The Silver Bell deposit is located on the north side of Monashee Creek, about 61 kilometres east of Vernon.
The deposit was discovered in 1903 by S. Hill and J. Chamberlain of Revelstoke and they completed trenching and about 24 metres of drift adit. The ground was restaked in 1914 by W.J. Bell and associates as the Silver Bell, Silver Horde and Silver Moon claims. The adit was extended to 43 metres. Several surface crosscuts and stripping along veins, for 122 metres length, were completed, primarily on the Silver Horde claim. The property was acquired by Cheyenne Mines Ltd. in 1977 and 14 tonnes of ore was shipped in 1978. In 1987, Azimuth Geological Inc. staked the Crown grants as the KP claims and conducted a geochemical and prospecting program. In 1994, a geochemical program was conducted on the Mona claims.
The area is underlain by volcanic and sedimentary rocks of the Upper Triassic to Lower Jurassic Nicola Group. These comprise shale, siltstone, argillite, limestone, basalt and tuff.
Quartz veins up to 4.5 metres wide and up to about 150 metres in length are traced by workings on these 2 Crown grants. The veins appear to conform to the strike and dip of the host argillite and trend to the northwest with an approximate dip of 45 degrees northeast. The veins appear to be associated with quartz eye porphyry sills of possible dacitic composition.
One vein is several centimetres to 1.8 metres wide and carries lead, silver and gold values. The pay streak is up to 30 centimetres wide and samples have assayed as high as 20,568 grams per tonne silver and 69 grams per tonne gold (Minister of Mines Annual Report 1914, page 360). Native silver was found in the pay streak.
In 1994, the Silver Bell veins were described as irregular and discontinuous phyllite hosted bull white quartz veins, ranging from 5 centimetres to 1.5 metres in width. Mineralization consists of up to 10 per cent sulphides comprising pyrite, chalcopyrite, galena, bornite and tetrahedrite and malachite and azurite staining. A grab sample taken in assayed 297.6 grams per tonne silver and 34.0 grams per tonne gold (Assessment Report 23401).
In 1978, 14 tonnes of ore produced 311 grams of gold, 43,171 grams of silver, 700 kilograms of lead and 252 kilograms of zinc.
