Over time kozMOE kept asking, (I assume in a high whiny voice)
why haven't they mined it in a hundred years?
He was schooled on the answer, but, of course he switched the question to his other accounts and they whined the same question. That's what troll boys do. (Ignorance is bliss to them. They don't want to learn anything about what they trash.)
So pay attention this time trollMOE
When evaluating the mining /prospecting history of any mine, including the Providence group, you need to look at the inflation adjusted gold price history which you can find by
clicking here. Starting in 1915, the gold price plunged and stayed down through the 20’s until the Roosevelt administration raised the price of gold which caused a boom in the mining camps of North America in the 30’s. That boom lasted in many places until the advent of WWII in 1940. Gold mining was stopped nation wide during the war years, and afterwards the price of gold went steadily down until 1970, when it’s trajectory went higher. Lower prices adversely affected mining/prospecting operations in the 20’s, 40’s, 50’s and 60’s.
The Providence Mine started back in 1894 ….. the mule, blasting, pick and shovel days. The mine became widely known. From 1894 to 1907 it produced at least 225,000 ounces from very high grade ore. (likely a lot more). Mining wasn’t continuous. At one point they shut down for 3 months because the leasers and owners couldn’t agree on a new lease. This happened again in 1907 when the mine was shut down until 1916. Another go of it was made then but seems to have been half hearted with the price of gold declining. In 1918 the extensive above ground infrastructure and most of the records burned up in a widespread fire. This happened also to the other mines that PHD now has, although they weren’t nearly as developed.
In 1931 a new company was formed. The Providence Consolidated Mines which encompassed all of the mines. Although they seemed to have been underfunded, (it was the depression after all), they had very ambitious plans, indeed.
Go to th 30 second mark,.. pause it, enlarge it and study it. They wanted to use the inclined shaft to mine Providence, but also to extend the existing drifts a long ways north, under the Mexican and Consuelo mines which they now owned. (follow the dotted lines). They assumed and hoped that the very high grade (3 to 5 ounces per ton) Mexican mines that were only worked a short ways, were just the top of deep high grade ore shoots like those at the Providence. (see the dot-dash lines coming down). Large, high grade ore shoots in this part of the mother lode often go down thousands of feet. In the map/diagram you can also see that they wanted to make a new drift at the 1,400 level below Providence and extend it north as well.
They weren’t able to fulfil those plans, of course. They left it all for the present owners to achieve.
What they did do was run an adit at the 600 level that connected to Providence’s old drift. This is the subject of that super cool 3d in the video. click hereYou can see in the video that their adit was zig zagging back and forth with small drifts because they were in search of vein structure. Before modern drilling capabilities they could only explore by tunneling and hoping. (how tough was that!) No drilling, soil sampling, or geologic research was ever done, until the advent of PHD a couple of years ago.
The video points out that it seems they missed this vein and that it may continue 263 meters to the Consuelo. It also points out that the 1930’s adit will be ideal for us to have an underground drill program not only for that vein, but also to drill diagonally upwards and downwards in search of the major ore shoots from a point where you’re already 600 feet under ground . Prospective investors could do no better DD than to watch the second part of the video, (starts at 12:30). Watch it several times, if needs be, to begin to grok the enormous potential of PHD and why there is so much potential (likelihood) to have 1 to 4 million ounces of high grade AU. (or more)
Subsequent history is from a Metal News interview of Ron.
" - We were very fortunate to pick up this property. It was owned by the same family since the early 1960s. They had plans to develop it. The fellow that is in charge of the estate, Mr. Ellis, is a prominent lawyer in the state of California. His father was a very prominent oil engineer. He passed away, unfortunately, before he ever got to realize his dream of looking at the Providence and seeing whether or not he could develop it to once again be one of the more famous gold producers in the Mother Lode Belt.”
There is so much more to cover in regards to this great project, which I will be reviewing in subsequent posts.