140 MINERALS YEARBOOK

 Small but slightly increased shipments of gold ore were made from the May
Day and other mines at Hesperus, La Plata County. The La Plata Mines Co.
continued development work at the Gold King mine above La Plata and operated
its mill intermittently.
 Eagle County continued in 1932 as one of the principal producing counties
in Colorado through the production of the Empire Zinc Co. Eagle mine from
ore bodies in the Leadville limestone formation, clipping northeastward under
Battle Mountain near Reddliff. Since 1912 this company has been opening and
developing its holdings, always with some regular annual production; from
November 1929 to December 1, 1931, the company. ran its new 600-ton flotation
mill on zinc-lead-silver-iron suiphide ore. This mill is built in an excavation
cut into the granite face of Eagle Canyon and therefore is mostly underground.
In 1931, in addition to milling zinc-lead ore from its large reserves, the
company continued to ship copper-iron-silver-gold ore to Utah smelters. In
1932 this smelting ore was shipped both to Utah smelters and to the Arkansas
Valley smelter at Leadville, which was equipped to handle copper ores. Several
cai~ of gold ore were shipped to Leadville from the reopened Champion mine
on Battle Mountain, many years ago a prominent gold producer from ore bodies
in the Cambrian quartzite formation.
 Lake County (Leadville) in 1932 produced 6,255 ounces of gold, 16,768 ounces
of silver, 152,000 pounds of lead, 6,000 pounds of copper, and 126,000 pounds
of zinc compared with 5,055 ounces of gold, 81,183 ounces of silver, 33,308
pounds of copper, 2,940,514 pounds of lead, and 5,773,000 pounds of zinc
in 1931. The Leadvifie district produced no iron-manganese ore in 1932. The
Leadvifie Deep Mines Co. properties remained idle. Gold ore was shipped from
the Ibex, Tribune, and Venir mines. Development was continued at the Resurrection
group. The Arkansas Valley smelter was ide during January and October. It
ran as a lead-bullion smelter in February and March, as a copper-matte smelter
from April through August, and again as a lead furnace in September, November,
and December.
 The Climax Molybdenum Co. at Climax, 14 miles north of Leadville,
continued to mill at the rate of 44,000 tons a month to August 1, then
8,000 tons a month to December 1, and 15,000 tons in December,
making a total for the year of 354,030 tons treated, which yielded
1,797 tons of molybdenite concentrate containing 1,913,375 pounds of
elemental molybdenum.
 Aspen (Pitkin County) continued to show the effect of the low prices of
silver and lead; in 1931 its production was 37,169 ounces of silver and 282,000
pounds of lead and in 1932,45,965 ounces and 228,000 pounds, respectively.
Several cars of gold smelting ore from the old Independence district gave
Pitkin County a gold production of$1,092.
 The silver mines of Mineral County (Creede), which ceased to operate after
July 1930, remained idle in 1932.
 The United States Vanadium Co. 140-ton roasting, leaching, and precipitation
mill at Rifle was operated continuously to July 1, 1932, on ore from its
vanadium mines 12 miles from Rifle; the mine was then abandoned.
 In Gunnison County small shipments of gold bullion were made to the Denver
Mint from the Maple Leaf mine near Parlin and from the Carter mine, at Ohio
City; development work only was done at White Pine; some new development
work was done at Powderhorn.