The Strange Story of Silver Reef Utah

[Admin]

There may still exist specimens of Silver Reef's Petrified Wood with Horn Silver !

I was looking on line in:



And Read:

On February 7, 1876, he (Barbee) continued:
This sandstone country beats all the boys, and it is amusing to see how excited they get when they go round to see the sheets of silver which are exposed all over the different reefs . . . This is the most unfavorable looking country for mines that I have ever seen, but as the mines are here, what are the rock sharps going to do about it?

P-388 THE BONANZA TRAIL
This last remark may refer to the letter that the Smithsonian Institute in Washington sent to Enos A. Wall in 1876. They courteously acknowledged the piece of petrified Wood "shot through" with horn silver, which he had sent them. and described the sample as an "interesting fake as silver in nature is not formed in petrified wood." Barbee continued to write letters to the Tribune and brought thousands of miners into the district, attracted by such statements as:

Our mines are our capital; our banks are sand banks. We draw on them at will and our drafts are never dishonored.

I went to the Smithsonian search site and found:



After frustrating hours of being referred to the same pages over and over I finally sent them an email requesting photos. The best I found was:

[Admin]

I shared this information with the Silver Reef Museum and received this response:

Yes, indeed, we know the Smithsonian has or had a Silver Reef ore sample sent to them by John Ferris, one of the discoverers of the actual source of silver at the Reef. It is cataloged in the Smithsonian's 1891 annual report (we have the catalog number and description). Pat - with her many Washington, D.C. contacts - has made an effort to find out about it, but it seems to have disappeared somewhere into their vast collection warehouse or was lost over time. //Deven

So the Smithsonian received at least three samples of the pet wood filled with silver -
Barbee, Wall, and Ferris. Hopefully at least one of them will turn up.

[Admin]

I have been researching the Smithsonian Collections most of the day. A little more rewarding than trying to grow new teeth. So far I have learned that they updated their silver ore collection in 2017 and issued new ID numbers, but they are scattered all over the place and their search engine leaves a lot to be desired. It throws the items in random order mixed with pages of irrelevant junk.

So far I have recognized 12 samples listed under Washington County, Harrisburg, Sandstone, and Leeds.
So far they haven't bothered to take a single photo.

The Catalog numbers CAN FIND OTHER SAMPLES - but are reused in every department so you get tons of junk.







Annual Reports:

Box 19 of 98
Folder 1 Department of Geology (established in 1890 with the fusion or the
Department of Metallurgy and Economic Geology with the Department of
Lithology and Physical Geology. Reports prior to 1889-1890 are those of
the Department of Lithology and Physical Geology. Prior to 1882, known as
the Department of Geology. Reports of the Department of Metallurgy and
Economic Geology can be found in box 20): Annual Report: 1882

Box 20 of 98
Folder 1 Department of Metallurgy and Economic Geology (prior to 1884,
known as the Department of Metallurgy; in 1890 the department fused with
the Department of Lithology and Physical Geology to form the Department of
Geology): Annual Report, 1881

[Admin]

So far I have found 15 specimens from Silver Reef Utah at the Smithsonian.
Does anyone live near the Smithsonian?


Silver Reef Utah Samples at the Smithsonian
Sub-Collection: Ore Petrology Collection.
IGSN = International Geo Sample Number, CN = Collection Number

IGSN CN Location

NHB003P75 14730 Harrisburg Mining District.

NHB003ZJZ 55322 Barbee And Walker Mine Mining District: Silver Reef

NHB003ZK0 55326 Christy Mine Mining District: Silver Reef

NHB003ZK1 55328 Christy Mine Mining District: Silver Reef

NHB003ZK2 55329 1 Stormont Mine Mining District: Silver Reef

NHB003ZM4 55329 2 Stormont Mine Mining District: Silver Reef

NHB003ZM5 55331 Sto(r)mont Mine Mining District: Silver Reef -Sandstone

NHB003ZM6 55332 1 Washington Co. Mining District: Silver Reef

NHB003ZM7 55332 2 Washington Co. Mining District: Silver Reef

NHB003ZM8 55332 3 Washington Co. Mining District: Silver Reef

NHB003ZM9 55333 Stormont Mine Mining District: Silver Reef

NHB004HRA 87707 1 Leeds Mine Mining District: Silver Reef

NHB004HRB 87707 2 Leeds Mine Mining District: Silver Reef

NHB004RYC 91468 Near Leeds Mine Name: Silver Reef Mine -Sandstone

NHB004RYD 91469 Near Leeds Mine Name: Silver Reef Mine -Stromeyerite

[Admin]

This morning I found a simpler way to search for Silver Reef samples at the Smithsonian.

collections.nmnh.si.edu/search/ms/

Takes you to:


Fill in the least amount of info (mineral, state, county):


And voila!


Clicking on each item pops up with the information they are presently willing to share.

[Admin]

Another thing the miners had to contend with was the ever fluctuating value of silver.
Supply and Demand. By 1895 it was only worth half what it was when they started digging in 1873.

This is the London price. Who knows what the local price was doing?

[Admin]

I continued this thread here:

forum.rocktumblinghobby.com/post/1038856/thread

Specimens at the Smithsonian tell of frequent floods washing sand and plants down toward the distant seashore.

[Admin]

I originally couldn't find these articles because instead of using his name, William Barbee signed them "W. T. B." - from 1875 -

[Admin]

So what's the big deal? Barbee's careful description of the area!

THE GENERAL FORMATION OF THE COUNTRY

seemed to be sandstone (both red and white) while interspersed with small belts of granite and occasionally is little slate, shale and soap stone and an abundance of sand hills. The sand is often found on top of the granite and occasionally we find the granite setting on a sandstone base.
It is the last place a miner would ever look for mineral, and yet it is here in abundance.
One of the most singular mineral out crops I ever heard of, or read of occurs in what is called the Pride of the West lode, situated on the outskirts of this little village. There is a white sandstone dyke from 150 to 200 feet high running north and south and pitching west at an angle of about forty five degrees. It can be distinctly traced for six and one half miles. The north end of the dyke terminates abruptly in granite and the south end dips in the plains bordering on the Rio Virgin. On the west side of this dyke and adjoining it is small belt of granite about 350 yards wide. West and adjoining the granite is a heavy belt of red sandstone looming up 700 feet above the granite flat. Still worst, is the main mountain range, a heavy granite formation apparently sitting on a sandstone base. The altitude of this mountain I should judge, was about 9,000 feet.
Returning to the east side of this sand dyke we find a similar granite belt bordering on it: running about the same width east of this granite belt the country breaks off toward the Rio Virgin, on low sandstone ridges and sand hills.

SINGULAR DISCOVERY

What is rather singular too, we find imbedded in the sand, the remains of trees, petrified and strongly impregnated with mineral also. What appears to have been the bark of the tree carries the highest percentage of silver.

From general surroundings, I should judge that the sand dyke is merely the cap rock of a vein which will be found properly encased below in granite. In suggesting this theory I occasionally find granite veins (carrying some mineral) which seem to have forced their way up to the surface through the sand. From the narrowness of this cap- rock, the fact that there is granite on each side of it, the promiscuous and continued mineral outcrop for over six miles, carries to my mind that there is a strong mineral vein below and one of perhaps surpassing richness which by some law or convulsion of nature unknown to us, has disseminated a portion of itself in the sand stone cap-rock. The assay value (assayed in Pioche and Salt Lake) of the surface impregnation, varies from a trace up to thousands. One piece picked up on the surface and assayed in Pioche, gave a return of $19,000 per ton. There are six and one half miles of this lode. Located at this place there is what is called the Shaft Claim, numbering from this point north, the claims number up to sixteen, south to six. Making twenty two locations; all on what is evidently one and the same mine. This may seem strange to many of your mining readers, but it is never the less true, and I 1 would like for some of your geological
sharps and mining experts to pay this nondescript mine a visit, and see what they cm can make of it.

COPPER
Three miles south of what is called the south end of the Pride of the West lode in some low rolling hills is a promiscuous out crop of copper, found in a kind of soap-stone gangue. (Gangue is the unwanted material or impurity that is present in an ore.) Here we also find petrified wood and what apparently was the bark is more highly impregnated. I have some beautiful specimens which carry from forty to sixty per cent copper.
This is the most unfavorable looking country for minerals I 1 ever saw, yet the mineral out crop is greater here than in any religion I have been in either Nevada or Utah. I hear of mines in almost all directions, copper predominating as you go south.
I 1 have been very particular in describing the formations and singularity of the mines here, as this communication is intended more for the mining community than for the general reader.

William had good vision and an inquiring mind. He and his friends, as evidenced in his first report above, realized they were in some kind of alternate world. Sandstone on top of granite was found all over the world, but granite on top of sandstone? In a topsy turvy place like this, silver could be in sandstone. Silver could even be in petrified wood!

After six months of deep study of the area, his next report was written on the 13th of December 1875 and printed in the Tribune on page 4 of December the 19th, 1875.

CHLORIDE FLATS ETC
about one month ago I discovered the Tecumseh mine situated on a hill by the same name. The vein is small but rich and easily worked.
On the northeast end of Tecumseh Hill is Silver Flat, chuck full of little chloride veins. Still further east we have Silver Reef and Silver Butte Hills, also full of chlorides by the acre, and can dig up the ore as easily as the farmer digs his potatoes. The veins run with the stratification of the sandstone, and are very regular as the formation is not broken up. There are from three to four layers or strata of ore in the hills and my impression is that at a certain depth these veins will all come together in a fissure in the primitive formation that underlies this sandstone cap. The formation east of the red sandstone belt is evidently sedimentary, and I am of the opinion that this great basin has been THE BED OF A GREAT INLAND OCEAN,
And at some time there was a great upheaval from volcanic disturbances which threw these sandstone reefs in their present shape; and in this upheaval, fissures were formed connecting with the ore sources in the depths of the earth, the sandstone and wood being porous, received and retained the gaseous emanations escaping through these fissures ~ thence the anomaly of rich silver ore in sandstone and petrified wood.
The line of upheaval is about three miles east of the Pride of the West Reef (an account of which I gave your readers last August).
The Pride of the West Reef pitches to the west, and is made up as follows:
1st. A layer of sandstone about fifteen feet thick, then a thin layer of soapstone, mineral stained, mixed up with petrified wood: then for 15 or 20 feet alternate layers of sand and soapstone.
2nd. Then come about 30 feet of almost solid soapstone stained with copper.
3rd. Just below this layer of red stone some 36 or 40 feet thick and under it comes soapstone again.
Just east of the line of upheaval is a similar reef pitching to the east and running parallel with the Pride of the West Reef. It carries similar ores to that mine.
These reefs can to be traced for 30 or 40 miles, and carry more ore minerals.
Copper seems to proliferate as you go south. I assayed some of the ore from the east camp and it created quite a stampede. I went over to get a slice and to see what the boys had, and I found one hundred Saints and sinners, more or less, all building monuments, embryo millionaires (in imagination). I estimate they located from five to ten miles of sandstone.
Some couldn’t find room to locate on the mineral bearing reef, so they located on the adjacent reefs which are non-mineral bearing.

What is Soapstone? Metamorphic rock! heat and pressure - but not enough to melt - changes sandstone into quartzine which is full of mica. Other rocks in the area change to soapstone which is full of mica and talc.

During the "Sevier Orogeny" this area was heavily broken up and metamorphosed.