Post by AJrWennerGren on Jun 25, 2004 0:22:58 GMT -5
The Idaho-Maryland Gold Mines, Grass Valley
- The Heart Of The Mother Lode Gold Industry -
Grass Valley, Cal, U.S.A.
The Cornish miners choir broadcasts
its Christimas Eve concert
from the Idaho-Maryland mine in 1940.
It gave its first national broadcast over NBC
on Christmas Eve 1940 from the 2,000-foot level
from the heart of...
*** The Idaho-Maryland Gold Mine in Grass Valley ***
Jack Clark, 82, has lived his entire life
in the quiet Nevada County city of Grass
Valley, and a fair portion of that time
was spent underground and as the
mine's superintendent and safety
officer.
He worked for 12 years in Grass Valley's historic
Idaho-Maryland Gold Mine
as the superintendent
and safety officer,
until its closure in 1956.
Clark figures he's walked just about all of
the 71 miles of subterranean tunnels, the deepest
running more than 3,000 feet below the surface.
The tunnels, dating back to 1862,
flooded with water and were abandoned
decades ago.
But a Canadian firm called Emgold Mining Corp.
believes it can restore the mine in just a few
years and produce at least 110,000 ounces of
Gold annually -- worth more than $40 million
at current prices.
"The Gold's still there," Clark told me,
his voice, even after all this time,
resonating with the thrill of
treasure hunting.
"You just have to know where to look."
Emgold is relying on Clark's memories of
the mine to help pull off an ambitious feat:
resurrecting a Gold Rush-era facility just
a few miles down the road from
the Grass Valley city center.
Aside from Clark's first-hand knowledge,
the company is staking its claim on thousands
of maps, charts and other materials salvaged
from the basement of one of the mine's owners,
a Grass Valley resident who inherited
the property years ago.
"The Idaho-Maryland mine has been one of
the biggest secrets in California, "
said Bill Witte, Emgold's president
and chief executive officer.
"Because it's always been privately held,
no one's ever really known its full potential. "
By applying state-of-the-art technology
and techniques to a facility that opened
during the Civil War, Witte is hoping that
Idaho-Maryland can be reborn as a profitable
business venture that will create hundreds
of jobs and have a ripple effect on
the local economy.
Within 10 years, he's projecting,
the Gold Mine could produce as much as
400,000 ounces of Gold every year -
- small by most commercial measures but still
potentially lucrative.
Gold was trading around $365 an ounce on Tuesday.
From 1862 to 1956, Idaho-Maryland produced
about 2.4 million ounces.
The mine was closed because the price of Gold
had been capped at $35 an ounce, making
continued operations impractical.
The price cap wasn't lifted until the 1970s,
when Gold soared as high as $850 an ounce.
"This is a tremendous project," said Mary
Ann Mueller, president of the Grass Valley
Chamber of Commerce.
"It will be a very good thing for
the community."
That's to say the mine's restoration is a sure thing -
- it's still very early in the process.
But Grass Valley officials say they're hopeful
that Emgold can make good on its ambitions.
The city, located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada,
has already given permission for Emgold
to conduct exploratory drilling at the site,
which has been left alone for years and
is now mostly forest land.
The company has submit its application
for full mining operations by next year.
The Idaho-Maryland mine might have remained
forgotten were it not for the efforts of
a California geologist named Ross Guenther,
who now works as Emgold's project manager.
He had read about Idaho-Maryland 30 years ago,
learning that it was once the state's
second-largest underground producer of Gold
(after the nearby Empire mine,
now a state park).
In the 1980s, Guenther came across one of the
mine's owners and stumbled upon a trove of
documentation related to the facility -
- virtually everything ever recorded
about the mine's 15 levels and past output.
The materials made clear that plenty of Gold
remains in the shafts -
- tons of it -
- according to Emgold,
although it hasn't yet specified how many -
- and where it could be found.
A lease agreement was signed by Guenther
in 1987 but expired with no results.
Another lease was signed in 1993 but,
with gold prices sagging, it too ended before
any progress could be made.
Emgold entered the picture last year,
signing a new long term lease and
enjoying a flurry of relatively
robust Gold prices.
The company, which trades on the Toronto
small-cap venture exchange.
It has raised about $1.5 million from investors
during the past year and intends to amass an
additional millions to cover
the mine's development.
Witte, the CEO, figures it will cost about
$165 an ounce to pull Gold from Idaho-Maryland.
At current market prices, therefore, investors
could see a tidy profit.
"We've taken all the information that's been
recovered and placed it in a sophisticated
computer program," Witte said.
"We've gotten a pretty good idea about
the mine's potential."
Meanwhile, he's looking at other possible
revenue sources as the project moves
forward.
For one thing, there's all that water in
the mine's tunnels -- up to 5 billion gallons.
Witte said preliminary tests show that the water
is actually quite clean.
He's pondering the idea of filtering and
bottling the water -- a prospect he concedes
might be more trouble than it's worth.
Barring that, he said Emgold would likely pump
the water into nearby Wolf Creek, making it
available for use by local residents.
More intriguing is Emgold's plan to convert
quartz ore left over from the mining process
into ceramic tiles suitable
for floors and roofs.
To Witte's knowledge, no other Gold mine has
attempted this as a sideline.
"It could be a very significant revenue stream,"
he said, noting that ceramic tiles sell on
the wholesale market for about $500 a ton
and that Emgold would be processing up
to 200,000 tons of ore each year.
The company plans to announce a pilot program
for tile production within the next few weeks.
It's also looking at how the mine can serve
simultaneously as a tourist attraction,
allowing visitors access to some
of the tunnels.
In Grass Valley, Clark isn't giving much thought
to making ceramic tiles or wooing tourists.
He just wants to see his old stomping ground
up and running again and to set foot one
last time in its subterranean confines.
And maybe -- just maybe -- pull a little
more GOLD from the ground.
"It'll bring back a lot of memories,"
Clark said.
"A lot of memories."
The Idaho-Maryland Gold Mines - THE GOLDEN KEY -
THE GOLDEN KEY
by drilling a mile-long, 16 feet-by-18 feet sloping tunnel
big enough to handle 40-ton trucks underneath
what now are homes, offices and
industrial parks -
When the Gold mine closed in 1956, a miner could remove
about 1.5 tons of ore a day, said company President
and CEO Bill Witte. Massive modern equipment means
the same miner can move 30 to 45 tons a day.
The old mine became unprofitable when the government
capped Gold at $35 an ounce;
Witte said even the tailings the earlier
Gold miners left behind contain enough
Gold to now be profitable.
The Idaho-Maryland Gold Mines
...history often repeat itself...
The Idaho-Maryland, Brunswick,
and Union Hill mines are here.
One ounce of Gold per ton -
still holding -
The USA # 1 Record in GOLD Mining -
- Produced more than One million
ounces of GOLD from one million ton.
Coarse-grained scheelite is present in
several veins, notably in
the Union Hill and New Brunswick mines.
The Idaho-Maryland Gold Mines -
The incline is
- The Golden Key to -
- The Golden Treasure Chest -
...history often repeat itself...
Got EmGold EMR Gold shares ?
And a mini profile on:
- EmGold Mining Corp.
- (TSX:EMR) (OTCBB:EGMCF)
www.b-tv.com/i/videos/emgold.ram
- Idaho-Maryland Gold Mines -
- located in the Gold Cities of
- Grass Valley and
- Nevada City, California.
- Gold Res: 3 mil. oz x $400 =
- $1,200,000,000.00 Au-Ore Value?..
- of new conf. drilled eng. Gold Res
- to about 3000' down..
- and still it remains -
- about 20,000' of Virgin Gold Ore
- rock depth to drill and Mine.
- At the Empire Gold Mine beside, the
- GOLD become richer and richer the
- deeper they mined, and much
- richer below 3000' than above!!!
- EmGold Mining Corporation
- www.ivarkreuger.com
One ounce of Gold per ton -
still holding -
The USA # 1 Record in GOLD Mining -
- Produced more than One million
ounces of GOLD from one million ton.
- The Idaho-Maryland Gold Mines -
,,,history often repeat itself,,,
Welcome aboard.
* Imo.Tia.Pass It Along>>>
- The Heart Of The Mother Lode Gold Industry -
Grass Valley, Cal, U.S.A.
The Cornish miners choir broadcasts
its Christimas Eve concert
from the Idaho-Maryland mine in 1940.
It gave its first national broadcast over NBC
on Christmas Eve 1940 from the 2,000-foot level
from the heart of...
*** The Idaho-Maryland Gold Mine in Grass Valley ***
Jack Clark, 82, has lived his entire life
in the quiet Nevada County city of Grass
Valley, and a fair portion of that time
was spent underground and as the
mine's superintendent and safety
officer.
He worked for 12 years in Grass Valley's historic
Idaho-Maryland Gold Mine
as the superintendent
and safety officer,
until its closure in 1956.
Clark figures he's walked just about all of
the 71 miles of subterranean tunnels, the deepest
running more than 3,000 feet below the surface.
The tunnels, dating back to 1862,
flooded with water and were abandoned
decades ago.
But a Canadian firm called Emgold Mining Corp.
believes it can restore the mine in just a few
years and produce at least 110,000 ounces of
Gold annually -- worth more than $40 million
at current prices.
"The Gold's still there," Clark told me,
his voice, even after all this time,
resonating with the thrill of
treasure hunting.
"You just have to know where to look."
Emgold is relying on Clark's memories of
the mine to help pull off an ambitious feat:
resurrecting a Gold Rush-era facility just
a few miles down the road from
the Grass Valley city center.
Aside from Clark's first-hand knowledge,
the company is staking its claim on thousands
of maps, charts and other materials salvaged
from the basement of one of the mine's owners,
a Grass Valley resident who inherited
the property years ago.
"The Idaho-Maryland mine has been one of
the biggest secrets in California, "
said Bill Witte, Emgold's president
and chief executive officer.
"Because it's always been privately held,
no one's ever really known its full potential. "
By applying state-of-the-art technology
and techniques to a facility that opened
during the Civil War, Witte is hoping that
Idaho-Maryland can be reborn as a profitable
business venture that will create hundreds
of jobs and have a ripple effect on
the local economy.
Within 10 years, he's projecting,
the Gold Mine could produce as much as
400,000 ounces of Gold every year -
- small by most commercial measures but still
potentially lucrative.
Gold was trading around $365 an ounce on Tuesday.
From 1862 to 1956, Idaho-Maryland produced
about 2.4 million ounces.
The mine was closed because the price of Gold
had been capped at $35 an ounce, making
continued operations impractical.
The price cap wasn't lifted until the 1970s,
when Gold soared as high as $850 an ounce.
"This is a tremendous project," said Mary
Ann Mueller, president of the Grass Valley
Chamber of Commerce.
"It will be a very good thing for
the community."
That's to say the mine's restoration is a sure thing -
- it's still very early in the process.
But Grass Valley officials say they're hopeful
that Emgold can make good on its ambitions.
The city, located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada,
has already given permission for Emgold
to conduct exploratory drilling at the site,
which has been left alone for years and
is now mostly forest land.
The company has submit its application
for full mining operations by next year.
The Idaho-Maryland mine might have remained
forgotten were it not for the efforts of
a California geologist named Ross Guenther,
who now works as Emgold's project manager.
He had read about Idaho-Maryland 30 years ago,
learning that it was once the state's
second-largest underground producer of Gold
(after the nearby Empire mine,
now a state park).
In the 1980s, Guenther came across one of the
mine's owners and stumbled upon a trove of
documentation related to the facility -
- virtually everything ever recorded
about the mine's 15 levels and past output.
The materials made clear that plenty of Gold
remains in the shafts -
- tons of it -
- according to Emgold,
although it hasn't yet specified how many -
- and where it could be found.
A lease agreement was signed by Guenther
in 1987 but expired with no results.
Another lease was signed in 1993 but,
with gold prices sagging, it too ended before
any progress could be made.
Emgold entered the picture last year,
signing a new long term lease and
enjoying a flurry of relatively
robust Gold prices.
The company, which trades on the Toronto
small-cap venture exchange.
It has raised about $1.5 million from investors
during the past year and intends to amass an
additional millions to cover
the mine's development.
Witte, the CEO, figures it will cost about
$165 an ounce to pull Gold from Idaho-Maryland.
At current market prices, therefore, investors
could see a tidy profit.
"We've taken all the information that's been
recovered and placed it in a sophisticated
computer program," Witte said.
"We've gotten a pretty good idea about
the mine's potential."
Meanwhile, he's looking at other possible
revenue sources as the project moves
forward.
For one thing, there's all that water in
the mine's tunnels -- up to 5 billion gallons.
Witte said preliminary tests show that the water
is actually quite clean.
He's pondering the idea of filtering and
bottling the water -- a prospect he concedes
might be more trouble than it's worth.
Barring that, he said Emgold would likely pump
the water into nearby Wolf Creek, making it
available for use by local residents.
More intriguing is Emgold's plan to convert
quartz ore left over from the mining process
into ceramic tiles suitable
for floors and roofs.
To Witte's knowledge, no other Gold mine has
attempted this as a sideline.
"It could be a very significant revenue stream,"
he said, noting that ceramic tiles sell on
the wholesale market for about $500 a ton
and that Emgold would be processing up
to 200,000 tons of ore each year.
The company plans to announce a pilot program
for tile production within the next few weeks.
It's also looking at how the mine can serve
simultaneously as a tourist attraction,
allowing visitors access to some
of the tunnels.
In Grass Valley, Clark isn't giving much thought
to making ceramic tiles or wooing tourists.
He just wants to see his old stomping ground
up and running again and to set foot one
last time in its subterranean confines.
And maybe -- just maybe -- pull a little
more GOLD from the ground.
"It'll bring back a lot of memories,"
Clark said.
"A lot of memories."
The Idaho-Maryland Gold Mines - THE GOLDEN KEY -
THE GOLDEN KEY
by drilling a mile-long, 16 feet-by-18 feet sloping tunnel
big enough to handle 40-ton trucks underneath
what now are homes, offices and
industrial parks -
When the Gold mine closed in 1956, a miner could remove
about 1.5 tons of ore a day, said company President
and CEO Bill Witte. Massive modern equipment means
the same miner can move 30 to 45 tons a day.
The old mine became unprofitable when the government
capped Gold at $35 an ounce;
Witte said even the tailings the earlier
Gold miners left behind contain enough
Gold to now be profitable.
The Idaho-Maryland Gold Mines
...history often repeat itself...
The Idaho-Maryland, Brunswick,
and Union Hill mines are here.
One ounce of Gold per ton -
still holding -
The USA # 1 Record in GOLD Mining -
- Produced more than One million
ounces of GOLD from one million ton.
Coarse-grained scheelite is present in
several veins, notably in
the Union Hill and New Brunswick mines.
The Idaho-Maryland Gold Mines -
The incline is
- The Golden Key to -
- The Golden Treasure Chest -
...history often repeat itself...
Got EmGold EMR Gold shares ?
And a mini profile on:
- EmGold Mining Corp.
- (TSX:EMR) (OTCBB:EGMCF)
www.b-tv.com/i/videos/emgold.ram
- Idaho-Maryland Gold Mines -
- located in the Gold Cities of
- Grass Valley and
- Nevada City, California.
- Gold Res: 3 mil. oz x $400 =
- $1,200,000,000.00 Au-Ore Value?..
- of new conf. drilled eng. Gold Res
- to about 3000' down..
- and still it remains -
- about 20,000' of Virgin Gold Ore
- rock depth to drill and Mine.
- At the Empire Gold Mine beside, the
- GOLD become richer and richer the
- deeper they mined, and much
- richer below 3000' than above!!!
- EmGold Mining Corporation
- www.ivarkreuger.com
One ounce of Gold per ton -
still holding -
The USA # 1 Record in GOLD Mining -
- Produced more than One million
ounces of GOLD from one million ton.
- The Idaho-Maryland Gold Mines -
,,,history often repeat itself,,,
Welcome aboard.
* Imo.Tia.Pass It Along>>>
