The old saying: You find Gold where there is gold
Well, there is plenty of gold around the Providence group of mines..
The east gold belt of the three in California, is known for its higher grade than the west belt and the motherlode belt, and one of it’s most prolific areas has been the 10 mile stretch between the Buchanan mine, which is about 4 miles south west of the Providence group of mines, and the Black Oak and the Soulsby mines, about 5 miles to the northwest. You can find them on this topo map
by clicking here There were many dozens of mines in this short stretch.
The Starr King was mined right to the south of PHD. (one of their drifts ended right next to our claim border) . Its right across Cedar gulch and close enough for a shotgun to hit it, looks like). There was another mine south of that one, and then about a 1.5 miles from Providence were the Hattie Esther mine, the Jigger Bill Brothers Mine and (well known back in the day), The Spring Gulch mine. (the squares on topo maps are sections which are a mile per side and thus it’s easy to estimate distances).
The Providence mine is less than a couple of miles from the town of Tuolumne with PHD’s other mines a shorter distance. (The Bonita was about .6 miles )
Between the town and the Providence group, on the west side of the river, were a number of successful mines : the Grizzly, the Eureka, the Deadhorse, the Lady Washington, the New Albany, and North Albany. Particularly the Grizzly and the New Albany were successful.
As you can see from the elevation lines on the map, this canyon of the north fork of the Tuolumne river is very steep, so the PHD mines were facing these other mines at a pretty short distance away. (I spent some days at the mine a few weeks ago, and those mines looked to be only a rifle shot away). Trams were used at some of the mines to bring ore up to the top of the canyon near the town.
The above mentioned mines were on two main veins, the New Albany vein and the Dead Horse/ Eureka vein. If you go to the map
(click here) on page six, and enlarge it as much as you can, you can see the vein systems, which appear to be continuations of the ones at Providence, and likely the same ones that run the 10 miles from the Buchanan mine to the Soulsby mine.
Also important to see is where they marked the upthrust fault. (which follows along the river—no coincidence there). This major fault system that divides the Shoofly complex from the Calaveras complex is the major reason for the gold and why miners have followed the ore chutes (or shoots as the old timers called them) down thousands of feet. The Grizzly mine across the river from Bonita had an incline shaft going down 2,100 feet, (Providence went down to 1,400 feet (so far) where they found good gold but didn’t get to mine that level and it’s open at depth.
An extremely major point to remember is that back in the day, they didn’t have exploratory drilling. They could have been feet away from a 40,000 ounce lode and decide not to make an exploratory drift , winze, or raise which would have found it. Many of the mines you see on the maps were only found by following water courses, canyons and gullies where eons of erosion had exposed the ore veins.
We have different methods now.
You gotta wonder whats below and near the Bonita, the Consuela, the Mexican and McCarthy as well as the rest of Providence and the rest of this large area of claims that PHD has.