Mountains, in the Wallowa Mountains area, near the west side of Pine Creek. Veins are about 1,500 to 2,500 feet apart and strike north 20 degrees to 40 degrees east. "About 36 miles of underground work has been done." That's right, you read that correctly, just this group of mines has 36 MILES of adits and shafts!!! Principal access at time of report was the Coulter tunnel (portal elevation 4,805 feet), which enters the mountain at the north edge of the Cornucopia.
Standard mine
— Also in the Blue Mountains, this time in the Quartzburg area, near the east fork of Dixie Creek. The standard vein is mainly in andesite and ranges in width from a few inches to four feet. The main gangue mineral is quartz, but some ferriferous dolomite and
calcite are also present. Vein was discovered in the 1860s.
Benton mine —
In the Galice area of the Klamath Mountains (exact range-and-township coordinates given in book). From just 1935 until 1942, when emergency war rules forced the mine to shutdown, the Benton produced 9,414. In 1941, the mine had the biggest payroll of any business in all of Josephine County.
Gold Hill Pocket —
"The most famous of all" in the Gold Hill - Applegate - Waldo area of the Klamath Mountains. "The outcropping rock was so full of gold that it could scarcely be broken by sledging." Produced 0,000.
Sylvanite mine
— Also in the Gold Hill area of the Klamaths. "A total of 2,560 lineal feet of underground development has been done," plus numerous surface pits and cuts by pocket hunters. In 1930, a mill with a 140-ton daily capacity was built. Underground workings "were cleaned out" to expose "the openings where the rich ore shoot had been found.
"
Lucky Boy mine
— In the Western Cascades, Blue River district, in southern Linn County and northern Lane County, about five miles north of the small town of Blue River. A 40-stamp mill was erected in 1903 powered by a dedicated power plant on the McKenzie River. Production from 1902 to 1912: gold, 7,737 ounces; silver, 12,844 ounces; copper, 4,257 pounds; lead, 1,051 pounds.
Helena mine
— In the Western Cascades, Bohemia district, 35 miles southeast of Cottage Grove. "Grade of the ore is reported to have been quite high." The district was the largest and most productive in the Western Cascades.
And many more mines
— large and small, active and abandoned, famous and forgotten.
Granite Hill mining camp, between 1902 and 1907, Josephine County. The 20-stamp mill housed boiler, stamps,amalgamation plates, frue vanners, jaw crusher and a 150-HP motor. Hoist was steam operated.
Geology described in detail
Because this is, after all, a book about mining
and
geology, it does cover the latter topic in minute
detail. Although there were many local centers of mineralization, it is probable that solutions emanating from them at corresponding periods in their magmatic history were similar.
Profile and section of the underground workings of the Ashland mine in Jackson County, Oregon.
The persistence of individual ore shoots in depth is rarely more than a few hundred feet. However, there is no evidence that the bottom of the zone of mineralization has been reached at any locality, and commonly ore is found at the top of peaks to the lowest valleys.
Gold is concentrated in the oxidized zone of pyritic gold and complex silver-lead-gold ore zones, but no enrichment of gold in telluride-gold veins has been observed.
Of course, the text contains far, far more detail about geology — especially how it relates to mineral deposits and their formations — than just the previous paragraphs. Geology varies widely over an area the size of Oregon, so it is impossible to convey but the simplest geologic features in an ad.
Where is it?
Oregon is in the northwest United States, bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean. California, Nevada, Idaho and Washington are adjacent states. Nearby states include Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana.
The book:
Gold and Silver in Oregon
, Bulletin 61, 1968, by Howard C. Brooks and Len Ramp, State of Oregon, Department of Geology and Mineral Industries, Portland, Oregon, real first edition, stiff paper covers, 8.5 by 11 inches.
NOT A CHEESY OFFSHORE REPRINT. NOT a book on CD. This is the REAL book with ALL the maps.
Some slight soiling/wrinkling on covers. Writing on cover. Bumped corners. Some slight staining/soiling on covers and on some pages. But overall, this baby is in peachy good shape. No major rips or tears that I could find. Interior pages are almost universally near very good (except for some notes here and there), as are all the maps. Pages and maps are supple and not brittle or flaking.
Very slight yellowing on some pages. Once again, a very nice copy, a lucky find for the new owner. You will not be disappointed. This is
not
an ex-library book.
As always, I am
extremely
conservative about rating book condition and very detailed in listing any potential flaw, no matter how slight. You get what you pay for. If you want a trashed book, filled with water stains and ripped pages repaired with decomposed cellophane tape that the seller just "somehow forgot" to tell you about in his ad, then look elsewhere on ebay. I could name names but I won't.
Payment methods
and shipping
Paypal only. Yup, shipping isn't free for this one, unlike our other books because this baby is BIG!
I pride myself on bulletproof packaging and ship in sturdy cardboard boxes or reinforced padded envelopes.
I post feedback once a week.
The fine print:
Feel free to ask me if you have any questions about the item or terms of sale.
Do not
wait until you have bought the item to ask questions.
Not responsible for typographical errors or the current state of the world. Blame the latter on someone else. Good luck and thanks for looking!!
Photo from book shows the Murphy-Murray dredge on Foots Creek, Jackson County, in January 1941. Dredge had a daily capacity of 4,000 cubic yards with its electric powered 67 buckets. Steel hull was 81 by 37 feet.
Detail of full-page map from book showing mines in the Galice area, which includes the Galice and Mount Reuben mining districts, in northwestern Josephine County. This section of map shows deposits and mines near Grave Creek Bridge, Sawmill Gap and Rainie Falls. Solid red blotches are old channel gravels. Numbers are mines: 1, Reno; 13, Gold Bug; 16, Ajax; 17, J. C. L.
Alameda mine in the Galice area of Josephine County, about 1910, showing 100-ton matte furnace building.
Detail of two-page map from book shows the mines in the Greenhorn Mountains area, in Grant and Baker counties. Numbers are keyed to descriptions of the mines in the book. Twelve is the Harrison Group; 10, Golden Eagle; 8, Don Juan; 24, Rabbit; 33, West Side. Maps aren't like the full-color jobs from California and Nevada, but they get the job done! I'll take a bucket of gold over a nice-looking map any day of the week.
Oregon towns and cities
Oregon towns and cities
Albany, Ashland, Astoria, Aumsville, Baker City, Bandon, Bay City, Beaverton, Bend, Boardman, Brookings, Burns, Canby, Cascade Locks, Central Point, Columbia City,Coos Bay,Coquille, Cornelius,Corvallis,Cottage Grove,Dallas,Death Valley Acres, Eagle Point, Echo, Estacada,Eugene, Fairview, Falls City, Florence, Forest Grove, Grants Pass, Gresham, Halfway, Happy Valley, Harrisburg, Heppner, Hermiston, Hillsboro, Hubbard, Independence, John Day, Junction City, Keizer, Klamath Falls, La Grande, La Grange, Lake Oswego, Lebanon, Lincoln City, Lyons, Marblehead, McMinnville, Medford, Milton, Greewater, Milwaukie, Molalla, Monmouth, Myrtle Point, Newberg, Death Valley, Inyo Village, Newport, North Plains, Nyssa, Oakland, Ontario, Oregon City, Paisley, Pendleton, Philomath, Pilot Rock, Portland, Redmond, Reedsport, Roseburg, Saint Helens, Salem, Sandy, Sherwood, Silverton, Sisters, Springfield, Stanfield, Stayton, Sublimity, Sutherlin, Sweet Home, Talent, Tigard, Tillamook, Troutdale, Tualatin, Union, Vernonia, Waldport, Wallowa, West Linn, Willamina, Wilsonville, Woodburn, Yachats and Yamhill. Counties are: Baker, Benton, Clackamas, Clatsop, Columbia, Coos, Crook, Curry, Deschutes, Douglas, Gilliam, Grant, Harney, Hood River, Jackson, Jefferson, Josephine, Klamath, Lake, Lane, Lincoln, Linn, Malheur, Marion, Morrow, Multnomah, Polk, Sherman, Tillamook, Umatilla, Union, Wallowa, Wasco, Washington,Wheeler and Yamhill.