Meals Ledge (Meals Mine), Oatman, Gold Road Mining District, Oatman Mining District, Black Mountains, Mohave County, Arizona, USAi

Regional Level Types
Meals Ledge (Meals Mine)	Mine
Oatman	- not defined -
Gold Road Mining District	Mining District (Inactive)
Oatman Mining District	Mining District
Black Mountains	Mountain Range
Mohave County	County
Arizona	State
USA	Country

MEALS LEDGE.

The Meals ledge, a large gold-bearing calcite vein or lode of low-grade ore, is located east of the Golden Star group. With certain interruptions, it extends from the saddle in the Moss Hills near the Moss mine northward for a distance of nearly 2 miles, its general strike being N. 30° W. It is best developed in the open mesa country between Cottonwood Wash and the Moss Hills, where the principal locations are owned by W. H. Meals, of Gold Road. Here it varies from 10 to 60 feet in width, with an average width of perhaps about 40 feet, and dips in general about 65° ENE. It is composed principally of coarsely crystalline calcite, with usually a small amount of quartz, and locally contains, particularly in the croppings, much angular crushed andesite, quartz porphyry, and other rock.

The country rock forming the hanging wall of the vein for a considerable distance south of Cottonwood Wash is greenstone (altered andesite?) containing bowldery inclusions of the pre-Cambrian granite; the corresponding foot wall on the west is the normal countryrock gray andesite.

Southward toward Meals camp, which is located on the vein about midway between Cottonwood Wash and the Moss Hills, the vein seems to lie largely in the pre-Cambrian granite, with the countryrock andesite continuing for the most part as the foot wall; and slickenside grooves clipping 20° to 60° SSE. show considerable movement to have taken place. At Meals camp the granite continues on the east and the porphyritic andesite on the west. The principal claims in this vicinity are the W. H. Hearst, Jupiter, Rancon, Hot Times, and Yellow Spar Extension. Here the vein is 16 feet in width and is opened by 20-foot shafts on either side of the camp. It is composed principally of calcite or spar with a small amount of quartz and is reported to average from $6 to $8 in gold to the ton, the values occurring principally in association with the quartz and the firmer portions of the spar.

Near by the vein is joined by the Golden Star vein, here pinched to a mere stringer coming in from the west. South of the junction a porphyritic greenstone (andesite?) forms the hanging wall. Farther south, in the lower slope of the Moss Hills, about one-fourth of a mile north of the Moss mine saddle, the underlying quartz syenite porphyry of the Moss mine becomes the country rock, and in this rock the vein seems to pinch. In this syenite rock, however, which extends from this point beyond the Moss mine on the south, in the east side of the Moss mine saddle, along the course of the vein, occur several stringers, ranging from a few inches to a foot in width and contained within a width of 18 or 20 feet, which are commonly referred to as the Meals " ledge," but on neither the north nor the south slope of the hills was any exposure of the vein observed.