Einstein Mine, Silver Mine, Fredericktown Mining District, Madison County, Missouri, USAi

Regional Level Types
Einstein Mine	Mine
Silver Mine	Village
Fredericktown Mining District	Mining District
Madison County	County
Missouri	State
USA	Country

A post office known as Einstein Silver Mine was established in 1886 and maintained under that name until 1893, since when it has been Silver Mine or Silvermine. Its discovery of silver was made by Hiram N. Tong while following a set of turkey tracks. Hiram N. Tong bought the land and put a crew of men to work in 1862; the results of which were encouraging enough to interest a capitalist named William Einstein. In 1877 William Einstein bought out Hiram N. Tong and organized the Silver Mountain Mining Company and began operations. He planned to use the power of the river for his operations and built a dam across the St. Francois River. The remains of that dam can still be seen today and are in some of the photos shown here.

This mine is situated on the right bank of the St. Francois river, in section 12, township 38 N, 6 E. The deposit is unique and of special interest in that it consists of a well-defined vein of silver-bearing galena traversing Archean granite. No such deposit occurs elsewhere in Missouri or in the Mississippi valley.

Various accounts exist, some of them doubtless mythical, of the early discovery of this deposit nearly 70 years ago. It appears that some work was done here about 1855, and, later, the property passed into the hands of Messrs. Knox and Einstein. The first systematic operations appear to have been started about 1875, in the interests of these gentlemen. Aboat 1879, a stock company was formed and operations were greatly extended. A substantial dam was built across the river for water power, which still remains. A tunnel was driven about 20 feet long and an incline sunk to a depth of 180 ft., and between 200 and 300 men were given employment. Furnace, dressing works, boiler and shaft-houses, offices and other buildings were erected, and large sums of money must have been spent. This condition was maintained for a few years, when work was suspended, and the company seems to have collapsed. Everything is in ruin at the mine at present.

The deposit consists of a true vein traversing the granite in a direction somewhat S. of W., dipping from 45 to 60° to the S. The gangue is principally quartz, the metalliferous mineral argentiferous galena, though with this are associated iron and copper pyrite, and, as identified by Haworth [ 98, p. 20), fluorite, lepidolite, wolframite, and probably other minerals. In the wall rock, which is considerably altered at the contact, he recognized mica, leucoxene, small zircon crystals, and varying proportions of fluorite and topaz. The contents of the vein do not appear, so far as one can judge from the dump-piles, to have been arranged in layers, but were disseminated through the gangue. The thickness appears to have varied from 2 to 6 feet. The silver contents of the galens was doubtless in many cases high. The results of 58 assays show a range of from 1 to 148 ozs. to the ton; the average of 50 assays was 46 ozs. to the ton. A prospectus of the company states that, from 47 tons of the ore shipped, there was a yield of 2903 ozs. of silver. Some selected samples of ore ranged up to several hundred ounces of silver to the ton.

The conntry rock, as already stated, is granite, and this is of the common pink and highly feldspathic variety. This is traversed by vertical dikes of diabase running generally somewhat E, of N. One of them is as much as 6 ft. thick. Joint planes traverse the rock in various directions, breaking it up into prismatic blocks. One prominent system rans vertically in a N.-S. direction. Prof. Haworth reports that a number of smaller, but exactly similar velns are found on the west side of the river.

The old Einstein Silver Mine, located nine miles west of Fredericktown, Madison county, was reopened in February, 1916, by the Madison Mining Corporation of New York, principally for the tungsten content of the ore.

The Einstein property was entered as mineral land in 1855 by Beaugholtz, who prospected for several years and finally sold his holdings to Knox and Einstein. Systematic prospecting was begun in 1877 and as a result a quartz vein was opened at a point about 100 feet above St. Francois River. An incline of 180 feet was put down on the vein and a tunnel was started from near river level, intersecting the vein about 200 feet from the portal. In 1879, the Einstein Silver Mining Company was formed and the work was vigorously pushed. A large masonry dam was built across St. Francois River to furnish power, a concentrating plant was installed, and a furnace to reduce the concentrates from the mill was built. Lead and silver values were saved. After producing 50 tons of lead and 3,000 ounces of silver, the property was shut down owing to litigation. The property remained idle until 1894, when an attempt to revive mining operations met with failure. In so far as known, no other attempt was made to reopen the mine until the Madison Mining Corporation started operations in 1916.

The Einstein mine is located near the southern end of the granite area which extends southward from Doe Run for a distance of about fifteen miles. The country rock is a coarse-grained, red granite which is cut by diabase dykes and veins of quartz. The former extend in a general north-south direction and are nearly vertical. The quartz veins trend in a general east-west direction and a dip to the southeastward at an angle of about 63 degrees.

Three distinct veins of quartz have been opened up and developments started on four others. The veins vary from a few inches to five feet in width, the average width being about two feet. A depth of 550 feet has been reached on one of the veins and drifts have been started at various levels, the distance between levels being 75 feet.

This locality is unique in furnishing a number of minerals found nowhere else in the State. Tungsten, in the form of Hubnerite, is scattered through the quartz from the size of a pin head to massive bunches weighing 100 pounds. Pyrite and a dark lithia mica (Zinnwaldite) usually appear where the Hubnerite is bunched. At intervals the tungsten mineral occurs in the form of solid lenses varying from 3 to 15 inches thick and accompanied by a heavy clay gouge.

The other metallic minerals occurring in the vein are galena and sphalerite (zinc blende). The galena is silver bearing, the ore before concentration containing approximately as many ounces of silver per ton as there is percentage of lead.

In the present operations, close hand-sorting methods are employed both underground and on the surface, the object being to obtain as much "high grade" as possible. The hand sorted product carried from 62% to 75% tungstic acid. The cobblings and regular run of milling ore are put through a concentrating plant.