Small section of color map from pocket shows geological details, terrain, landmarks, mines and gold prospects.

One mine alone produced between about $1 million!

Geologic Reconnaissance of the Slate Range, San Bernardino and Inyo Counties, California — by four noted geologists — is not some gift-shop rockhound book. It was prepared by the California Division of Mines and Geology 35 years ago.

It contains much valuable information for history buffs, bottle collectors, photographers, rockhounds, hikers, collectors of stock certificates, offroaders, metal-detector enthusiasts, prospectors — just about anyone interested in the California desert's geology, scenery or historic old mining sites.

4WD not needed
Yes, these mines are in the backcountry. Where else do you expect to find gold these days? In Mile Square Park in Fountain Valley? But for many of the roads in this backcountry area, you won't need four wheel drive, just a vehicle with highish clearance like a pickup truck or even an old VW bug.

Most of the mines are on federal land and not within the borders of Death Valley National Park, so prospecting and mineral collecting are allowed without any special permits or paperwork. But please check road conditions and current collecting rules before heading out into these areas. Road conditions and rules do change.

Mines and prospects include:

• Gold Bottom mine, which ironically was mainly a silver mine, northwest of Copper Queen Canyon, produced between $900,000–$1 million (!!!) of ore, supposedly idle since 1943 (see map detail, second photo from top).
• Ophir mine, not far behind in total production, gave its owners $800,000 worth of rich ore.
• Daily Dozen mine, also called the January Jones mine (named after the famous Nevada miner and promoter of the same name, who struck it rich in the Goldfield boom).
• Sandora mine, on the east slope of the Slate Range west of Wingate Pass, produced 10,000 tons of ore that averaged $25 per ton in gold (and those are early 20th-century dollar values).
• New York Mine, dates from the 1870s, perhaps mined as late as 1900.
• Plus other gold, silver, copper, iron and limestone mines.

Exact locations given
You can't look for color in mine dumps if you don't know where the most-productive gold mines were. Don't waste weekends randomly digging through barren tailing piles for specimens. This book and maps have exact locations. Just plug 'em into your GPS or look 'em up on the appropriate topo, and you're there!

Okay, so you have a book by a noted rockhound or an ace prospector. You might get lucky and find a couple of neat places, but you'll also hit plenty of absolute duds. Why? Because what rockhound, mine explorer or prospector in their right mind would give away their favorite productive locations? Not one. What they will give you are directions to sites that are picked clean or second rate at best. Don't rely on secondhand information when you can get firsthand info from this book.

Tiny detail of large color map from pocket: Reconnaissance geologic map and cross sections of the Slate Range, California. Note location of Gold Bottom mine, a little below center; colors, patterns and letters identify surrounding rock types.

Want to prospect or collect at virgin, undiscovered locations instead of ones already known? Then you'll need to find new areas with geologic attributes conducive to forming the minerals that you're seeking. This book and map has that too (see two map details above). Who knows, maybe you'll discover the next Lost Burro gold mine.

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

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.

Book describes geology in detail
Because this is, after all, a book about mining and geology, it covers the latter topic in minute detail. Gold claims have been located chiefly in shear or fracture zones. Free gold in quartz veins is reported at several prospects, but more commonly it is associated with iron oxides, pyrite and minor chalcopyrite. Gold apparently occurs as mesothermal veins and wallrock replacements adjacent to veins. The mineralization may be related to the intrusion of the Mesozoic plutonic rocks, but its abundance in Precambrian rocks suggests that an earlier period of mineralization is responsible for some deposits.

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 two paragraphs. Geology varies widely over an area the size of this quadrangle, so it is impossible to convey but the simplest geologic features in an ad.

Photo from report shows section of rugged Slate range and location of Sand Canyon Thrust Fault. Faults are often associated with mineral deposits.

Where is it?
The Slate Range is a 30-mile-long range, with 5,500-feet peaks, which begins a few miles from Searles Lake (dry), just outside tiny Trona and Argus, the nearest towns of any size with services. On the border between the Mojave and Great Basin deserts, it's also only a few miles from Ballarat, the legendary Panamint Valley ghost town, but virtually no services are available there (the town only has one full-time resident).

Perhaps, about a third of the Slate Range is located within the borders of China Lake Naval Weapon Center Range B, which is closed to the public. But the rest is on land controlled by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and open to mineral collecting and prospecting, subject to the usual BLM rules. Because it is near but not inside the new boundary of Death Valley National Park, strict national park rules against collecting do not apply. Nearest city of any size is Ridgecrest, about 40 miles away.

Interestingly, some of the roads to mines in the Slate Range are plainly marked on the Auto Club of Southern California Death Valley road map, so that road map can be used easily to correlate some exact mileages to mines and other geologic features on the large color map from this report.

Inyo County — the second largest county in the state — is in eastern California, bordering Nevada, about halfway between the Mexican border and Oregon. It includes the highest point in the contiguous United States (Mt. Whitney) and the lowest (Badwater). Counties adjacent to Inyo are Mono, Fresno, Tulare, Kern and San Bernardino.

The book:
Geologic Reconnaissance of the Slate Range, San Bernardino and Inyo Counties, California, Special Report 96, first edition, 1968 (by George I. Smith, U.S.G.S.; Bennie W. Troxel and Clifton H. Gray Jr., California Division of Mines and Geology; Roland von Huene, U.S. Naval Test Station geologist), California Division of Mines and Geology, San Francisco, CA, 33 pages, 8.5 by 11 inches. Stapled binding, stiff glossy covers. In fine, near-new condition; one large color map in pocket is folded with some slight rippling, otherwise in very good shape.

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. Look elsewhere on ebay, if you want a trashed book — filled with scribbled notes, dog-eared pages and underlined passages that the seller just "somehow forgot" to tell you about in his ad.

The fine print:
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about the item or terms of sale. Do not wait until you buy the report.

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Not responsible for typographical errors.

Buy it now or forever hold your peace. Once it's gone; it's gone. Good luck and thanks for looking!!

Nearby counties
Counties near Inyo include: Riverside, Orange, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Tuolumne and Alpine.

Towns, population areas and interesting sites in Inyo County include Aberdeen, the Alabama Hills, Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, Badwater, Ballarat, Big Pine, Bishop, Cartago, Cerro Gordo, China Lake Naval Weapons Center, Coso Junction, Darwin, Death Valley Junction, Dolomite, Dunmovin, Eureka Sand Dunes, Fossil Falls, Furnace Creek, Haiwee Reservoir, Independence, Keeler, Laws, Lake Sabrina, Little Lake, Lone Pine, Mt. Whitney, Olancha, Owens Lake, Panamint Springs, Pearsonville, Saline Valley, Scotty's Castle, Shoshone, Stovepipe Wells, Swansea, Tecopa and Ubehebe Crater.

San Bernardino County cities and towns: Adelanto, Alta Loma, Apple Valley, Barstow, Big Bear Lake, Bloomington, Chino, Cima, Colton, Cucamonga, Essex, Etiwanda, Fontana, Forest Falls, George Air Force Base, Grand Terrace, Havasu Landing, Helendale, Hesperia, Highland, Hinkley, Lake Arrowhead, Loma Linda, Lucerne Valley, Mentone, Montclair, Morongo Valley, Mountain Pass, Mt. Baldy, Needles, Ontario, Oro Grande, Parker Dam, Phelan, Pinon Hills, Pomona, Rancho Cucamonga, Redlands, Rialto, Upland, Yermo, and Yucca Valley.