Silver Tailings: Extracting Silver

The four-dollars-a-day miners who worked at the Ophir Mine in August 1859,  dug up ore that had four or five times as much silver in it as gold — quantity, not value. Since there were no local mills capable of extracting silver from the ore, the mine owners had to send it to San Francisco to be reduced to bullion.

The shipping cost for the forty tons they sent was $20,000. Since only five-percent of the ore was gold and silver, they spent $19,000 in shipping worthless rock. This is why building mills capable of reducing the Galena (raw silver ore) was important.

If the ore could be reduced to bullion at the Washoe mines or on the nearby Carson River, then shipping costs would be greatly reduced. If the local milling costs were about the same as they were in San Francisco, then the mine owners would see increased profits of $500 or more, per ton.