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THE FINDLEY GOLD MINING CO. [COMPANY]
[ added text, top margin: 1878 ]

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THE Findley Gold Mining Company, -- OF GEORGIA --
CAPITAL, -- -- . $200,000,
Shares $1.00 each, full paid and unassessable. DIRECTORS: D. A. BOODY, (of D. A. Boody & Co. [Company], Bankers,
N.Y. [New York]
JAMES FRANCIS.JOHN McGINNIS, JR., (of McGinnis Bros. [Brothers] & Fearing, Bankers,
N.Y. [New York]
N. H. HAND.
WM. [William] B. [P.] PRICE.
OFFICERS: D. A. BOODY, PRESIDENT.
WM. [William] B. [P.] PRICE, VICE-PRES'T. [VICE PRESIDENT]
COL. [COLONEL] N. H. HAND, SUP'T. [SUPERINTENDENT]
JAMES FRANCIS, (of Trask & Francis, Bankers,
70 Broadway), TREASURER.
CHARLES A. JAMES, SECRETARY.

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Office of TRASK & FRANCIS, Bankers,
70 Broadway and 15 New St.,
P. O. Box 1295, NEW YORK.
DEAR SIRS: -- We beg to call your attention to the annexed prospectus of the Findley Gold Mining Company of Georgia, together with the report thereon, made by Mr. John C. Randolph.

After a careful investigation, we feel safe in assuming that the enterprise is a legitimate one, and that the mine can pay good dividends upon its capital, for three good reasons, namely:

1st. The character and abundance of the gold-bearing ore.
2d. The facility and little cost at which the ore can be treated.
3d. The conservative character of the management.
The capital of the Company is 200,000 shares, at a par value of $1 per share, full paid and non-assessable. The Company reserve in their Treasury 50,000 shares -- 20,000 of which will be sold to subscribers at fifty cents per share, and the proceeds at once used in making the improvements and developments referred to in the prospectus.

The remaining 150,000 shares are held in trust for the original owners, who have great confidence in the mine.

We strongly recommend the stock as an investment, believing that its intrinsic value will very soon be fully established, by handsome earnings and dividends on the stock.

Yours truly,
[Signed] TRASK & FRANCIS.
AUGUST, 1878.

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-- THE --
FINDLEY GOLD MINING COMPANY,
-- OF GEORGIA --
The property of the Findley Gold Mining Company, of Georgia, consists of 120 acres of mineral land in fee simple, (three lots of forty acres each) situated about one and a half miles from the town of Dahlonega, Lumpkin County, Georgia.

It includes the famous "Findley" lot or mine, and is located on the easterly end of the Findley ridge, which is described by mining engineers and geologists as the "backbone" of the Georgia gold belt.

The Yahoola river flows at the base of this ridge furnishing a large and unfailing water power [waterpower], on which the Company has built a twenty-four stamp quartz mill capable of crushing fifty tons of ore per day.

The Gold Ores
on this property, although generally of low grade, are practically inexhaustable, and from their peculiar character and location can be more cheaply mined and worked, than perhaps any ores in the world.

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The original "Findley" lot, No. 1058, lying immediately back of, and above the mill, is conceded by every one [everyone] to contain the largest mass of gold-bearing ores in the Southern belt. It is a precipitous ridge, jutting into the valley, with almost sheer ascent of 500 feet above the level of the river; and this ridge is seamed with veins of gold ores, which are exposed along the entire side next to the mine, and prospected on the summit and other side.

It is a primary formation, the predominant rocks being micaceous and talcose slates, hornblende, feldspar and quartz. There are four large and well defined veins running through the property, the general trend of the veins being northeast and southwest, dipping to the southeast.

The Great Economy
with which these ores can be worked is the result of the remarkable topography of the location, and the peculiar facilities possessed by the Company for handling and transporting the ores from the mine to the mill. By a system of ditches two and a half miles in length the Company obtains a permanent and constant supply of water from the "Yahoola Canal," (owned by the Hand Gold Company), which brings the water from the sources of the river, twenty-two miles distant. The ditch of the Company carries the water to a reservoir on the mountain side [mountainside], 340 feet above the mill.

All ores below this point are mined or quarried in an "open cut," broken up, and when ready for the mill a sluice of water is turned on from

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the reservoir, and the whole mass, say seventy-five to a hundred tons of ore, slate, and other material, is "flooded" to the mill within ten minutes from the time the water strikes it. The refuse and soft material passes off through a series of strong racks, while the ore is left on the floor of the mill in front of the batteries ready for the "feeders." By this process, which is now in successful operation t [at] the mine, fifty tons of ore per day can be mined and milled at an expense as follows:
Six miners in open cut at 80 cents per day $4 80
One Foreman in open cut at $1 25 per day $1 25
Six mill men (three on each turn, at 80 cents per day 4 80
One Foreman in mill at $1 50 per day 1 50
Incidentals, machinery, tools, &c 3 15
Water rents 1 50
General Superintendences 3 00
Total per day $20 00
for fifty tons of ore, or at the rate of forty cents per ton. These figures can be verified by examination of the Company's books.

The Value of These Ores
is reported on by Capt. [Captain] W. R. Crisson, at present managing the mine, and who has had many years experience as a practical miner both in California and Georgia. He says Vein No. 1 is over twenty feet thick, and ten to twelve feet of the top of it will yield more than $1.00 per ton, and the

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remainder more than $2.00 per ton. Vein No. 2 is nearly as large as No. 1, and will yield over $3.00 per ton, and cost no more to work it. Vein No. 3 will yield $1.50 per ton and can be worked as cheaply as the others. According to this estimate it will be seen the average value of these low grade ores, of which there are such inexhaustable [inexhaustible] quantities, is about $2.00 per ton, and if worked as shown above they are and can be for forty cents per ton, it leaves a profit of $1.60 per ton, with almost unlimited capacity of extension by simply increasing the works.

These so-called low grade ores, in fact compose a large part of the entire mountain, and in ordinary mining could not be milled with profit, while our exceptional facilities give us a good margin as above shown, to work them while opening up and developing the real and richer veins of the mines. But lying back of this great mass of lean ores, and cropping out on the crest of the ridge is an extraordinary vein and found nowhere else in the district except along this ridge.

It consists of an immense dyke or ledge of disintegrated or granulated quartz, honeycombed, and traversed with ferruginous seams and streaks of ochre, and known in Georgia as

The Great Sand Vein.
It has the regular trend and dip of the ordinary quartz veins, and is in "position" across the entire breadth of lot No. 1048. It has but recently

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been opened by this Company, having had no permanent facility for putting water on the summit, which is necessary in order to properly work it. They have, however, "prospected" it by running "open cuts" across the vein at two different points, showing a wonderful development of ore, averaging about twenty feet in thickness. From the "pan" tests and assays already made, it gives evidence of a great richness. Capt. [Captain] Crisson reports the yield from tests he has made at from $2.00 to $20.00 per ton. Five samples taken from the different parts across the vein, and assayed a few weeks ago by Messrs. Booth & Garret, of the Philadelphia mint, averaged $25.60 per ton in gold. Other samples from the same vein nearer the top, assayed in Cleveland, Ohio, run about $19.00 per ton in gold.

It is usually estimated that the ordinary mill process will save two-thirds of the assay value of free gold ores. On this basis the ore from this vein should yield about $15.00 per ton; but if in practice, it should only give $5.00 per ton, which certainly appears to be a safe estimate, the working value of the vein is simply enormous. Taking the croppings of the vein as 1320 feet across the property, with about 800 feet of its dip above water level, and an average thickness of twenty feet, and allowing twenty-five cubic feet to the ton, and we have about 845,000 tons of this ore above the water line of the river. Nor is it unreasonable to expect, in working and developing this vein, many rich leads and "pockets" will be found, that will largely increase its value and yield.

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It is also the opinion of experts, who have examined it, that below the water level it will be an exceedingly rich Sulphuret [Sulfuret] vein. In order to work this valuable vein economically and to advantage, it will be necessary to lift a supply of water from the upper ditch of the Company, about 175 feet, to the top of the ridge; this can be done by locating a steam pump on the ditch on the north side of the hill, and constructing a reservoir on the summit, from which the water will not only command all the ores in the hill for flooding purposes to the works, but furnish an ample supply also for hydraulic work, and to "ground sluice" the rich hill deposits, of which there is a valuable territory lying around the gulch, between lots 1047 and 1048; and which, with water and the dydraulic [hydraulic] process, would doubtless yield a large sum at a very small expense.

The steam pump power and expenditure for putting water on the summit, together with a ten stamp mill to work the north side ores, will cost not to exceed $4000. And it is confidently believed that the profit of these ten stamps will pay all expenses of the entire mine, leaving the yield of the large mill on the river as net profit. Twenty stamps more should also be added to the large mill, (at a cost of about $5000) making it a forty-four stamp mill, which could easily crush 100 tons of the "sand ore" per day; and this amount, reducing the lowest estimate one half, should yield at least $250 per day, or at the rate of $75.000 per annum from this vein alone. These estimates are based on the ores in sight and known to exist on the

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property; but in addition to all these, there is another vein which promises to give even greater results in a short time than all the others combined.

The Celebrated "Findley Vein"
on this property, is acknowledged to be the richest ever discovered in Georgia, and according to the best attainable information, has already yielded about $90,000 in gold taken from 160 feet on the course of the vein. It is considered one of the few true veins of the South, being well defined between regular "foot" and "hanging" rock walls. It is a clear, lively quartz lode about three feet thick, carrying a remarkably rich "pay streak" of two to eight inches, and yielding in many places almost pure masses of gold. Nuggets weighing from twenty to fifty pennyweights, are sometimes broken from the quartz while taking down the vein. One mass of quartz and gold taken from this lode, weighing about twelve pounds, produced nearly eight pounds of gold.

This rich vein underlies the "Great Sand Vein," and before the war, was worked in a rude way for about 160 feet on an "incline" or "slope" until a heavy flow of water and foul air drove the miners out, and it was abandoned. Sup't. [Superintendent] Huff, now of the "Hand Gold Mine," took 3900 pennyweights from about ten feet of the last workings.

Recently a small test tunnel, 480 feet in length, has been driven from a point on the mountain side [mountainside], 360 feet above its base, for the purpose of

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draining the old slope, and to ascertain the condition and value of the vein. By this means the bottom of the old works was struck, the water drained off, a free circulation of air secured, and the vein found as rich as ever at the point where it had been abandoned. Many very rich specimens (some of which may be seen at the Company's office) have been taken from a few feet of the vein where re-opened [reopened], and it is now showing gold all through the lode, giving every indication of extending to great depth, entirely across the lot. But in order to work it rapidly and to advantage, obtaining speedily the vast treasure it undoubtedly carries, a tunnel should be driven in from the base of the mountain near the mill, which at a distance of 500 feet would strike the vein and give about 600 or 700 feet of "stoping" on the lode. By this method, if the 700 feet yet to be worked is as rich as the 160 feet already taken ont [out], (and all mining experience warrants the prospect of its being made richer) there is every reasonable probability that the Company will realize a very large revenue from it -- in a short time. This tunnel is an important feature of the mine which should be at once carried into effect, not only to strike the "Findley Lode," but at the same time to thoroughly prospect the mountain to that extent, cutting at a greater depth the overlying veins of lean ores. This plan would doubtless demonstrate these ores to be much richer at the level of the proposed tunnel, than near the surface where now worked, and possibly open up other valuable "streaks" like the "Findley Lode."

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All the veins heretofore described are "free" ore -- no sulphurets [sulfurets] -- and in such vast quantities above the water line of the river, that a fifty stamp mill will not exhaust them in a generation to come.

The Improvements
and personal property belonging to the mine are: a good twenty-four stamp mill, five houses for the atcommodation [accommodation] of miners, a blacksmith shop, a full equipment of mining and other tools, valuable water rights, leases, easements, water ditches, reservoirs, &c. [et cetera]

The information given in a prospectus is necessarily condensed and imperfect, but the Company invites the fullest investigation of its property in its present condition, and points with great confidence to the future prospects of the mine, when the improvements herein suggested are completed. This may require an expenditure of $12,000 to $15,000, and should be made and completed inside of six months.

General Remarks.
One great advantage in owning mining property in Georgia consists in the fact that no question in regard to the extent or course of a vein of mineral bearing ore can arise, as so often occurs in other mineral bearing sections; involving litigation where the mines are defined by a certain number of feet on a certain lode (especially where the ground is irregular and the wall rock broken) and where the nature of the lode cannot be defined with any degree of

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certainty. In Georgia, the party owning a lot of land, is the proprietor and absolute owner of, not only the land, but of the wood, water and minerals within the boundaries of said lot; instead of being confined to a few feet of mineral lode as in other sections.

The climate is unsurpassed, and the advantages of being able to work the mines during the entire year, and in having wood and water on the ground free from exorbitant cost, will be readily appreciated by those owning mining property in a section of the country where it is often impossible to work the mines during the winter months, and where wood and water can with difficulty be procured at any price.

The accessibility of the district -- being only forty-eight hours by rail from New York -- the economy of living, and the cheapness and abundance of labor, are also items of great importance; common labor is in great abundance at from sixty to eighty cents per day, while good foremen and mechanics can be had at from $1.00 to $1.50 per day.

Prof. [Professor] W. P. Blake, geologist and mining engineer, of national repute, in a report on the deposit mines of the Dahlonega district, says: "The portion of the great gold belt of Georgia, to which my attention was called is in Lumpkin County and vicinity of Dahlonega. This place was early selected as the most central and convenient point for a settlement in the gold region. The richest mines and deposits being found in its immediate vicinity."

After an extended description of the placers and hill deposits, he adds: "Further facts regarding veins in that section are important for the bearing

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they have on the extent and richness of the deposits. One of the most remarkable is the "Findley Vein," now being worked, and from which a short time ago several masses was [were] taken consisting of nearly equal bulks of gold and quartz. In conclusion I desire to express my conviction, after the extended examination I have made, that success cannot fail to attend the delivery of the 'Yahoola' waters upon this tract -- with proper management the yield of gold would be enormous."

As this Company was the first to apply to the New York Mining Stock Exchange to have its stock listed under the stringent rules lately adopted, it was necessary that an expert should be employed to examine aud [and] report upon the property. Mr. J. C. Randolph, a mining engineer and geologist of large experience and wide reputation, was selected by the Exchange, and we append a synopsis of his report.

Report on the Findley Gold Mine, Dahlonega, Ga. [Georgia]

To the Security Committee of the New York Mining Stock Exchange:
GENTLEMEN: -- At my recent visit to this mine, at Dahlonega, Ga. [Georgia], I examined carefully into the extent and character of the property, the developments and work already done, the character and cost of the operations needed for the production of gold, and into the feasibility of their plans for the future.

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I found a property which for eighteen months has been the object of a small, legitimate and paying private enterprise, systematically worked with shrewdness, economy and skill, using novel methods of reducing the cost of handling ores of a very low grade, and thereby extracting a profit from them.

The gold ores on the property, hitherto worked, are of so low a grade that in most districts they would be deemed unworkable, and my surprise was great at finding they were extracting a profit from them.

My examination also brought me to the conclusion that a much more extensive enterprise on a paying basis was possible, using the same methods, with the expenditure of a not large amount of additional capital.

In order to obtain the additional capital needed by the sale of a fractional part of their stock, they are seeking the rights of the market of your Board.

The facts concerning the property are these: It lies one mile southeast of Dahlonega, on the Yahoola River, and consists of 120 acres, in absolute ownership, lying on a ridge trending northeast and southwest, and a lien on forty acres of lowland by the river.

The 120 acres, which is the present object of exploration, lies on a hill 480 feet in height, pitching steeply at the eastern end down to the Yahoola River. The whole hill consists of a series of beds, containing interculated masses of white sugary quartz, carrying gold. The beds have the same strike as the hill, namely, northeast and southwest, and dip 30 -- 40 to the east.

They are in every way conformable in strike, and dip with the chloritic slates, enclosing them and, in this respect resemble the majority of gold-bearing

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deposits in North Carolina and Georgia. The thickness of the beds is very great, and the whole hill seems composed of them. My time being limited, I tested the whole series of beds, by panning ore taken from the test holes driven in each, by pounding up the samples selected, and working them in a miner's pan.

In each case I got a very satisfactory showing of gold. This test is of a practical character, for when it is considered that a twenty dollar gold ore contains but 480 grains of gold in the ton, it may be fairly believed that when a pan full of ore (three or four pounds) gives a large series of colors, it contains a good deal of pure gold to the ton.

The order of these beds, counting from the end, at the foot of which is placed the stamp mill, towards which they dip, is as follows:

I. The black surface ores on the end of the hill are highly quartzose and were at one time full of sulphurets [sulfurets], which have been decomposed, certainly the whole depth of the hill, and probably much deeper.

They are the only ones which have been steadily worked up to this time, and carry seventy-five cents to one dollar and twenty-five cents to the ton in free gold. They hardly show a color in the pan. Their width is very great.

II. The Sand Vein is back of these, and has been opened to the full width, at the top of the hill. It is twenty to thirty feet wide, and consists of a loose, white sugary quartz, carrying gold, intermixed with a dead blue quartzite. A recent assay of large samples was made by Booth & Garrett, chemists,

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of Philadelphia, with the result of twenty-five dollars per ton. I made pan tests across its whole width, obtaining a large showing of gold from all except the blue quartzite. My pan tests would seem to confirm the above assay. The amount of ore in this bed is very great.

III. The Findley Shute [Chute] lies immediately behind this, is narrow and has been very rich. Large amounts of gold have been taken from it by panning alone; and $3900 are said to have been taken from it in this way from a streak ten feet long. It has been slightly opened by a slope, but it has never been worked for mill ore on account of deficiency of hoisting and pumping apparatus.

IV. and V. Behind this lie two other quartz ore beds, from which I obtained very good indications by the pan.

These beds are together of very great thickness and all of them containing gold. The placers in the neighborhood were undoubtedly formed of the debris from the outcrops from these very beds, and were at one time famous for their yield of nuggety gold. This fact, and the fact of the rich strike in the Findley Shute [Chute], indicate beds containing rich bunches. Although such bunches, when they occur, are very gratifying, in judging from the property, I have left them out of account.

My belief from my examination is that the main body of ore in all the beds will range from $1 to $10, and that there is an enormous amount of ores of these grades.

In any other district such ores could not be made to yield a profit, and could not be the object of mining enterprise.

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In this district, not merely at this mine, but at several other mines in the neighborhood, having the same facilities and using the same method, ores of the lowest grade are being handled with a profit ranging from $1 to $3 for every dollar expended.

The conditions which makes [make] this possible are four: 1. Cheap labor at seventy to eighty cents per day, and skilled labor at $1 to $1.50 per day. 2. The fact of the ores lying on the surface at a low dip. 3. The fact of the ores being greatly disintegrated and easily worked by the pick without blasting. 4. Plenty of water at a high head.

These conditions have given rise especially to the very unique method pursued at the Findley and several other mines.

Without plenty of water it would be impossible. This is furnished by the "Hand" mining ditch twenty-two miles in length, which takes water from the Yahoola River at a much higher level than the mines, and brings it by slight grades along the mountain sides [mountainsides], crossing the valleys no less than four times by inverted syphons [siphons] of wrought iron, and carrying from 1500 to 2000 miner's inches of water. It has an extension two and one-half miles long, to the Findley mine, and another extension amounting to seven and one-half miles, and has cost nearly a half million of dollars.

The water is delivered by the extension to the Findley mine to a level about 150 feet below the crest of the ridge. Could it have been delivered on the top of the ridge, nothing more could have been desired. By the use of this water, the mode of mining has been of a semi-hydraulic character.

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The side of the hill has been opened upward in ore by a cut, laborers working out the ore by the pick, and breaking it on the spot for the mill.

One workman can break up from ten to fifteen tons of ore a day in this manner, as it is very much disintegrated. At the end of the day water is turned on from the canal extension, and rushing down with great force and volume carries all the rock thus prepared to the mill floor, 320 feet below. The water and light sediments go off at the end of the mill through racks, leaving the ore directly in front of the stamps. The present mill is twenty-four stamps of an old pattern working very coarse screens, with the object of passing as much as possible per day of the very low grade top ores hitherto worked -- namely, seventy to eighty tons a day. The mill is driven by a thirty-three inch turbine wheel, receiving from a dam across the Yahoola River, a seventeen foot head.

The whole expenditure on the mill, turbine and dam has been, I should say, about $15,000. The economic results of working these ores by this method may be summed up as follows; for mining and milling, say seventy-five tons per day, at the time of my visit:
Five miners in cut at 80 cents $4 00
One foreman in cut at $1 25 1 25
Six mill men (3 on each shift) at 80 cents 4 80
One mill foreman at $1 50 1 50
Twelve miner's inches water at 12 cents 1 44
Interests, &c. [et cetera] 3 00
Total $15 99

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Or making allowance for incidentals, repairs, etc., about $20 per day or twenty-five to thirty cents per ton of ore handled.

These figures I have carefully investigated, and believe them from personal observation to be correct.

Passing everything broken down in the cut, whether good or bad, through the mill, they have for eighteen months made a profit above their expenses. Their object has been to remove as quickly as possible these outer black ores so as to expose the richer "sand vein" at the back to the same method, and this they have been doing not at cost but at profit. What they now wish, is, while continuing the present operations on the black beds, to drive a tunnel at level of stamp mill, and on reaching the sand vein, or any rich "shute" [chute] to raise a "stope" on it to the surface, and send out ore so obtained by cars. Having now a shaft and connecting tunnel, they wish to work the beds by levels driven on them from the shaft, and transport the ores so worked out by flooding through the shaft and tunnel to the mill. This plan would necessitate pumping off the water from the ditch to the crest of the hill. They also want to double their stamp mill, to fifty stamps, and possibly, at a later period to place a mill on the other side of the hill to work the ores on that side. I think the enterprise has thus far been a legitimate and carefully conducted one, and that the proposed new operations are judicious and not very costly. In conclusion, I would say, the local repute of the property and the management is excellent.

I am very respectfully,
[Signed] JOHN C. RANDOLPH, Consulting Mining Engineer.

New York, July 2d, 1878.

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The Findley Gold Mining Company of Georgia
has been organized under the laws of New York, with a Capital of $200,000, divided into 200,000 shares of par the value of one dollar.

In order to develop the property as above suggested, the present owners have contributed 50,000 shares to the treasury of the Company.

The Company now offer 20,000 at the low price of fifty cents a share, the remaining 30,000 to be held as a reserve, which, however, it is confidently believed, will not have to be drawn upon. Should it, however, become necessary to do this, the stock will be sold only at an advanced price and the preference will be given to the then stockholders. As the mine is already in operation and making good returns upon the amount invested, the Company feel assured that with the improvements which they will immediately make, dividends will be earned and paid upon the stock within ninety days or four months.

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[Note: Image of the Findley mine and mill.]