Mercur Skyline drive Traditional Geocache
BlueRajah: I am archiving this cache to keep it from continually showing up in search lists, and to prevent it from blocking other cache placements. The reviewers requested the cache to be reviewed and no action was taken. If this was done in error please contact me immediately. If the cache was archived because of maintenance issues (no response to our earlier notes on the cache page) you will need to submit a new cache.
Thank you,
BlueRajah
Volunteer Geocache Reviewer - Utah
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Cache is located above Mercur and Sunshine canyons.
From the cache site you will have great views of Cedar Valley and Rush valley as well as the mine at top of Mercur.
Here is a brief piece of History about teh Mercu mine to the North:
On April 30, 1879, Arie Pinedo, a Bavarian man, discovered the Mercur lode. Supposedly he thought the vein was cinnabar and named it after its product, mercury. This is where the name for the mine, town, and company came from. Pinedo was not able to extract any mercury of any quantity and the second boom soon died. But some diehard silver and gold prospectors were always hanging around.
In 1883, gold was discovered, but again, large quantities proved elusive. Also the clay-like dirt and the fineness of the metal made it difficult to extract with panning. So about 1890, a new company was formed called the Mercur Gold Mining and Milling Company. The company paid Pinedo $10,000 for his claim. Then they built a mill near a stream. Things weren’t going well, when William Orr returned from Australia with exciting news about the cyanide extraction process invented by McArthur and Forrest. One of the Mercur’s owners, G. S. Peyton sent a car-load of ore to an extraction plant in Denver and eagerly awaited the results. The result was that there was enough gold in the samples to justify building a cyanide plant. It was the first built and operated in the United States. The plant was enlarged three times to handle an increasingly larger amount of ore.
The cyanide process was quicker and more efficient that other methods. After the ore was crushed and roasted it was placed in large tanks. The ore was mixed with water, then cyanide was added. The cyanide leached through the ore and dissolved the gold. The gold was then carried to the bottom of the tanks, where sluices diverted the liquid from the tanks into a central vat. Zinc was added to replace the gold in solution, causing it to settle. Then the gold could be easily collected. The process required expensive equipment and an electricity source. In 1896, the average extraction was one-half ounce of gold per ton of ore.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
va gur fuehof