Utah Copper Company's Open Pit Mine, Bingham, Utah.
This Mountain is Copper Ore.

THE BUSINESS
OF MINING

A BRIEF, NON-TECHNICAL EXPOSITION
OF THE PRINCIPLES INVOLVED IN THE
PROFITABLE OPERATION OF MINES

BY

ARTHUR J. HOSKIN, M.E.,

CONSULTING AND GENERAL MINING ENGINEER; WESTERN EDITOR, "MINES
AND MINERALS"; FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF MINING, COLORADO SCHOOL
OF MINES; MEMBER, AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF MINING ENGINEERS;
MEMBER, COLORADO SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY

WITH 16 FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS AND ONE CHART

PHILADELPHIA & LONDON

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

1912

COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY J. B. LIPPENCOTT COMPANY
PUBLISHED JULY 1912

PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
AT THE WASHINGTON SQUARE PRESS
PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE BUSINESS OF MINING

[INTRODUCTION]

There is probably no line of human activity that is not beset with malicious and ignorant intruders. The fact that any occupation or business is really legitimate seems often to stimulate the operations of these disreputable persons.

Mining does not escape the application of this postulate. For ages, the industry has afforded most fertile opportunities for the machinations of the unscrupulous and the erring. Somehow, there weaves throughout the history of mining a sort of magnetism rendering us unduly susceptible to the allurements which are presented with every mining proposition.

It is not, however, always intentional deceit that is perpetrated upon the unwary. Often, mining failures result from actual ignorance of the business upon the part of those entrusted with its conduct, or if not from actual lack of knowledge, then from erroneous conceptions with the consequent misapplication of honest endeavor. A victim of such misplaced faith is perhaps more leniently inclined than is the person who has been duped by a "shark," but the effect upon the great industry is hurtful in either case.

The purpose of this short monograph will be served if the author can feel assured that his readers will finish its perusal with the belief that mining may be followed as a business with just as much assurance of success as attaches to any one of the many lines of industrial activity. Many persons who have sustained losses in mining ventures deserve no sympathy whatever, since they have not exercised even the simplest precautions. So long as men—or women—will take as fact the word of any untrained or inexperienced individual concerning investments, just so long will there be resultant financial losses, no matter what the line of business. Because there have been elements of chance observed in the records of mining, this business appeals to the speculative side of our human natures, with the result that untold numbers of individuals have had ample reason to regret their ventures. But, as will be found in the text matter, mining can be relied upon with precisely as much assurance as can any other business.

Nothing of a technical or engineering sort has been attempted herein, the sole aim of the writer being to establish the reliability and the credit of the mining industry as a whole by pointing out the lines of conduct which should be followed by those who enter its precincts as business people. When investors of small or large means will put their money into mining projects with the same precautions that they would exercise in placing their cash in other enterprises, they will be rewarded with corresponding remuneration. In this firm conviction, then, this little work is dedicated to the intelligence of American laymen in mining matters.

[I
WHAT IS A MINE?]

Before entering into a discussion of the economic features of the mining industry, it will be well to be sure that we understand, definitely, what is meant by mining. As one investigates the question, he is bound to run across varying shades of meaning for the words Mine and Mining, and so we must pause long enough to define these words according to the best usages.

A search through works on mining written at various periods reveals differing ideas that have prevailed among authors. Less than a hundred years ago, it was said that a mine "consists of subterranean workings from which valuable minerals are extracted." One early writer said that a mine is one only when the operations are conducted in the absence of daylight. As time has created new fields for the industry, we find that ideas concerning the meaning of the word mine have necessarily altered, until now (according to The Coal and Metal Miners' Pocketbook), we may think of a mine as "any excavation made for the extraction of minerals." Under this definition, we properly think of the rather unusual operations of marketing coal right from the surface of the earth, in eastern Kansas, as mining. There is, in this case, no covering of earth above the workmen; neither are the operations necessarily carried on at night to avoid the illumination of the sun.

So, also, placers are now correctly spoken of as mines, although but a few years ago there was drawn a strict line, eliminating such worked deposits from the category of mines. One may still run across a few men who are sticklers upon the point that a placer is not a mine. Throughout the world, at the present time, there are many places where immense deposits of valuable minerals are being excavated from open pits by out-of-doors methods, and our common term for these places is mines. Thus, in Minnesota, in that wonderful Lake Superior country, that is famous as the world's greatest known producer of iron ore, tremendous tonnages are handled every year by the modern steam shovel, which works in natural light by day and by electric lamps at night. In Utah and Nevada we find similar operations conducted in the excavation of copper ores. In Australia, the famous Mount Morgan mine is using open air methods in the mining of precious metal ore.

But what about quarries from which are taken building stone, salt, kaolin or clay? Are not such substances of the mineral kingdom? Here we run across a hitch in the definition quoted above; for while we hear of "salt mines" (not "salted mines"), our parlance has not, as yet, warranted this term except for such excavations of salt as are carried on in subterranean deposits; and it is quite out of place to speak of stone or clay mines.

Evidently we must pass through another transition in our conceptions about mines, or we must permit quarries and pits to be included within our realm of mines. At the present time, the prevailing practice of the men best qualified in such matters is to designate as mines those workings from which only coal, metallic ores, or gems are extracted. Hence, we should not speak of a slate, sulphur, mica, clay or phosphate mine.

And yet, with all the above restriction in our nomenclature, we have not reached one very important consideration, one which we have been approaching for a number of years and which, of late, has been met and forcibly applied by the best men in the profession of mining engineering.

An excavation that will produce coal, metals or gems is not necessarily a mine. The simple fact that a man can get some gold-bearing dirt from a hole in the ground does not mean that he has a mine. The occasional finding of a diamond on the sidewalks of a great city does not give anybody the impression that city sidewalks are diamond mines. There are many places in which small amounts of combustible coal can be scratched from its natural depository, but no company appears to think highly enough of these seams to install machinery and to carry on operations. In the eastern part of Kentucky there are well-defined deposits of lead-bearing baryta, though, up to date, their development has not proved successful. In Brazil there are known to be very rich areas of placer ground, and still the deposits are not worked. A friend of the writer discovered some very good gold-bearing gravels in Alaska, but he was unable to mine.

There is something besides the presence of valuable minerals and the ability to win them from their natural matrices that is essential to a mine. It is here, in our considerations of the mining industry, that we come into real economic notions for the first time. Yes, according to the latest ideas, we are wrong in stating that any worked or workable mineral deposit is a mine, if it does not contain possibilities of profitable working. This is now the prime thought of every up-to-date mining manager or engineer. It is this notion that will distinguish a mine from a prospect. The prospect may become a mine by proving itself profitably workable: if it simply carries values which cannot be realized to advantage, then it must continue as a mere prospect. There are cases of properties which possess rich deposits and which are loosely called mines. These properties may be observed to be erratic in their productiveness, owing to the very pockety nature of the deposits; and the owners, although they do, indeed, strike occasional handsome bonanzas, expend all the profits of such finds—or even greater amounts—in searching for other pockets. Is such work profitable? Is it mining?

The trouble with the cited placers of South America is that climatic, hygienic and political conditions have been antagonistic to successful working: the ground is rich, but it cannot be handled to make money. In the case of the Alaska gravels, there was no available, though essential, water supply. The Kentucky galena cannot be economically separated from the containing heavy spar. Coal, which is sold at comparatively low figures per ton, must be handled at the mines in large quantities to pay, so that a thin seam or a scattered deposit is not suitable for mining.

Under these restrictions of our new definitions, we run across many interesting points. For instance, one may ask the question about the old abandoned hole in the ground which is occasionally found by prospectors, "Is it a mine?" The answer can be simply another query as to whether the hole was abandoned because it contained no value, or because, containing value, it could not be profitably worked. As we think of mines nowadays, we can conceive several reasons why, before the advent of transportation lines and the invention of modern metallurgical processes and many forms of labor-saving machinery now so common in and about mines, many very rich deposits may have been necessarily forsaken by their discoverers. But such a property would, if now worked, probably prove highly profitable. We thus note that there exists some elasticity in the meaning of the word mine. An unprofitable project at one time may develop into a mine at a later period. Many gold mines have become worthless propositions merely through changes in the ore that have rendered further work unremunerative.

[II
WHAT IS MINING?]

Having considered the accepted definition of a mine, let us now extend our reasoning a little and inquire just what is meant by mining. At first thought, one would say that mining is, in a broad sense, the art or practice of excavating, at a profit, the ores of metals, the beds of coal, the gravels of placers and the deposits containing precious stones. Are we justified in letting this definition stand as it is? If we do not make any change, we must exclude all quarries, sand banks, clay pits, and the numerous sorts of works that are producing the non-metallic minerals of commerce. Very well, since we find good usage will warrant us, we will do so.

Hackett Mine and Mill, Joplin, Missouri.

Still, there are other pertinent questions arising. Does the practice of mining cover the treatment of the excavated products? Here we run across a mooted point. The British and the American uses of the word mining seem to be a bit different in this regard. Upon the Rand, South Africa, a territory dominated by Englishmen, every mine is equipped with its own mill, and all notions of mining cover the inseparable idea of local ore treatment. Here, in our country, there are many, many mines which have absolutely no means of treating their own products and the managers give no thought whatever to metallurgical or milling lines. There are, on the other hand, many companies that have erected private plants at their mines for the extraction of metallic contents from the ores. Here it may, or it may not, happen that the operations of mining are considered as distinct from those of treatment. In some instances, as at the Tonopah Mining Company's plants, there is separate superintendence of the milling and the mining; but in the Joplin, Missouri, zinc region one superintendent looks after the running of a mine and its omnipresent mill.

There may be drawn a sharp distinction between what is really mining and what is the subsequent treatment of the ores for the extraction of values. The latter field is denoted Metallurgy when the operations are of such a nature as to actually recover or extract metallic products or metals. If the treatment process has for its object merely the rejection of some of the worthless materials in the original ore, thus causing a concentration of the valuable minerals, but without actually obtaining any metal, then the term Ore Dressing is warranted. At some mines, there is maintained a practice of culling out, often by hand, a certain percentage of the obviously worthless ingredients of the ore before shipping the products to treatment plants. This is neither milling, metallurgy, nor ore dressing, but is more properly called Sorting. It is one of the operations connected with mining. Milling may be either ore dressing or metallurgy.

In the operations of placering, there is a simultaneous excavation of a deposit and an extraction of the valuable contents. In this case, shall we call the process mining or metallurgy? If it is a gold placer, one may see the recovery of the metallic values. Here, the usage of the majority of practical mining men will uphold us in always speaking of the work as mining.

In its original significance and use, metallurgy involved the use of fire for the concentration and recovery of metals. With recent advances in chemistry, there have been numerous discoveries of wet or fireless methods for arriving at equivalent results, so that it is now perfectly proper to allow the word metallurgy to cover such processes as cyanidation, chlorination, electrolysis, and the host of new inventions that are continually appearing.

The writer has consulted a number of authorities on mining lines to ascertain just what sort of a position to give to the practice of ore dressing. Prof. Robert H. Richards, the head of the mining department in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the inventor of machines which have made him famous among mining men, says, "Ore dressing is an essential part of mining. The whole object of ore dressing is to remove gangue before shipment and so save in freight and treatment charges." Mr. A. G. Charleton, the eminent English mining engineer and author of numerous books, in discussing this question, writes, "Personally, I am of the opinion that ore dressing should be included in mining." One has but to look through the catalogues of most of the American and foreign mining schools to find that little or no line is drawn between the courses in mining and metallurgy, and almost universally the dressing of a mine's product is taken up as an inseparable part of mining. In a very few exceptions, the courses of study are so planned as to draw an imaginary line between mining and metallurgy, and in these instances, ore dressing is placed with metallurgy only for convenience in the use and arrangement of college laboratories. But, since it is a common practice for mining companies to install plants right at the mines for the purpose of diminishing the bulk of ore shipped and to thus save in freight and custom treatment charges, mine superintendents and even the common miners have become accustomed to thinking of such plants as but units of the "mining" plants. At bituminous and anthracite mines whose products contain objectionable amounts of impurities, it is a common practice to subject the output to a Washing to remove the deleterious substances before shipment to the market.

Coal Washing Plant, Pana, Illinois.

In view, then, of these reasons, it is proper to decide that mining is a term broad enough to cover the operations of extracting coal and metallic ores from the ground and of preparing them for shipment or metallurgical treatment.

Coal is always coal, no matter in what thickness of deposit it is found. It may not be minable coal because in thin seams or because so intercalated with layers of slate or "bone," that the mine's mixture, or so-called "run of mine," is not salable. But with metallic ores, we run across an idea that is occupying the attention of many prominent geologists and mining men.

What is ore? This is a question to which there have been many attempted answers. There has been an evolution of ideas, with a corresponding gradation of definition. To set a uniform standard of thought upon this point, officers of the United States Geological Survey, a few years ago, proposed the following definition. It must be conceded that this definition, while embodying many splendid features, is not altogether exempt from criticism; but in the absence of anything better, we shall not be very far in error if we use it:

Ore is a natural aggregation of one or more minerals from which useful metal may be profitably extracted.

There is, then, no such thing as "pay ore" or "non-pay ore," expressions still quite common among miners and prospectors of the uneducated types. Prof. James F. Kemp, probably America's best-posted writer upon the subject, in an attempt to formulate one acceptable and unchangeable meaning for the word ore, says, "In its technical sense, an ore is a metalliferous mineral or an aggregate of such minerals, more or less mixed with gangue, and capable of being won and treated at a profit. The test of yielding the metal or metals at a profit seems to me, in the last analysis, the only feasible one to employ." This definition eliminates one of the weak points in the first definition, namely, that an ore must be an association of minerals: there are some common ores (as for example, magnetite) which are not associations, but single minerals.

We now reach certain fundamental concepts which must be accepted by the mining man who desires to be recognized as abreast of modern ideas. Following the publication of Kemp's definition of ore, there was much comment—as was anticipated—with the result that there has been noted a vacancy in scientific matters and it has been thought proper to permit another definition for purely scientific uses. This other definition of ore will cover the materials or aggregates of minerals from which gem stones and other valuable, but not metallic, substances are recovered.

Let us recapitulate. An ore must be an aggregate or association of natural minerals, or a single mineral, from which metal may be profitably recovered. Mines are excavations in the earth from which ore, coal or gems are taken. Mining is the art or practice of operating mines.

Throughout the subject, we see the inseparable idea of profit. The work of carrying on operations in a railroad tunnel is not mining; the driving of adits through barren rocks to reach ore bodies is not mining; the sinking of shafts through worthless "wash" or rocks with a view of opening avenues for the removal of ore is not mining. Mining is carried on only when ore is being produced. The wildcat practice of erecting small, temporary plants and digging prospect holes can be condemned as not being real mining.

Universal Mine (bituminous), Clinton, Indiana.

There is usually little question about the validity of a coal mining proposition, since "the goods show for themselves." Comparatively few cases of fraudulent ventures in coal properties are of record. The product of a coal mine is ready for market just as soon as it is loaded into railroad cars, the mining company receiving its pay, commonly, upon its own recorded weights. There is no freight to pay, no waiting for assays or analyses, and no settlements with mills or smelteries. There are not the allurements for getting rich quickly in coal mining that are so beguiling to the class of investors generally approached by the promoters of mines(?). This must not be construed as stating that nobody has ever been deceived in a coal mine proposition, for, indeed, there have been many failures; however, they have been due, chiefly, to auto-deception as to area, thickness or quality of the coal measures.

[III
THE ANTIQUITY OF MINING.]

Mining is believed to have been one of man's earliest occupations. In historical writings, many of which date back into antiquity, there are allusions, as well as direct statements, concerning the art and tasks of obtaining valuable metals from Mother Earth. We are told that the very ancient Egyptians made common use of metals and that they possessed knowledge of certain metallurgical and metal-working processes (as for example, the tempering of copper) which we, of today, cannot claim. Six thousand years ago Egypt became a world power through her mining of copper in the Sinai Peninsula. Iron implements found in the great Gizeh Pyramid are supposed to date back to 4,000 B.C. Copper tools have been found in the ruins of ancient Troy. In Assyria, a very good steel saw, 44 inches long, was taken from the ruins of Nimrod. Iron was utilized by the Chinese some 2,000 years B.C. Near Delhi, India, there exists an iron pillar, 22 feet long and weighing six tons, dating back to 400 B.C. It is chiefly interesting in exhibiting an ancient knowledge of welding which is the envy of our modern iron workers. If we accept the Hebrew Scriptures, we must believe that mining was carried on in the time of Tubalcain, spoken of in Genesis. The Old Testament contains numerous verses referring to the mining of metals, the land of perfect abundance being paraphrased in Deuteronomy thus: "Where the stones are of iron and out of its hills are digged mines of brass." Coal was mined and used in Greece in 1330 B.C.

It is quite probable that gold was the earliest metal to be worked. There are two good reasons for this assumption: First, gold was to be found in the native state or as nuggets, thus requiring no reduction process. Second, the ores of gold are usually less refractory than are the ores of other metals. This is especially true of the oxidized ores such as would naturally be discovered by primitive man. These facts, together with the further properties of gold, viz., that its color is attractive, that it resists corrosion or tarnish, and that it is easily worked into ornaments or coin merely by hammering, make it highly probable that humans early made use of this yellow material.

We read in Job 28:1, that "gold is refined;" and modern investigations tend to prove that the Ophir of Biblical reference is the southern portion of Matabeleland or the Rhodesia of present fame among mining regions. It is possible and quite probable that the great quantities of gold used in the building and furnishing of King Solomon's Temple came from the vicinity of the present city of Johannesburg. The "golden fleece" of literature has been explained as a figure of speech for the skins of sheep which were laid in troughs to catch gold upon the principle of the riffle in a modern sluice-box.

Copper was perhaps the second metal to be worked by man. As a rule, it, also, is easily smelted from its ores; and, as above mentioned, we have relics that give evidence of wonderful skill in working this metal in times of remote antiquity.

However, other metals are believed to have been mined, upon commercial scales, before the Christian era. Silver and lead were handled in large quantities from the mines of Laurium, Greece, in the sixth century B.C., and the same mines are being worked to this day, the principal values now being in the lead rather than, as formerly, in the white metal. The Phœnicians, about 500 B.C., invaded Spain for gold, copper and mercury, and Cornwall for tin and copper. The Almaden quicksilver mines of Spain have been operated, almost incessantly, since 415 B.C., and in the 16th century, A.D., the wealth of Europe's greatest family of financiers, the Fügers, was based upon the operation of this remarkable deposit.

Del Mar, in his History of the Precious Metals, says, "Desire for the precious metals, rather than geographical researches or military conquest, is the principal motive which has led to the dominion of the earth by civilized races. Gold has invariably invited commerce, invasion has followed commerce, and permanent occupation has completed the process. It is the history of the past as well as of the present. Scipio went to Africa, Cæsar to Gaul, Columbus to America, Cortez to Mexico, Pizarro to Peru, Clive to the conquest and Hastings to plunder Bengal."

Our own day has witnessed the subjugation of the Boer. Because of Mexico's mineral wealth, many optimistic Americans are beginning to prophesy the annexation of our sister republic. For gold, Englishmen populated Australia in 1850, about the same time (1849) that we witnessed the rush to California gold fields. Spaniards settled Central and South American countries merely to gain the precious metals. It is mining which has been responsible for the population of the arid, southwestern portion of our own domain.

In this, as in every other age of the world's development, we shall find that the mining industry lies at the heart of all commerce. It is well for the student of mining economics to fully appreciate this fact, for it will whet his interest in this great world industry.

"Truly, it has been a great seeking and finding. The story of mining may have been staled by commonplace, and the romance of it dulled, often enough, by greed; yet, in the main, it has linked the generations of earth as with a golden thread—and if not golden only, then there has been the red glint of copper or the white sheen of silver. Mining districts may come and go, but mining remains."—(Editorial, Engineering and Mining Journal).

[IV
MINING'S PLACE IN COMMERCE.]

It is said that upon two of the world's commercial industries, every other form of activity depends. These two fundamental industries are agriculture and mining. Statisticians prove the above statement and the further fact that these two dissimilar branches of civilization's business are so closely related as to be quite inter-dependent. Strides are made by one of these industries only when advance is noted in the other. While it may not be possible to explain just why this is so, it is worth our attention to consider some brief figures that show this condition of affairs.

The agitation conducted during the past few years, leading to the establishment of a Bureau of Mines in the Department of the Interior, attracted the thoughts of many students of economics who had not previously or seriously considered the industry of mining. The delivery of brilliant addresses showed that mining had been unjustly retarded. While agriculture has for years been fostered by the government and with remarkably satisfactory results, the great sister industry has been required, until recently, to struggle along without any governmental recognition in the matter of support. Yet it has forged its way in unmistakable terms of progress and there was an insistent demand, among those men particularly interested in the welfare of mining, for the protection and the assistance which would and has now come through the establishment of a governmental department. Various states have long recognized the importance of the mining industry by the establishment of departments. The Canadian and Mexican governments maintain very creditable Departments of Mines. It was but a question of time until the shortsightedness of our politicians (not our statesmen) was revealed, and the mining industry has now come under the auspices of a federal department.

Taking the world as a whole, it would be hard to conceive the sum total of annual mineral productions. The middle of the past century seems to have been a critical period in the mining industry of the earth. There was a great impetus given to mining by the greed for gold which caused the settlement of our western states and the Australian states, as already mentioned. But there gradually followed the opening up of mining in many other and hitherto unpopulated and uncivilized portions of the globe. The search for gold was successful.

Prior to 1850, the production of gold had not kept pace with the increase in population. Soon, however, it began to take leaps, in almost geometrical ratios, until, by 1900, the annual production of gold throughout the world was some 2,200 per cent. of the production for 1800 (as nearly as may be ascertained). The 1900 gold production was of a weight of about 400 tons, in round figures. During 1911, the world produced approximately $470,000,000 (about 779 tons) in new gold bullion. It is estimated that with a continuance of the remarkable progress, the next 20 years will duplicate the amount of gold now known in the world. This means that the amount of gold which has been accumulating from mining during the world's ages will be doubled during a fraction of our lifetime. This is significant of the world's progress, in gold mining, at least.

Kennedy Mine, Jackson, California.

It seems coincidental that the rush for gold in 1849-50 should have been almost simultaneous with the remarkable development of our other mineral resources. All of our great discoveries of coal, oil, silver, iron, lead, copper, and zinc can be said to have followed closely upon the discovery of gold in California. It is not supposed that the discovery of iron in northern Michigan in the early eighties had any connection with the "Pike's-Peak-or-Bust" expeditions, nor that the opening and development of the vast coal beds of Pennsylvania had any bearing on the discoveries of lead and zinc in the great Mississippi Valley. But, on the other hand, there can be traced a very intimate relation between the finding of gold, silver, copper, and lead in the Rocky Mountain states and the search for gold in California: the pioneers en route to the coast were the discoverers and settlers in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Montana.

Figures are not available for arriving at such striking or reliable conclusions in regard to the world's production of metals other than gold, but there is no logical reason to doubt that such increases have been just as pronounced as in the case of the yellow metal. In fact, there are good grounds for assuming that the figures for silver, lead, iron, and zinc would show up even more spectacularly; while with coal, we know that we are now in the greatest period of the world's production.

The United States leads the world in the production of the base metals, such as copper, iron, manganese, lead, and zinc, taken collectively or separately. Our country stands second in the production of the precious metals, gold, platinum, and silver. We have the greatest variety of mineral products, as well as the greatest production of complex ores, or those carrying more than one valuable metal. We produce more copper than the rest of the world combined. Although we stand in second place when considering the production of gold, we still possess the Homestake mine in the Black Hills, famous as being the gold mine with the greatest tonnage in the world; and the Camp Bird mine, in the San Juan district of Colorado, famous the world over for its highest average value of gold ore. This great mine is now nearly exhausted and is about to close down after making a wonderful record.

South Africa produces the greatest amount of, and the purest, natural gold in the world. Great Britain has an insignificant production of both gold and copper, and still it is noteworthy that the English-speaking nations control the world's production of both these metals. British and American citizens own seven-eighths of the world's gold mines. England stands second in the consumption of copper, which, of course, is mainly imported.

Russia controls the world's output of platinum, with very little competition. In a similar manner, Canada has the control of nickel production. Mexico, although not commonly regarded as a gold mining country, is rapidly coming to the front and possesses the Esperanza mine, said to be one of the most profitable gold mines in the world.

To more emphatically show the importance of the mining industry, especially in our own country, the following facts are taken from 1900 census returns: Agriculture produces annually about $725 per capita; mining, $1,910; and manufacturing, which is dependent upon the others, $760. The National Banker has said: "Statistics show that the combined dividends paid by the gold and silver mining companies of the United States are greater than the combined dividends paid by all of the banking institutions of the country; and the combined dividends paid by the copper mining companies of the United States exceed the combined dividends paid by all of our railroads."

There is one thought that will always comfort any person who is engaged in furthering legitimate mining: Wealth acquired from a mine is not wrested from any being but Mother Earth, and it is not, therefore, in the class with the much discussed "tainted money" that is said to be wrung from unfortunate human beings.

The following tables are presented to give the reader ideas concerning the productions of gold and silver during recent years. Among the interesting points that may be noted are the following:

The gold production of the world took a sudden drop in 1900, but it immediately resumed its upward climb. During the decade from 1900 to 1910, this production increased over 81 per cent.

There is a remarkable similarity noticeable in the gold productions of the United States during the years 1910 and 1911.

Without the notable increase in the gold output of the Transvaal in 1911, the world's total gold production for that year would have shown a decrease.

The silver production of the United States remained practically unchanged during 1911.

GOLD PRODUCTION OF THE WORLD FOR 20 YEARS

UNITED STATES SILVER PRODUCTION
(In Fine Ounces)

UNITED STATES GOLD PRODUCTION
(In Value)

GOLD PRODUCTION OF THE WORLD

[V
THE FINDING OF MINES.]

Mines are discovered in many ways. One hears much about prospecting, and since this is a practice which is rapidly changing from a mystical to a scientific basis, a few considerations will here be in order.

Persons who have lived in mining communities are familiar with two types of prospector, the roving and the settled. Somehow, when we think of the former, there comes to mind a bearded, roughly clad man, usually accompanied by a "jack" and both packing the outfit consisting of a few tools, a pan, some blankets, a gun, and a supply of "grub." If we have in mind the other type of prospector, we imagine him as living an isolated life in a log cabin up in the hills, spending his daytime in putting in a few, short drill-holes and blasting down a ton or two of usually worthless rock in a "tunnel" or shallow shaft, confident that each succeeding shot will disclose a treasure.

Both of these types represent the utmost in optimism. These men endure many hardships and privations, they can have little converse with other humans, often they can see no provisions for the next day; in fact, they receive few of the benefits of modern civilization—if we except the food-preserving features. Still, a typical, old-style prospector keeps on with absolute faith that fortune will smile tomorrow. We must reach the conclusion that these uneducated men are led on by subtle beliefs which, to a technically-trained man, seem like the rankest folly. They are diviners, dreamers. They are disappearing now and, a generation hence, there will be but memories of them. They are giving way to successors of a different type.

The newer kind of prospector is well educated, and, perchance, he is rather youthful. His chances of success are many times those of the man he supplants. Why? Because he is taking advantage of the work that has been done by all former prospectors. He is guided by theories deduced from observations through ages, and he has the advice of the best contemporary men of experience in matters of geology as applied to mining. In other words, he is a scientific prospector.

The prospector of today has a general understanding of mineralogy and geology; he must have knowledge of mining methods, so that he may know whether a deposit, once found, can be exploited at a profit; he must be ready to account for all discovered mineral bodies, and he must be capable of applying theories to actualities.

There are so many metals and minerals sought for the markets of the world today that we see there are many fields of study and practice open to prospectors. It is not the purpose here to explain the details of scientific prospecting, for the study of this one subject would, in itself, fill a volume. The object of the above remarks is to draw to the attention of the economist the propriety (amounting almost to a necessity) of giving heed to the findings of the educated, trained searcher for mineral bodies, in preference to those of the illiterate man who has furnished themes for artists, narrators, and dramatists, because of his quaint characteristics.

Some writers have classified mineral discoveries into Search, Chance and Adventitious.

Search discoveries, being the rewards of earnest seeking, it is not surprising that, under the past guide of notions and mysticism, the percentage of such discoveries has been small. Under the new order of things, with science as a guide, the percentage is growing and, in the future, this kind of discovery will undoubtedly strongly outnumber the others.

Chance discoveries are those that are made purely without premeditation. They have been a dominant factor in the mineral development of the past. The discovery of gold in California came about through the noticing of shiny, yellow flakes of metal in a ditch leading to a saw-mill. The great iron mines of the Mesabi Range were found by the ore clinging to the roots of an overturned tree. The Wallaroo copper mine, the greatest in Australia, was discovered by the green minerals brought to the surface in the excavations of a wombat. The famous Sudbury nickel-silver ore bodies were disclosed when making a railroad cut on the Canadian Pacific Railroad. The Reddington quicksilver mine, in California, was similarly opened in a cut for a wagon road. The mining of silver at Catorce, Mexico, followed the discovery of shining silver nuggets in the camp-fire of a native, who had camped right upon a rich outcrop. The Kimberly diamond mines are said to have been disclosed by the burrowings of an ichneumon, which fetched a brilliant stone to the sunlight.

Adventitious finds are such as occasionally occur when, while really searching for, or actually mining, one metal, discovery is made of a different metal, or possibly the same metal is found in an entirely different kind of ore. The Comstock lode of Nevada was originally a search gold discovery, the gold having been sought and found by two prospectors with ordinary gold pans. In their working to recover gold, a black mineral and a yellow sand were discarded from the pans and rockers. Curiosity of one man resulted in the identification of these two minerals as ores of silver which henceforth were held as valuable as the native gold. The Anaconda mine, at Butte, Montana, was located, and for some time worked as a silver proposition; but the values gradually changed with depth from silver to copper, until now silver is only a valuable by-product. The rich lead-silver ores of Leadville were discovered as adventitious to the operation of the rich gold placers in California Gulch. A heavy, troublesome rock which accumulated in the sluices, much to the disgust of the miners, turned out to be cerussite, a fine ore of lead. This same district now produces in commercial amounts gold, silver, lead, iron, zinc, copper, and manganese. The Treadwell mine on Douglas Island, Alaska, was first worked as a placer and the values were found to extend downward into the underlying rock in a place which proved to be an immense deposit of eruptive, gold-bearing ore.

As the old-fashioned, venturesome kind of prospecting has but recently been crowded off the scene by the better, scientific kind, let us not overlook the great discoveries that were made in the past before we had applied "organized common sense" to such a field of activity. Those original prospectors were searchers, hunters. They had no guides, but they did accomplish a great deal, and their discoveries were rewards for diligence and hard labor which were, to a great extent, often misdirected.

[VI
MINING CLAIMS.]

The process of acquiring title to mining property may be viewed from a number of points. Such property is real estate and, as such, it may be bought and sold or otherwise transferred exactly the same as farms or city lots.

The United States has constructed an elaborate system for the disposal of its public lands to individuals, under various classifications, such as homestead, desert land, timber and stone, timber culture, coal, placer, and lode claims. Different rules apply to the filing upon, improvement and patenting (acquiring deed from the Government) of these various kinds of claims. The character of the lands in the public domain is decided by the surveyors who execute contracts from the General Land Office for subdividing or staking the country off into townships and sections, according to our American system. In the return of each surveyor's notes, he recommends the sale of the land according to his judgment as to its highest value. There has naturally been a good deal of erroneous conception upon these points, with the result that, often, land has been later shown to be entirely different in its character from the classification given to it by the contracting surveyor; for the qualifications of such a person are not always of a high grade, when it comes to geological questions. And yet, on the whole, the scheme has worked out well and much fraud against the Government has been prevented by the rigid practice.

The Government prices for some of the various classes of land have been as follows: agricultural, $1.25 per acre; coal, $10 per acre when the land was not closer to a railroad than 15 miles, and $20 per acre when it lay within this limit; placer, $2.50 per acre; lode, $5 per acre. These have been the prices demanded for the land only; the payment of these amounts, in many cases, has constituted a small fraction of the expense of securing the original deeds from the Federal Government.

Coal lands may be located very much the same as a homestead, with the exception that residence upon the ground is not required, nor are improvements essential. In cases of dispute as to priority of location, the land office will recognize those claimants who have expended the greater amounts in improvements. One citizen may locate but one claim of 160 acres.

Since April 10, 1909, the Government has been disposing of its public coal lands under a classification that takes note of many details. The kind, grade, thickness, and purity of coal; the number of workable seams; the depth; the features of local supply; transportation facilities; and the average prices at which similar private tracts are held, are among the items recognized in the classification. Probably no two tracts will be sold at the same rate. In general, the new prices are higher than the flat prices that formerly prevailed and some pieces of land are now estimated as high as $175 per acre. In every case of application to purchase coal land, hereafter, the area in question will undergo inspection by Government experts and a price will then be assessed. This law is being severely opposed as being unreasonably severe, and its amendment may be looked for.

Placer lands were formerly permitted to be taken up in any shape, the boundary stakes being placed upon the ground in such a manner as to include only the desirable area, which is usually of an alluvial nature along some valley or gulch. This practice has been forbidden, however, and a locator is now obliged to take up his land in quadrilateral tracts conforming to the subdivisions of the so-called Public Survey. By this rule, it is permissible to file upon land which is laid off into lots of not less than 1/16 of a quarter section—or ten acres—and a claim may be composed of such lots as lie contiguously and which may thus be considered as one complete workable area. The claims are often of zigzag or L shapes, but the locator is enabled, at the extra expense of subdivision surveying, to avoid filing upon, and paying for, much ground that he feels is not desirable in a placer claim. The Government does not survey public domain into smaller tracts than quarter sections of 160 acres each, so that in the taking up of placers it often involves a great deal of expense to carry the subdivisions upon the ground into sufficient detail to ascertain the location of boundary corners.

One person is entitled to as many placer claims as he desires. Each claim of a single individual may contain not to exceed 20 acres and, as said, it must be of one continuous area. Associations of citizens to the number of eight may unite in the location of 160 acres, which will then be held in equal and common interest by the several locators. The restraint placed upon greed in the matter of locations, either placer or lode, lies in certain expenses entailed in work or improvements upon the land before patent may be issued and the legal requirement of the performance of labor upon each claim amounting to $100 per annum. Also, it is required that bona fide values be disclosed upon the ground. For each 20 acres located under the placer laws of the United States, not less than $500 worth of improvements must be made before the issuance of a patent.

The legal (not the technical) definition of lode land covers all grounds containing deposits of ore in its natural and original place of deposit. Under the laws, therefore, a citizen may file upon a tract of land to include a vein, lode, mass, chimney or any other form of ore body. The laws were framed at a time when miners were familiar only with the steep, tabular forms, synonymously termed veins or lodes in their nomenclature, and there were introduced features which time and progress in geological investigations have proved to be entirely unsuited to the needs of locators in many districts.

Our statutes provide that a lode claim may not exceed an area of 20,662 acres, this being the area of a parallelogram 1,500 feet long by 600 feet wide. The intention is to permit a discoverer to lay off a "lode line" along the outcrop of his vein for a distance of 1,500 feet and, at each end, to measure off, at right angles, a distance of 300 feet each way, merely as assurance that he covers the entire thickness of his lode. Since the surface contours of rugged country will crook the outcrop of a dipping plane (such as we may imagine a vein to be) the laws were constructed to permit a claim being laid off with angles or bends in the boundaries so that the outcrop might be kept closely along the middle of the claim.

The above dimensions and area are the maximum permissible under the Federal laws. The Government does not say that claims may not be less in extent, anywhere, nor does it prevent states, counties or even mining districts from making further limitations. In most of the western mining states and territories that have applied the mining law, the full maximum is allowed; but in Colorado no claim is legal if it exceeds a width of 300 feet, while in four counties of the same state claims have been restricted in width to 150 feet. By legislative enactment, since September 1, 1911, claims in all counties of Colorado are permitted to be taken up 300 feet in width. The citizens or miners of any new district, in any state or territory, may elect to limit claims to any size less than the maximum granted by the statutes and such a decision will be recognized by courts as binding upon all comers. This is an example of the rights of custom in establishing common law. In all shapes and widths of lode claims, there is now the rigid restriction that the two end-lines must be laid off exactly parallel.

A Gilpin County, Colorado, Scene,
Showing the Prize, Gunnell, Concrete, Gold Collar, and Eureka Mines.

The laws of our country contemplate the right of any locator of a vein to follow such vein down upon its dip, even if it extends beyond vertical planes passed through the side boundaries. The vertical planes through the end-lines, however, may not lawfully be penetrated in the extraction of ore bodies. The application of this doctrine of "extra-lateral rights" has led to innumerable controversies that have crippled many worthy mining enterprises. The inevitable habit of different veins to intersect, branch, unite, and in many other ways to cause complications, has served no purpose but to delay operations, cause legal warfare and embitter neighbors. So unjust have been courts' decisions in interpreting the lax laws that various mining districts have taken unto themselves the prerogative of deciding for themselves what is justice to all concerned; and we therefore find that many "camps" have unwritten laws under which claimants are restrained in their underground operations, to the ground contained between vertical planes through all boundaries, whether end or side. This is obviously the only fair plan, and it is hoped that, whenever the legislators at Washington get time to give to the matter the attention it deserves, our nation will be favored with a revision of this and a number of other objectionable mining laws which have retarded the industry. Ours is the only country having laws permitting extra-lateral rights and, upon this score, we are criticized by all foreigners.

The Canadian government appears to leave the framing of mining laws to the several provincial governments. Ontario and Quebec have very good and simple laws relative to mining claims. In some respects the laws of the two provinces are similar. For example, in each province a claim must be laid out as a subdivision of the usual public survey and is normally 40 acres in extent. Again, no prospecting or locating may be done except by persons holding so-called miners' licenses or miners' certificates, which cost $5 to $10 per year. No extra-lateral rights are recognized.

In Ontario, a patent may be applied for any time within 3-1/2 years of the date of certificate of record, and the land is purchased outright by the payment of $3 per acre. The patent thus obtained conveys no rights to timber or water on the property. In Quebec, patents are never issued and mining claims are held by a sort of lease, as it were. A license to hold a mining claim costs a flat fee of $10, plus an extra fee of one dollar per acre. At times, arrangements are made for holding and working mining property upon a 3 per cent royalty basis.

The Mexican laws permit the location of any number of claims by individuals. A locator is required to employ an expert (perito) to make a careful survey of his claims (pertinencias), which are taken up in rectangular form. Measurements are according to the metric system, and the unit of area is the hectara, which is the area of a square with 100-meter (328-feet) sides, and is equivalent to 2.471 acres. The government's sale price for mineral ground is 5 pesos (about $2.50) per hectare, or approximately one dollar, United States money, per acre. The unit size of a claim is a hectare, and it thus comes about that the words pertinencia and hectara are used somewhat synonymously.

Under United States laws, the owner of agricultural land, if he has not committed perjury in perfecting his title, will hold all minerals which may be disclosed subsequently to the granting of his deed. The proof of false representations will rescind any such patent and the ground will revert to the Government and be again open to location.

In the surveying and laying off of mineral claims for patent purposes, the United States laws require the claimant to put the work into the hands of a mineral surveyor. Such a surveyor may usually be engaged in any mining district and he will hold a commission from the Department of the Interior authorizing him to do this sort of work. He will have passed certain examinations as to his capabilities and he will have filed bonds in the sum of $5,000 for the faithful performance of his duties to both the Government and his client. He receives no compensation from the Government, and each claimant may make such terms with him as are equitable. He must hold no interest, directly or otherwise, in the property he surveys, nor is he permitted to file upon any mineral land. If he undertakes a case for a client his duties require him to survey the boundaries of every other mineral claim which may be contiguous to, or conflicting with, the one in question, and his maps must accurately show all such claims. His notes will contain sufficient data to accurately convey the exact location, the chief topographical features, the conflicts with all other locations, the position, and description of all mining improvements, and many other details which will be required in the final purchase of the land from the Government. The surveyor's fee will vary from $50 to possibly $200 for a single claim, much depending upon the nature of the survey, whether simple or difficult, and upon local financial conditions and competition.

After the filing of the mineral surveyor's notes and plats with the Surveyor-General, critical examination of the documents is made, and if they are found to conform with all requirements, the case is "approved" and it may then pass to the local land office of the district. Next begins a publication period of sixty days, during which opportunity is offered the public to enter objections to the issuance of a patent, either for reasons of conflict or because of fraud. If no such adverse proceedings are instituted, the patent will follow, in due time.

The ultimate expense of securing a patent to a claim of, say, the maximum area will not be less than $225, and it may run as high as $300 if in a region difficult to survey or if there are a good many conflicting surveys.

A mineral surveyor is prohibited from acting as attorney for the claimant in presenting his claims before the Land Office, so an attorney's fee must be added to the above rough estimates. As a matter of fact, although the surveyor does not nominally appear as the attorney, in many a case it is he who makes out all of the documents to be then signed by an attorney in fact. The laws are faulty in this respect. The lawyer recognizes this fact and he asks the surveyor to make out the many legal forms; for who is so fully cognizant of the property and the desires of the claimant as the surveyor who has become intimately acquainted with the premises, its workings, its desirable features and everything concerned with the adjustment of conflicts? It is to be expected that he could best protect the claimant's interests, and it is wrong to retire him at this very critical time prescribed by a foolish law. The fee of an additional man in the case is an unjust burden upon the client. Land Office officials have recognized this fact. They know that the best documents reaching their offices are those prepared by mineral surveyors.

[VII
PLACERING.]

Different writers hold the following slightly different definitions of a placer: One says, "a placer is a surface accumulation of minerals in the wash of streams and seas," while another writes that a placer is "a place where surface depositions are washed for valuable minerals, such as gold, tin, tungsten, gems, etc." One definition conveys no notion of the operations of mining, but is merely geological, while the other involves the thought of the recovery of values.

No matter how or where found, placers were all originally of surface deposition. They are now found in gulches, cañons, valleys, ocean and lake beaches, glacial drifts, and sometimes beneath eruptive flows. Such placers as occupy the courses of streams are spoken of as gulch, valley, bar, and bench placers. The meanings of the first three names are obvious. By a bench placer is understood a deposit that was originally the bed of a stream, but which, in the course of time, has been cut down, or through, in such a manner as to leave a shelf or bench of the "wash" hanging up some distance above the present base of the gulch or valley.

When such deposits that have been covered by lava flows are disclosed and worked, they go by the name of "buried placers." They are, by no means, uncommon, and typical "drift mines" of this sort are operated in California and New Zealand. They present the novelty of working alluvial deposits under cover of solid rocks, and they thus conform to one of the early definitions of a mine, as previously given. Since the workings of such subterranean placers are generally confined to an approximately horizontal zone, the mine passages, to a certain degree, resemble those of a coal mine.

Placer deposits, being of a secondary nature, the materials are not in the place nor form of the original components. The gravels and sands, together with the valuable contents, probably originally existed in some solid forms such as rocks or massive minerals. The primary structures, in the course of ages and by atmospheric agencies, have been disintegrated and carried by gravity and flowing water to lower levels. The finer the decomposed material, the further it has been transported.

If the original rocks carried gold, the flakes of the metal, being of high specific gravity, would tend to settle to the bottom of the channels and to be carried shorter distances than would the lighter, non-metallic particles. The finer the gold, the more evenly will it be distributed in the bed of gravel. Likewise, placers near the heads of gulches, as a rule, carry coarser gold than those farther down stream.

The valuable materials found in placers must, of necessity, be those that possess the property of resisting corrosion and disintegration. The minerals and metals are, therefore, of a very permanent character.

Every find of "values" in a placer is unquestioned evidence that somewhere, above the present deposit, there originally existed primary depositions containing the valuable metals or minerals. The trail can frequently be traced back to them. These so-called "mother lodes" are not necessarily rich. In the case of gold, for instance, these original deposits of ore may not carry the metal in coarse enough particles to be visible and yet the placers may contain nuggets. There are numerous theories proposed to account for this observed phenomenon, but we will not discuss them here. The fact remains that nuggets have been actually produced artificially in flowing water under conditions similar to Nature's.

The methods of prospecting and working placer ground have undergone many improvements, but there are still many men practicing the primitive ways of a generation ago. The use of devices of simple construction and for operation by muscular effort is still familiar in many regions; and there are good miners who cling to such practice in the belief that it is the cheapest and truest way in which to ascertain the values of wash deposits. Also, there are many placers of limited areas and irregular shapes that cannot be well handled in any other manner.

With a "pan," a man can wash, in ten hours, not over one cubic yard of dirt; and to accomplish this amount of washing the ground must be very loose and favorable. An ordinary ten-hour day's work is about 100 pans. This is equivalent to about one-half of a cubic yard, which is the unit of volume in all placering operations. One may thus readily arrive at the cost of carrying on operations in this way. A cubic yard of ordinary placer dirt is the equivalent of less than two tons. A batea is the Mexican equivalent for the American iron gold pan. It is a sort of broad, conical, wooden bowl and its capacity is not equal to the pan.

A "rocker" or "cradle" is a trough on rockers somewhat like the old-fashioned child's cradle. In using it, a stream of water is caused to flow into the device which has been nearly filled with gravel and the miner gives it a rocking motion that causes the contents to classify or stratify according to the laws of specific gravity. The valuable particles, being the heaviest, will settle to the bottom, whence they may be subsequently removed. A "long tom" is an inclined, narrow box set stationary with a constant stream of water entering at the upper end. Gravel is also shoveled into the device at the same point. The process is more continuous than the preceding ones, the values accumulating at the bottom of the lower end, while the upper layers of gravel are carefully removed by skimming with shovels. The work will keep two men busy and the capacity is correspondingly greater. With a long tom, two men will ordinarily handle about five or six cubic yards in ten hours.

Whenever deposits of a broad area, with considerable and uniform depth, are thought to be valuable, it has become a practice to prove their value by "prospect drilling." This is a mechanical method and one form of apparatus employed is of the churn-drill type common throughout oil and coal regions. With these portable machines, holes are put down to bed-rock at intervals across the ground. As they are sunk, the holes are cased with iron pipes, the drillings are carefully saved and washed, and the values are estimated for each foot of descent. From the summation and averages obtained from all the holes, a very fair knowledge of the ground's worth can be obtained.

Intensive placering is now the order of things and the marvelous increase in the use of dredges attests the success which these "gold ships" have attained. It is very interesting to watch the operations of these huge boats loaded with ponderous machines, especially when they are installed in inland regions or up in high mountain gulches. Yet numbers of them are thus in steady use. Wherever suitable beds with a tolerably uniform size of boulders and gravel are found, dams are built to retain the flows of streams until ponds are created of sufficient size to contain and float the barges.

Dredges of Yuba Consolidated Goldfields, Hammonton, California.

Continual improvements are being made in the construction of these mammoth machines with a view to economy in operations that will result from greater capacities. All costs of placering are reckoned per cubic yard washed. Costs have been rapidly dropping during the past decade until now some companies, with extensive operations, are handling dirt at not to exceed three cents per cubic yard for excavating, washing, wasting the refuse, maintenance, repairs, labor, taxes, interest on investment, and the depreciation of equipment. Such figures will hold good only under very favorable natural conditions of ground and climate such as prevail in California; they have not been attained in the frigid regions of Alaska nor in the torrid South American interior. In view of the wonderful improvements brought forth by mechanical engineers, it is improper to deny that the future will bring still further reductions in placer costs. On the contrary, the signs are good for material reductions.

Dredges are very costly in their installation. They are usually designed to handle so many thousands of cubic yards per day. It has been stated, as a fair but rough rule, that "bucket" dredges will average, in initial cost, one dollar for every cubic yard the boats will handle per month. Thus, if a dredge of this type is built to treat fifty or seventy thousand cubic yards in a month, working steadily, the costs will be respectively $50,000 or $70,000. Other types of dredges, known as the "dipper" and the "suction," will cost less than the bucket type, but have not gained general usage.

"Hydraulicking" is extensively practiced. This term signifies the working of placer deposits by water which is conducted through flumes and pipe-lines and, by means of nozzles called "giants" or "monitors," is directed, in huge jets, against the banks of gravel. These banks or walls are thus torn down and, by the same water, the loosened, disintegrated materials are caused to flow into and through long, wooden, box-like troughs known as "sluices." The floors of these sluices are paved with ribs, cleats or other obstructions termed "riffles" whose function it is to retard and collect the heavy particles which may, later, during the process of cleaning up, be removed as the valuable product. The word "sluicing" is frequently used quite synonymously with hydraulicking.

Costs of this latter sort of placering are considerably higher than those of dredging; but there are many deposits not adapted to dredging operations that may be nicely worked by sluicing, so that there will always be a field for this scheme. Average costs are difficult to obtain since it happens that most of the companies now operating hydraulically are secretive in their accounts. More labor is entailed, more time is required, greater delay is occasioned in cleaning up, and the amount of water used is much greater. Where water is abundant, this last item need not be considered. It is well to remember that even a very large dredge, while requiring a continual and large flow of water through its devices, can still operate with just the water in which it floats, this water being pumped and used repeatedly; whereas, in the case of hydraulic mining, the water may be used but once and, consequently, there must be a large supply and at a good head or pressure.

But, in spite of these disparaging points, we find instances in which, under peculiarly favorable conditions, hydraulicking has been carried on at very low figures. E. B. Wilson says: "The yield of the gravel at North Bloomfield was 7.75 cents per cubic yard; the cost of mining, 4.1 cents per cubic yard. The yield per cubic yard of gravel at La Grange was 10.19 cents, the cost of mining, 6 cents. The costs of mining at these two mines would analyze about as follows: Labor, 60 per cent; supplies, 17 per cent; water, 13 per cent; office, 10 per cent. Ground carrying but 3.99 cents per cubic yard has been worked at a profit at the first mine. With such a small margin to work on, it is evident that skill and executive ability must be provided from the pipemen up." It is claimed that an Idaho mine was worked profitably with less than two cents value in the dirt, but this is to be regarded with some doubt.

The Snowstorm Placer, Fairplay, Colorado.
A typical Hydraulic Mine.

There are large deposits in the arid portions of the globe where water for working is not obtainable. To meet such conditions, numerous inventions continue to be placed upon the market. These devices are all planned in such a way as to use very little or no water. If water is required at all, the machines are expected to use it repeatedly. The machines are built to effect the segregation of the precious contents gravitationally, electrostatically, pneumatically, and by amalgamation with mercury. It is too early to say how successful such devices will prove in commercial operations. Because some of them have not "made good" does not mean that genius will not yet cope with the situation; and we look into the future to see large operations efficiently and economically conducted by dry placer machinery. There are now no authentic figures obtainable upon this question of dry placering costs.

[VIII
OPEN MINING.]

Some mention has been already made of open mining. The greatest development of this sort of mining has come about since the application of the modern steam shovel to the excavation of ore. This practice was an American innovation and it is being adopted throughout the world wherever natural conditions will warrant.

Within the past few years, immense bodies of iron ore have been discovered in northern Minnesota and the adoption of these immense, mechanically operated shovels has worked such economies in the mining of this kind of ore that entirely new cost figures have been established and tonnages are being produced which, a few years ago, would have seemed unbelievable. There are about a dozen mines of this "open pit" type that have each produced over a million tons of ore per year in a season that must cease with the close of navigation on the Great Lakes. One mine has shipped over three million tons a season.

At the Utah Copper Company's mine in Bingham Cañon, Utah, a great deposit of low grade, copper-bearing eruptive rock is being handled upon a steep mountain-side by this same scheme. This ore averages a little less than two per cent. in copper, but so economical is the handling of it in such vast amounts that a neat profit is made above all mining, transportation and milling charges. When the red metal sells at thirteen cents per pound, the gross value of this ore is about $5.20 per ton. This mine has maintained an output of ten thousand tons or more per day over long periods.

A famous gold mine in Queensland, Australia—the Mount Morgan—is also being worked by steam shovel methods. The deposit is here in the form of a small mountain and the operations are gradually razing this landmark to the level of the surrounding plains.

The mining of low-grade gold ores by open-pit methods has taken hold in America, and an example of the practice may be found at the Wasp No. 2 mine in the Black Hills. According to published accounts of the operations of this company, all of the costs of mining and treating the ore amount to only $1.02 per ton. The ore body is a bed of quartzite lying nearly flat, and averaging in the neighborhood of only $2.50 per ton in gold, the only mineral of value. The recovery of this metal is at the rate of between 75 and 80 per cent. efficiency, or about $2 from each ton. The net profit is therefore close to one dollar per ton. This very modern scheme of mining has been made possible through the recent advances made in the cyanidation of ore, and it is going to pave the way for many more such mining plants.

Steam Shovels and Churn Drills, Copper Flat, Ely, Nevada.

The Nevada Consolidated Copper Company has conducted vast mining operations "in the open" at Ely, Nevada, by the use of 95-ton shovels having a capacity of two and one-half cubic yards per dip. One shovel has handled as high as 2,800 cubic yards (the equivalent of about 5,500 tons) in nine hours; but this must be recognized as an exceptional run, and cannot be taken as an average. The ore has a thickness of about 200 feet and covers many acres. As in the majority of such properties, there is here a large amount of "overburden" to be removed and disposed of before the ore can be excavated. This process of uncovering the ore body by the removal of the overburden is called "stripping." The cost per ton of ore mined is said to average 55 cents.

In an open mine there must be maintained a system of continually changing tracks placed upon grades (sometimes rather steep) and with sharp curves. With multiple switches, numbers of small locomotives are kept busy pulling and pushing up and down the tracks with their strings of loaded cars and replacing the "loads" with "empties." When such operations are upon a mountain-side, a very beautiful panoramic view may be had from the opposite side of the gulch.

Generally, the ore material is disintegrated to some extent. In some cases, it will actually crumble down before the advance of a steam shovel. In other mines, it is necessary to drill large holes which are loaded and blasted.

It is becoming more and more important for the active mining man to post himself upon the methods and economies of this latter-day mining practice. The development of this open or surface mining has introduced entirely new economic ideas. With no costs for timbering of mine passages, for ventilation, or for hoisting, and with a very material decrease in manual labor per ton mined, immense masses of rocks are now really ore, although a few years ago they were nothing but lean, country rock.

In consequence of the success attained by the pioneers in this kind of mining, there has been created a demand for properties possessing large deposits of low grade ore that is workable on this intensive scale. Copper properties have been holding a prominent place recently and stockbrokers carry regular lists of "Porphyries," this nickname having been coined to cover the companies operating in the low grade porphyry ores of the Western United States. Not all of these porphyry companies will use surface mining methods. Some companies in the Globe District of Arizona have started extensive underground schemes for mining large tonnages very cheaply by "caving" methods.

[IX
CONSIDERATIONS PRECEDING
THE OPENING OF MINES.]

The word "exploitation" is used by many mining men and engineers to signify a plan of so opening up ore deposits as to render the contents removable. The same persons use the word "mining" to mean the operations involved in the actual extraction of the ore exploited. It is sometimes difficult to draw any line between the meanings of these two words for, as handled by different men, with varying shades of intention, they are sometimes synonymous. Thus, if exploiting an underground mine, which carries ore right from the surface, means developing the mine in such a way as to provide for a large, steady production, it is difficult to see why the ore taken out in this process cannot be said to be "mined."

By "dead work" is usually meant that work of opening up a mine which will put or keep it in a producing condition but which does not supply any remuneration in the shape of ore (or coal). Again, as used by some men, there is little distinction between this work and exploitation. There may, however, be lines reasonably drawn between these three terms, and therefore the following definitions are proposed:

Dead work is such work as is necessary to develop an ore body, but it does not produce any ore. It may be prosecuted for drainage or ventilation purposes or for creating passage-ways for men and products.

Exploitation is also work performed in opening up or developing a property, but it does not contemplate the value of the extracted materials which may, or may not, be of any commercial importance. Indeed, much ore might be extracted during work which was carried on merely to define extents or boundaries of ore bodies. In this last supposition, the original sense of exploration is brought out and this should serve to fix the definition clearly in mind.

Mining may be restricted to mean the methods and work involved in the profitable production of the mine's ore (or coal). The term would not be used to cover operations of shaft-sinking, tunneling, and the like, unless such work be in the valuable materials. Mining may be said to begin whenever there is produced an output upon which there is some profit. Exploitation may be in valuable ground. If so, we may say that mining is in progress during the exploitation. The driving of levels or drifts in an ore body—or of entries in a bed of coal—produces the valuable products of the mine, and we may, therefore, consider that mining is taking place.

The driving of a crosscut through barren rock to reach an ore body is dead work; but the driving of a drift or level in a vein is either exploitation or mining. Dead work produces no ore. Exploitation may, or may not, produce ore. Mining must produce ore.

Throughout all of the above and the following discussion of this chapter, the reader should bear in mind the point that the word "coal" may be substituted for the word "ore" without altering the substance of the definitions or the conclusions.

Before a mine is opened up, the economist-manager will consider many items. In the first place, care must be exercised in the examination of the title to the property. A mineral property may have passed through the most complicated kind of transfers of fractional interests in the title, just as is true with ordinary real estate. The abstract must be traced back clear to the issuance of patent from the Government, and then on back to the original location. With an undeveloped property (a prospect), this precaution is essential to estop any possible pretensions to ownership, by outside parties, in case the ground subsequently turns out to be exceptionally valuable. It has often been the case that no obstructions from any adverse claimants have been met until owners have, in good faith and at great expense, developed splendid mines. Then suits for possession or partial ownership have been instituted, sometimes with marked success for the plaintiffs. There are persons who make it a special line of business to examine titles to mining property, and it is economy for the average manager to employ such experienced men to attend to these matters.

Topographical considerations will hold a place in the study preceding the opening of a new mine. The nature of the surface of the property and the surrounding country will largely influence in the selection of the proper site for the mine's mouth. Neglect upon this point has been a common cause of failure in mining operations.

A mine opening must be away from all dangers of snow-slides, rock-slides, cloud-bursts and deluges from overflowing streams or breaking dams. It may make a difference in the mine's ventilation as to which direction the prevailing winds blow and therefore upon which side of a hill the mouth be opened.

Transportation facilities must be given due thought. If means are not already at hand, one must inquire into the feasibility of constructing some form of carrier; and here, again, will enter the question of the surface's contour. If a railroad is out of question, possibly an aerial tramway may be constructed. These modern conveyances stop at no obstacles of surface configuration and are dependent only upon the necessity of having the point of delivery lower in altitude than the point of loading at the mine. With some of the modern improvements in these installations, mine products are being transported up-hill as well as down-hill through the application of power. In mining regions, it is generally the case that the mines, themselves, are above the settlements in which are the railroads or treatment plants, so that the mine products will transport readily by the natural force of gravity.

Climate holds an important place in the economics of mining. The working of very rich pieces of ground may prove a losing proposition in some portions of the world where the climatic conditions are such as to render operations possible during only a very small portion of the year. Extremes of heat or cold, malaria or other pestilential obstacles, long rainy seasons with floods, and the hostility of native humans, beasts or insects have accounted for the abandonment of seemingly attractive mining projects.

The question of labor must be given due thought. It is true that the best miners on earth are Americans. We do not deny that many of our miners are of foreign birth, but the fact remains that they perform better and more intelligent service than do their fellow countrymen who have not been adopted into our country. Our men are in demand in the mining development of foreign countries. An American mine manager will always experience dissatisfaction while endeavoring to get, from natives in foreign parts, the same efficiency that he is accustomed to receive from the miners "at home." He may be paying a good deal less per capita for such labor, but he finds he is actually paying more per ton of output.

Even within a single country, there are notable differences in the worth of labor. The natives of some of the Mexican states are far preferable to those of other states. Within the United States, there may be discerned material differences between the efficiencies of the citizens of various sections, when it comes to mining. One cannot procure as competent miners in some of the agricultural states as in the typical mining states. This is but to be expected. For instance, there are deposits of lead ore in the "moonshine" regions of Kentucky which have never been successfully worked, and the real cause of failure, in the writer's belief, lies in the inability of superintendents to obtain real miners either in that region or from the outside. The residents will never become miners; outsiders will not enter for work under existing sociological conditions.

The question of unionism is sometimes held by managers as a deciding one when debating the opening of a mine. While there are those who will broadly denounce such organizations, there may be found other and just as successful mine operators who declare that the effects of union control over their miners are beneficial to their companies' interests. Probably the greatest objection to unionism raised by operators is that they resent the dictation that accompanies the inauguration of union rules in their mines. The owners and managers prefer to run their own business to suit themselves. Some managers are so imbued with this conviction of their own rights that they will refuse to open up mines or, if they are operating, they will close down their mines before they will submit to the demands made upon them by the union officials.

On the other hand, there are mine managers who prefer the presence of some central, labor-controlling body; for they believe that the men who belong to such a large federation or organization will, and do, have less complaint to make and therefore work more freely than is the case with the independent laborers. The argument is that these union men are satisfied because they feel that their interests are being looked after with a sort of attention that they, individually, could not give.

This is not a place to discuss the crimes that have been laid at the doors of both the labor organizations and the mine owners' associations. It is safe to assume that wrong has probably been done by both sides. But it is furthermore right to believe that most of the crimes were not authorized, nor recognized, by the officers or the majority of members of either side. Individual members must not be taken as averages of the membership in any kind of civil, social or political organization.

It seems entirely wrong that politics should enter into the considerations of a mine manager whose operations are apparently so apart from affairs of state; but the fact remains that there are places where mining operations cannot be carried on without the good will of certain officials of the state or national governments. It is not advisable to enter into any compromising terms to gain privileges for carrying on any legitimate business for there are other, better ways, generally, of attaining the justice that is deserved.

One must not omit to investigate the sources of supply for all the needs of a mine and its camp. There are many kinds of materials needed to keep a mine going. Fuel, machinery, timber, water, food for men and beasts, lumber, and all household furnishings and necessities must come from some markets or natural sources. It behooves the cautious manager to see that all these things may be had in ample amount and at figures which will not prove annihilating to his business.

In Utah, there are mines which have all their timbers framed in and shipped from the forests of Oregon, the sawing and framing being done before shipment to save on freight. The fir of Oregon is shipped to distant Australia for mining purposes. The arid camps of Nevada get their supplies of timber from the sister state, California. The Michigan mines are fortunate in being in a lumber region. Colorado's metal mines are more favored in the matter of timbers than are the coal mines of the same state. Most of the coal mines are upon the barren plains, while the metal mines are chiefly in the wooded mountains.

Mill of the Pittsburg-Silver Peak Gold Mining Co., Blair, Nevada.

Water may be too scarce for the needs of a mine or its community. There may not be sufficient to supply boilers or a mill, or for the domestic purposes of the workers. On the other hand, water may be so abundant in the mine workings as to prove a deterrent factor in profitable operation. With shaft mines, having deep workings and low grades of ore, if water must be delivered mechanically, the costs for such drainage are frequently prohibitive of mining. Some mines, in arid regions, have been fortunate in striking such flows of underground water that it has been possible to operate mills right at the mines. In this way, the cost of water hoisting has been more than compensated in the milling benefits which, in turn, have decreased freights and treatment charges.

Machinery is usually purchased at centres of mining supplies and manufactures. San Francisco, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Denver and Chicago are the principal rendezvous in the West for mining men in need of machinery. Mexico City is, similarly, the outfitting point for the mines of southern Mexico. The United States holds the supremacy of the world in the matter of equipping mines and mills, large orders of American-made mining machinery being shipped to even the antipodes.

The nearer a property is to a depot of supplies, the less is bound to be the cost of getting goods onto the ground. It is this last item—the delivery of goods—that must be recognized as a very pertinent, and sometimes a critical, factor upon the cost side of mining accounts. Mines that are remote or in rugged countries are frequently dependent upon animal transportation. In some cases, machinery going to the mines must be so built that it may be taken apart into small portions suitable for loading upon the backs of horses or burros, or even, in the Andes, upon the frail llamas.

Operations, if planned to be conducted for a long term of years and therefore warranting the installation of large and expensive plants, should be based upon the holding of extensive ore-bearing ground. Here enters the notion of the shape and size of a mining property.

With some kinds of mining ground, the best form for the holdings would probably be a compact, approximately equilateral tract, covering a reasonably large acreage. This would be the case with ores that occur in sedimentary beds, for instance, where it is advisable to have the mining plant centrally located so as to work expeditiously the entire area. This would apply to a region like the Cripple Creek District, which contains innumerable veins running in all directions but displaying no outcrops.

In other instances, the most desirable shape might be long, narrow strips so laid off as to contain the strikes of persistent lodes or veins, as those of the wonderful Comstock Lode region. It is not acreage that counts here so much as lineal extent.

In the Transvaal, land is held in rectangular blocks. The first owners of the ground took it up for agricultural purposes. This same statement is also true of the mining properties in the Joplin District of Missouri and Kansas.

In the case of the South African properties, every company has definite boundaries to which operations may be planned. Hence it is possible for the management to so plant any mine as to operate it at a given rate for a predetermined life of the enterprise. The work is planned to maintain a certain output that will exhaust the ore bodies in just so many years, and all the equipment may thus be purchased with the forecast that it will serve its purpose and perform its economic share within the prescribed time.

This notion will be more readily understood when we consider the various types of ore bodies. With properties wherein there is no possible way of predicting the number, size, and worth of discoverable ore bodies, the life is wholly problematical and it is therefore difficult for a manager to decide how much he should expend in the initial equipment.

[X
MINE OPENINGS.]

In every new mining project, there is much to be considered concerning the expediency of opening up through shafts, inclines or adits. More attention has lately been given to this subject than formerly. There are very good reasons for the selection of any one of these kinds of mine openings.

The words shaft, incline, and tunnel have been handled with careless meanings by mining men. It is time that some definitions be accepted so that everybody will use these terms with the same meanings.

A shaft has loosely been any steep opening sunk through the ground. An incline—sometimes spoken of also as an incline shaft—has been taken to mean an opening resembling a shaft, but not very steep and not approaching verticality. Right here, there has been too much latitude of speech and it has entailed the necessity of many awkward explanations.

By a tunnel has been intended any (approximately) horizontal passageway driven from the natural surface. Objection to this use of the word rests in the strict definition of a tunnel, which states that it must have both ends open to the natural surface of the earth, as for example, an irrigation or a railroad tunnel. A level passageway which has but one end open to daylight is not properly spoken of as a tunnel. In mining practice, practically every horizontal opening of this nature is open at only one end, and it is an adit rather than a tunnel. If the precaution of speaking of it as a "mining tunnel" is observed, very well, for this may be taken to be an expression synonymous with adit. The latter term is, however, shorter and more correct.

For the sake of a uniform usage, the following definitions are proposed. Their use will conform with the usages of those well-informed persons who adhere to correct speech.

A shaft is a truly vertical mine passage which may, or may not, be sunk in or along an ore or a coal body.

An incline is any mine passage which occupies a sloping position and which may, or may not, maintain a uniform inclination throughout its length. It may be sunk along, or in, a pitching vein or seam and it may thus conform to the irregularities of the dip of such body. It is neither horizontal nor vertical. Such an inclined passage following a seam of coal is known as a slope.

It sometimes happens, especially in coal mining, that a sloping passageway is driven through barren rock either to get at known bodies by the shortest means or to establish uniform grades for tracks. In a strict sense, these are not inclines or slopes, for they do not even approximately follow, nor parallel, bodies of value. The miner's term for such an opening is rock slope.

An adit or mining tunnel is a horizontal opening driven from the surface. If it be driven along an ore body, as a vein, it is properly called a vein adit; if it is driven across barren country to intercept presumed or known bodies, it is spoken of as a crosscut adit. All adits must be given a small amount of grade for drainage necessities.

Before getting underground we should consider what is required in the way of opening our mine; what is positively known about our body of coal or ore; and what conditions are liable to confront us later on. We must consider the type of ore body; character of material to be extracted; average thickness and hardness of the body; desired tonnage; power facilities; probable surface and underground drainage to be maintained; and dozens of other things which only the experienced man will think of and appreciate. The right kind of a manager will know that he cannot afford to overlook such points.

Every case involves different contingencies, and therefore extreme forethought must be given to the subject before deciding upon any particular kind of an opening into the ground for mining purposes. This remark does not apply to such openings as prospect drill-holes, openings which are not for mining purposes, but for exploitation. Assuming that sufficient data are known concerning the property to warrant the expenditures incident to the making of a mine, the question remains as to the best way of proceeding.

It is a well-established fact that it is much cheaper to drive an adit than to sink a shaft of equal transporting capacity. It is also cheaper to drive an adit than to sink an incline. If the topography is such that an adit can be driven into or beneath an ore body and thus expose it from a low elevation, the temptation is strong and along lines of good practice to do so. If the country is quite flat or nearly so, or, if the surface is such that, while rough, an adit of reasonable length cannot be driven to tap the valuable mineral and handle it economically, then it is good practice to decide upon a shaft mine.

An adit will not only be cheaper, foot for foot, than a shaft or incline, but, if given the proper, slight grade, it will afford a natural drainage outlet for all subsequent workings above its level. The cost of pumping, as already suggested, may be a considerable item and it may be a deciding factor in favor of an adit when this form of opening is possible.

Furthermore, an adit will obviate the installation and use of hoisting machinery, and thus there may be maintained a greater efficiency in the operating expense of the mine than would be possible with a shaft.

Again, it is a simpler and cheaper matter to maintain a mining tunnel in working shape than it is a shaft, particularly in bad ground. By the settling or "working" of the ground, a shaft may be thrown perhaps but slightly out of alignment and annoying interferences will be experienced in hoisting, especially when rapid and uninterrupted hoisting is necessary to maintain the desired output. While the same amount of disturbance does take place in an adit, it is an easy matter to readjust track grades while continuing regular haulage operations.

The timbers, in the case of either a shaft or an adit, will require occasional renewal, but the expense of such repairs is less in adits than in shafts or inclines, while the delay to other operations of mining, in the case of the adit, will be inappreciable.

Topography has been referred to above, but it must be again briefly mentioned. There are some places in which ore bodies extend to, or exist at, such depths that adits could not be projected to get beneath enough of the ore to warrant their construction. An adit mine is not a practicable thing in a flat country like Nevada or the Rand, but in the rough country of the San Juan it is the customary kind of a mine. In the very early days of Comstock Lode mining, shafts were sunk by each of the hundreds of companies. Before a great while, the advantages that would accrue from having a deep "tunnel" became evident, and the famous Sutro Tunnel, with its historic, checkered career, was driven. Although it loomed up like a gigantic undertaking for that period, the immense prospective or future value of it could not be denied.

The following relative advantages of the several types of mine mouths are in addition to those already given and are worth consideration:

With an incline, the value of a tabular deposit is determined as work progresses; the course and dip of the body will be known at all depths along the incline; the body may be explored from the incline in both directions, simultaneously, with a resulting doubling of the development and production; all, or nearly all, the material removed is "vein stuff" and its value may repay the sinking expenses; there is no losing of the ore body unless a geological fault is met.

With a shaft, more rapid hoisting is possible than with an incline; the timbering labor is less than in the case of an incline, but greater than in the case of an adit; with ground containing ore bodies in irregular masses and at no uniform intervals, vertically or horizontally, stations and levels may be started wherever desirable; the crosscuts which are usually necessary to reach the bodies may disclose otherwise unknown bodies.

Mills and Shaft House of Daly West Mine, Park City, Utah.

With a vein adit, the vein is prospected as work advances; the ore removed may pay its own way, as it were; the drainage is automatic; ore is transportable from the mine by haulage rather than by hoisting; the ore in place is above the level and will handle itself to the outgoing passage by gravity.

With a crosscut adit, in addition to the last three advantages noted for the vein adit, there is bound to be exploration of the ground upon at least one side of the known body; there will generally be easier haulage because of the straighter track, since an adit driven along a vein will conform to the geological irregularities and the track is bound to be more or less crooked.

Without counting upon the doubtful success of the numerous propositions in tunneling machines, but judging only from past experiences, we may say that a shaft will cost about three times as much as a "tunnel" of equal transporting capacity. If the ground is wet, the discrepancy in first costs becomes much larger. In a remote region, with difficult transportation of machinery and fuel, it may be better to drive and use a long adit rather than a shallow shaft. An adit will transport more product than will a shaft of equal dimensions.

An adit may be driven to intercept a shaft and to serve as a sort of artificial surface, as it were, and thus save expenses in pumping and in hoisting up to the original collar of the shaft at the surface of the ground.

No matter how crooked an incline may be, it is possible to hoist ore in conveyances known as skips, although the hoisting may be necessarily somewhat slow. These same conveyances are useful for lowering and hoisting men, and the parody, "Men go down to the mine in skips," here finds its significance. The usual hoisting conveyances used in shafts are known as cages. They usually produce less friction than do incline skips. A skip in an incline must travel upon a track, while a cage, somewhat resembling a passenger elevator, has no wheels, but slides upon guides. However, an incline skip, because of the inclination of the passage, does not exert the same dead weight upon the cable and hoisting engine and hence these parts of the equipment may be made correspondingly lighter. Skips for shafts are similar to cages in their lack of wheels.

Complete estimates of probable future requirements should be made before a shaft is sunk. When it becomes necessary to enlarge a single-compartment shaft to one with two compartments, the expense has been found to exceed one-half the original cost of sinking; while, to convert a one-compartment shaft into a three-compartment shaft costs fully three-fourths of the original sinking expense. Approximately the same ratios of cost will hold in the case of enlarging inclines.

Character of ore sometimes influences the selection of the kind of passageway. Some high grade, brittle ores must not be dumped nor handled repeatedly, since values are lost in the "fines." Iron and copper ores will not probably be injured by any amount of dumping. Coal should be handled as few times as possible. In view of this fact, other things being equal, adopt that system that will injure the ore or coal the least.

As a rule, workmen are safer in tunnels than in shafts, since there is little danger from objects falling any great distance. Tiny bits of rock have been known to kill men in shafts. On the other hand, there is less liability of injury from falls of large rocks in shafts than in adits. Roof falls are a very prolific source of mine accidents.

The workmen of neighboring mines will often be able to give much valuable information as to the proper procedure in opening a new property. For instance, water levels, amounts and kinds of gases that may be expected, the nature of the wall rocks, and other pertinent points may be learned by interviewing the men who are employed in adjacent mines. Still better information may be obtained by personal visits to the underground workings of the nearby mines. In this connection, one must not permit himself to be unduly influenced by the prejudices or hobbies of the neighboring operators or their employés if there is reason to suppose that such notions are contrary to good practice.

Due consideration must always be given to the selection of some method of opening up what might be supposed will never amount to a great mine, so that, should subsequent disclosures exceed expectations, enlargement of the scale of operations can be advantageously effected. Always bear in mind that legitimate mining is just as much a commercial enterprise as is any other kind of business. The utmost concern for financial showings must be constantly borne in mind. Select a scale of operations consistent with the known—not the hoped-for—bodies of coal or ore; but have a certain feature of elasticity about the plans that may take care of future increase in business if found desirable. Do not "over-plant." Never plant, at all, prematurely. It is better to postpone the installation of the equipment until some specific facts are available. Many companies have met defeat in the exhaustion of capital through the purchase and installation of elaborate plants which were never warranted.

After a mine is once opened and preparations have all been perfected to operate upon a certain scale of output, it is quite essential that exploitation and production be maintained without material fluctuations, if the greatest economy is to be attained. Exploitation, i.e., development work, must be kept well in advance of actual mining operations to assure plenty of working space for the extraction of the normal output.

[XI
TYPES OF ORE BODIES.]

It has been necessary, a number of times in this discussion, heretofore, to make mention of kinds of ore bodies. It is well, at this time, to get some fixed ideas concerning the leading types of bodies of minerals which are extracted as ores.

Because of the laxity in type differentiation which has prevailed among miners and writers, the same geologists who have framed definitions of ore, have also defined the various types of ore bodies. The definitions, having been accepted by the leading mining geologists and engineers of the present day, it is well for us to fall into line and to agree with the authorities in such matters.

A vein is a single, ore-bearing fissure, generally, though not necessarily, with at least one well-defined wall.

When we run across a tabular-shaped deposit of ore that looks as though it may have been put into a pre-existing fissure or chasm, the chances are that it is a vein. But a vein must not be confounded with a dike. A dike is a filling that has been injected, while molten or fluid, into an open passageway or rupture across rocks, or into an opening which it created for itself. A little examination of the material should tell, to even the novice, whether or not the substance is of plutonic origin. The filling of a vein is not eruptive, at all. Veins have been filled from circulating aqueous solutions, by slow depositions, that have occupied very long periods.

A vein may be any thickness, since a fissure may have been opened to any width. Hence, a vein may be as thin as a sheet of paper, or it may be a hundred feet across. However, it is true that some wide veins have resulted by a sort of enlargement from original thin seams. Very few of the notable wide veins of the world are believed to have been created by the filling up of chasms originally as wide as the present ore bodies. But, in all cases of real veins, there were original fissures, fractures or crevices which acted as channels for circulating solutions that contained the materials which were left to make the vein matter.

A lode is an assemblage of veins so closely spaced that the ground between the veins becomes, in places, ore-bearing, and the entire width of the aggregation becomes an ore body.

A zone of sheeted rocks like schist or slate, if sufficiently mineralized to warrant mining, would be a lode. Sometimes, in certain districts, the earth's crust has been subjected to many approximately parallel, closely-spaced fractures, and by the subsequent filling of these cracks, with the accompanying corrosion of the walls and their replacement by ore, extraction of the entire mass of rocks across a considerable distance will be found to yield a profit. Any such body is a lode.

In the Cripple Creek District, the ground is criss-crossed in every direction by tiny fissures which have resulted from the contraction of the country rock, just as a bed of mud is fissured in the process of drying up after a rain. Wherever these fissures are found in aggregates that are closely spaced and in which a majority of the cracks have a general trend so that the whole assemblage can be readily worked as one mass, this whole body of fractured rock may be found worth mining and it will then constitute a lode. It may be mentioned here that the so-called ore of this district is not really ore according to the accepted definition. The true ore, the filling of these innumerable, tiny cracks, really constitutes but about five per cent. of the material that is shipped as ore, but which is principally the "country rock" broken down with the small volume of ore.

In legal phraseology, the word lode has come to include all sorts of ore bodies. When the word is thus used, in a legal sense, it should not be confused with the strictly technical meaning.

It has been the fashion for prospectors to dilate upon the fact that they have located "true fissure veins." This expression, formerly on the tongues of most mining men in districts possessing veins at all, is now obsolete and hence should be placed in the discard. There can be no such thing as an "untrue" vein nor an "untrue" fissure. Neither can there be any vein without a fissure. Therefore, if there is any vein, it must be a real or true vein. Accordingly, the verbiage is to be discouraged. The intention of a miner, in using this pet phrase, has been to convey the impression that his vein extended downward, indefinitely; there having arisen a notion that some veins are rather superficial and liable to "peter out" at slight depths, while others—the kind he invariably has located—persist both in size and value to extreme depths.

There are districts in which are found short fissures, generally confined to certain horizons in sedimentary rocks, such as the limestones of the great Mississippi Valley, from which are mined lead and zinc ores. These are called "gash veins." These are always readily recognized and there is not the slightest excuse for confusing them with the fissures which are common to other kinds of rock formations.

A bed or blanket vein is the term applied to any nearly flat deposit conforming to the bedding. Such a body of ore must be in a sedimentary series of rocks. Coal bodies are all of this type. Many bodies of iron ore are also of this type.

A chimney is an ore body which has not the tabular form of a vein but is rudely elliptical in outline, horizontally, and with a very considerable vertical extent. A stock is a similar body but it is of still greater irregularity of boundary.

These bodies are usually the filling of extinct volcanoes or geysers, and therefore they are presumed to extend to very great depths. The diamond mines of Kimberly, Africa, are of this type and the ore is a sort of hardened geyserite or mud in which are enclosed the precious gems. In Custer County, Colorado, the ore body of the Bassick Mine is a conglomerate of rounded boulders of all sizes cemented together, somewhat like concrete, by the materials which really carry the values. This mass occupies an ancient volcanic neck or throat of a geyser, probably the latter. The main portion of the Cripple Creek District is the crater of a great prehistoric volcano. It might be called a great chimney, but custom seems to limit the use of the word chimney to a smaller body such as might be included in a single mining property.

A mass is a deposit whose irregularity of shape is so great that it cannot be recognized as belonging to any of the types already mentioned. Masses conform to no rules as to shape or size. They are usually the result of a chemical dissolving of the original barren rocks with a simultaneous or subsequent substitution of valuable materials. There are many instances of ores that have been deposited, molecule by molecule, replacing equal volumes of the previous rock, much upon the order of the petrifaction of wood. Again, there are immense masses which are believed to have accumulated in caves already dissolved out of the containing rocks.

While recent geological study of the districts in which such ore bodies abound have disclosed numerous facts about their occurrence, there still remains much conjecture concerning their origins, and we may still believe that they do not conform to any rules as to regularity or size. The ore bodies of Leadville are of this type, and they may be described by the homely similes that they are as like and as unlike, and their occurrences are about as regular, as potatoes in a hill. The potato-tops give the farmer a suggestion as to where to dig. So, also, do certain geological relations guide the miner. And yet a shaft may be sunk hundreds of feet down among masses and not happen to penetrate a single one.

There are numerous recognized types of ore body not enumerated here; but it is sufficient for the average layman in mining matters to understand these few distinct types and to believe that all other types are rarities, and are, as a general thing, but intermediate forms of those defined.

Shaft No. 3, Tamarack Mining Company, Calumet, Michigan.

Smeltery of the Balaklala Consolidated Copper Co.,
Coram, California.

[XII
THE QUESTIONS OF DEPTH AND
GRADES OF ORE.]

The prevailing belief of a few years ago that ore bodies always improve with depth has been discredited. Not a single mining geologist will longer maintain such a notion. The evidence of many thousands of mines has refuted this older belief and it has been proven that quite the opposite view is the correct one concerning changes of value with depth. Values, instead of getting better, do actually, in the majority of cases, grow poorer as depth is gained.

President C. R. Van Hise, of the University of Wisconsin, was among the early expounders of the newer theories to account for this fact. The writer heard him state, years ago, before a scientific gathering (which, at that time, was not quite ready to agree with him), that if he were given his choice, he would much prefer to own the upper thousand feet of the earth's crust than all the rest of the globe. In this remark, he was referring only to mineral values, of course.

This belief that the best values are to be found not far from the surface has since become popular, for it is based upon proven facts. It is not claimed that values are never mined below an elevation that is a thousand feet from the surface. There are many mines, and great ones, too, that are operating at depths greatly exceeding this distance; but in these same mines there will be found valid reasons for not applying the general statement to their particular cases. For instance, the great copper mines of the Keweenaw Peninsula are productive at depths of a mile or more from the surface; but we believe that here the ore must have been originally deposited at, or near, the surface, that it was then overlain with rock strata; and subsequently steeply tilted by earth movements which carried some of the ore bodies down to the depths where they are now found.

The "reefs" or bankets of the Rand are so termed because these ore bodies were undoubtedly ancient coast beaches or sea placers. The gravel, sand, and gold particles were cemented together into a conglomerate, then covered with many later sedimentaries, and finally the continent of Africa was so raised or altered in some manner as to bring these gold deposits into their present inland and tilted positions.

In veins or lodes, it is not supposed that ore-making minerals could have been precipitated from solutions travelling either upward or downward and obeying chemical laws if the depth were sufficient to furnish great temperature or high rock and hydrostatic pressures. Therefore minerals which were deposited from aqueous solutions rising from depths, for example, must have retained their dissolved condition until they ascended to horizons in which both pressure and temperature were low enough to permit the precipitation and crystallization that create ores. Contrarily, descending solutions must have given off their contents before reaching the deep zones of heat and pressure, or not at all.

It is a quite common phenomenon to observe that the richest gold ore in a mine is found close to the surface, if not actually at "grass roots." The explanation is simple. The gold, being the most stable of the aggregate of minerals composing the original ore, has the better resisted the corrosive attacks of atmospheric agencies and has remained nearly intact, while its associated minerals have been dissolved or altered and carried away. The same amount of gold remaining with a diminished quantity of the worthless, non-metallic minerals—the "gangue"—inevitably renders the ore richer per unit of weight (such as a ton), although per unit of volume the value remains constant, or nearly so, so far as the gold is concerned.

But with other kinds of ore, as, for example, copper, the best grades are found, not close to the surface but some two hundred or more feet down. The explanation is that the minerals of copper are considerably more soluble than the ordinary gangues and therefore the weathering and oxidation that takes place in the upper horizons of ore bodies will dissolve out the cupriferous compounds and thus deplete the superficial ore. But, by the flowing of the copper solutions to a lower zone, there occur certain reactions that reprecipitate the salts of copper upon compounds of the metal already formed and we have instances of the phenomenon known as "secondary enrichment."

Concentrator Division, Washoe Reduction Works of the Anaconda Copper Mining Co.,
Anaconda, Montana.
Largest Copper Works in the World.

It was this very process that effected the changes in the character of the ore in the famous Anaconda Mine, previously mentioned (page 44). The locator's discovery was upon an outcrop rich in silver. Probably the original compounds of the vein were of both silver and copper. The silver was more stable against dissolution than was the copper, with the result that the base metal was removed more rapidly and completely than was the precious metal. The upper portion of the vein was therefore left rich in silver, and low in copper. But, as depth of mining increased, there was found a gradual diminution of the silver content with a simultaneous increase in the copper. The mines of Butte have become known as copper mines, and the wonderful records they have made are ample testimony to the fact that the change in the prevailing metallic values has not wrought serious havoc in the mining industry of the district.

Regarding the probability of veins persisting to great depths, there is this thought suggested by J. E. Spurr: "Owing to the pressure exerted by gravity, it is doubtless more difficult for a fissure to stay open in depth than near the surface. The tendency is to press the sides together. At a certain depth, it is probably the case that the pressure and the plasticity resulting from this, together with the increase in heat, makes it impossible for fissures, fractures or any openings to exist."

There are still many persons who are reluctant to let go of the cherished notion about the improvement of ores with depth. But there is no economy in deceiving one's self, and the wise thing to do is to accept the truths as they are daily proven. It may be worth while to again refer to the wonderful Camp Bird Mine. This mine was discovered in its true worth years after it had been abandoned by early prospectors because it lacked showy, base-metal minerals. However, since its true merit has been recognized, it has maintained large and remarkably rich annual outputs. As values were beginning to show a material decrease, about five years ago, an experienced mining engineer of recognized standing was engaged to give advice concerning the future exploitation of the property. After exhaustive investigation of the ground, and in the face of adverse opinions, he recommended the discontinuance of further development in depth. At the same time, however, he advised the exploitation of the ground laterally or along the strike of the very persistent vein. His advice was followed and the company's stockholders had reason to be advocates of the new theory; for a very reasonable amount of horizontal development work opened up vast stores of rich gold ore.

And yet, notwithstanding this disquieting feature that seems to apply to mining, there is comfort to be found in the consideration of the exceptional cases. Every man may hope that when he locates a new mine he is taking possession of a property that will have as extensive ore bodies as those that have been proven to exist in the lead-silver mines of Laurium, Greece, the quicksilver mines of Spain, or the copper and tin mines of Cornwall. These mines are in lodes which have persisted and have been mineralized to comparatively great depths, so that their bottoms have not been reached.

There is a modern idea that has taken root in the minds of mining men of the last generation to the effect that the mines with rich ore are not necessarily the ones with big profits. There are many men looking for investments in mines whose contents are of low grade but in large bodies readily worked. If a mine with rich ore can be found and the ore abounds in such liberal amounts as to warrant the inauguration of a company with the essential working equipment, such a proposition will naturally not be turned down. However, the faith of some men is placed in those mines that may be operated upon very large scales for long periods even if the profit per ton be very small. With a large plant, the unit of expense, i.e., the cost of mining per ton, is less than with a small mine. With the assurance of regular outputs of ore of a reasonably uniform grade, the milling equipment can be planned to handle a mine's product to the greatest advantage. The Alaska-Treadwell Mine, on Douglas Island, is an instance of a splendid property that has been continuously operated for about a third of a century. The ore is low grade in gold but immense dividends have been declared because the ore body, a tremendous mass of eruptive rock, has lain in such a position that the owners found it possible to excavate the stuff, to a great extent, by open-pit methods, although not by using steam shovels. The ore is treated in a vast mill contiguous to the mine.

The Homestake, another gold mine, has an ore body quite dissimilar geologically from, but of dimensions approximating those of, the Treadwell. It is a great body of mineralized, crushed shales, standing steeply in the shape of a lode and carrying about $3.75 per ton. It has been followed down considerably over one thousand feet and although the grade has dropped somewhat with depth, there are known to still be millions of tons in reserve. According to estimates, the mine has enough positive ore in reserve to keep the mill running at the rate of 4,000 tons per day for several years even if no more ore were to be opened up. This ore nets but 53 cents per ton above all mining and milling expenses; but a little arithmetic will show that this mine is worth twice as much as the mine that is producing, with more or less regularity, an average daily output of, say, forty tons of high grade ore upon which there is a net gain of $25 per ton, a figure that is rather high for the average of so-called "high grade" mines.

We must, therefore, decide that it is always wise to think twice before condemning a mine because its grade of product is low. It is only recently and by virtue of marked improvements in metallurgical processes that many bodies of mineral have become "ore." Hence it is but natural that many of the older miners fail to grasp the possibilities that lie in such deposits.

What is the line of value separating a low grade from a high grade of precious metal ore? There is no uniform practice along this line. One will notice that ores are nowadays spoken of as high grade that, before the practice of mining these described meagre deposits, were reckoned as low grade. This fact is due to two reasons, viz., the cheapening of metallurgical operations, and the greater respect that is entertained for ores of low metallic content. The Esperanza Mine, in Mexico, is called a high-grade gold mine. Its ore has averaged about $33 per ton and the profit therefrom about $19. The Oroya-Brownhill Mine, in western Australia, has had ore that carried a value of about $22 per ton and from it a profit of about $15 per ton was made. In the Cripple Creek District, ores that run above $30 per ton are considered high grade. This means that the average rich ore shipments of the district have a gold content of about 1-1/2 ounces per ton. The expenses of mining, freight, and treatment will probably total close to one-half the gross value, or about $15 per ton.

When one speaks of $30 or $40 ore as rich or high grade, it is not to be inferred that there is no ore in the shipments which is not worth a great deal more than this amount per ton. Such lots of ore will, no doubt, contain a great many chunks that would assay many times the average value. Such selected materials would not, however, be samples; they would be what are called "specimens." The specimen has its place in mine economic discussions because it furnishes the basis of operations for the ubiquitous "high grader" with which nearly every new and rich mining camp must contend.

Some writers claim that the high grader is a product of modern conditions; but we find that he has existed for such a long time that he was given mention by the Scotch historian and scientist Andrew Ure, who wrote of the precautions that were exercised in working the graphite mines of England, a century ago, to prevent the pilfering of even this comparatively low-grade material. Even the ignorant African natives of today cannot be trusted to wear clothing while working in the diamond mines. No, the cause of high grading is the innate greed of human beings and it has existed from prehistoric time and among all peoples.

In this discussion as to grades of ore, the question may arise as to what might be reasonably considered the most attractive kind of a mining proposition. This is too knotty a query to be answered in a few words. There are so many different phases that must be given due weight. Every mine is a problem in itself. The Minnesota mines afford the best examples of profitable iron mining. Under the classification of underground, tabular deposits such as veins or lodes, no matter in what metals their values are found, Mr. T. A. Rickard believes that the ideal mine would be one carrying ore worth $10 per ton, in a body five feet thick, with costs not exceeding $5 per ton, and so mined as to keep one million tons continually in reserve. According to these restrictions, he thinks the Robinson Mine, of Johannesburg, will about fill the bill as an ideal gold mine. It has a deposit of about the right thickness to avoid excessive timbering expense and this ore body is in such a vast, continuous sheet that its superintendent can depend upon maintaining a systematic development that will assure a constant supply of ore to the immense mill for ten or twelve years in advance. This same ore averages about fourteen pennyweights (approximately $14) per ton and upon this there is assured a profit of over five dollars per ton.

[XIII
VALUATION OF MINING
PROPERTY.]

Whenever a piece of mining property is to change hands, it is the proper procedure to employ an expert engineer to investigate the ground and the improvements and so arrive at some estimate concerning its intrinsic value. Nobody is infallible and it is a trite saying that "nobody can see into a mine farther than the last drill hole." But there is a great difference in the reliabilities of reports made by trained and by untrained men. A self-styled "expert" of the type which is so abundant in every new mining centre and about cities frequented by mining investors will probably not be able to comprehend anything beyond his vision; but the mining geologist and engineer—the man who has devoted the better part of his life to study and experience along these lines—will be able to reach conclusions upon which much reliance may be placed. This fact has come to be recognized by the men who exercise business judgment in their mining investments.

The sampling of mines has been studied and improved upon by succeeding engineers, until one may say that it is conducted along strictly scientific lines. The old method of taking a sample of a mine by scratching ore from the sides of a shaft from top to bottom and letting the collected material at the bottom represent a fair average of the ore body, has been relegated to its proper place in the evolution of mine valuation.

Without entering into a description of the methods now employed by the best examiners of mines, let it be said that every scientific precaution is taken to obtain representative portions of the ore bodies, at such intervals as seem best in each particular case; that measurements and assays are made for each and every sample taken and not for the aggregate of all the samples; that no opportunity is allowed unscrupulous persons to vitiate results in any manner; that a professional engineer will not hold nor acquire, in any way, an interest in any proposition which he examines; and that the report of a reputable engineer is equally acceptable to the seller and to the purchaser, no matter for whom the work is done.

Much discussion has prevailed as to the best means of estimating the amount and the value of ore in unbroken reserves. Associated with these beneficial disputes, there has been a further controversy as to the correct classification for reserves of unbroken ore. It is now conceded among mining men and engineers to be improper to longer make use of the meaningless but tongue-worn expression "ore in sight" as signifying any known or unknown volumes of ore in the ground. The only ore in sight is that which has been hoisted or which has been broken and stored underground. Well-known engineers have proposed the following expressions:

To denote the contents of ore bodies which have been exposed on four sides, we may say ore blocked out, positive ore or ore developed; for bodies exposed upon three sides, it is considered correct to describe the contents as ore partly blocked; for such bodies as are proved upon two sides only, the terms ore faces, ore developing or probable ore are appropriate; while in speaking of all ore that may be expected or suspected, but which is beyond the last exposures, we may use the expressions ore expectant and possible ore.

When it comes to the question of placing a value upon an undeveloped property—one in which there is little, or no, development work or exploitation—it takes more than the ability of the common "expert" of the curbstone variety to arrive at any dependable figures. Without any exposures, except those that may have been produced by Nature, and perhaps with no guidance from facts that might be obtainable were there adjoining mines, one might suppose that the whole matter would resolve itself into mysticism. Right here is where the trained man best shows his ability.

The greatest error of the usual investor in mining schemes is to rely upon either no report at all or upon a worthless one furnished by an impostor. In no sort of a mining proposition is a reliable report so essential as when one is contemplating the purchase of a "prospect." Successful engineers, whose predictions concerning such properties have come true, are sometimes complimented (?) by being accused of possessing intuition or prophetic vision. Call this ability what we will, we must admit that education and training give certain qualifications that will enable a man to arrive at conclusions which, in the majority of cases, will be found to wear.

[XIV
THE MINE PROMOTER.]

With the thought that has justly been given to the place occupied (or that should be occupied) in the world's financial and economic affairs by legitimate mining, there has developed a well-founded stigma upon the operations of a class of persons who have styled themselves by what was formerly considered a worthy title, that of "promoters." Since men have found that it is as possible to go into a mining deal with the same chances for success as attach to any other line of investment; since it has been proved that real, worthy mining property does not require the exertions of many middlemen to obtain capital for its development; and since it has usually turned out that these "promoters" have handed the hot end of deals to their investors, it is not to be wondered that some sort of a brand would attach itself to the men who are not in the business to benefit the industry of mining in the least, but really for the selfish gains which they can pocket at the expense of the industry.

These men are legion. The mails are laden with their seductive letters and "literature." Brokerage firms are numbered among these leeches on legitimate mining. Charlatans appear almost daily upon mining scenes. The men who engage in these deplorable practices are not from any one walk in life: they spring up from various branches of our social structure. The general public has learned that a very prominent Boston magnate will not scruple to promote a mining property even though it lacks the merit essential in attracting the conservative capitalist. Thousands of people of small means throughout the United States and Canada have been recipients of nicely worded and familiarly-addressed letters signed by the son of a famous American author. This son, himself a writer of some repute, presumed to speak to his "friends" concerning a mining property which he promoted and into which he was glad to allow them to get with him "on the ground floor." He frankly stated that he was not offering such privileges to the big capitalists. He inwardly knew that such men do not require holdings in the Cobalt or any other region. Through the splendid work carried on by the Government postal authorities many of these frauds have been exposed and the perpetrators brought to justice. In January, 1912, the above-mentioned author, together with a number of his ilk, were brought before the Federal Grand Jury, and found guilty.

It is not the men of great capital who are induced, as a rule, into the deals of the "promoter." It is usually the common people, the persons of small means who have saved up a little spare money from which they hope to realize competencies for rainy days—a class of beings inexperienced in investments—who become the dupes of the promoter.

There have been notable exceptions to the statement that capitalists do not yield to the seductions of these men, but recurrences are liable to be few. The great business man is fortified by experience against forms of treachery and he is, therefore, not so susceptible to the allurements of any "promotion," be it mining or otherwise.

If one investigates these advertised mining "promotions," he will often find that the money paid in by the small investors purchases a very small portion only of the capitalization. The men who conceived the scheme of "promoting" a concern have carefully arranged to hold a majority of the stock, so that should there, by any chance, prove to be a mine, they are the ones who will reap the greatest benefits. Further, it often transpires that the contributions of cash that purchase the small interests do not perform the function of development for which the stock was ostensibly put upon the market. Perhaps somebody has a desire to get rich quickly. The operations of such frauds are so obscured and so complex to the average individual that sufficient evidence can seldom be procured to prove any violation of law.

A witty newspaper paragrapher once remarked that out in Nevada the old adage "Death loves a shining mark" was changed to "Death loves a mining shark." It would seem, however, that if Death were to love the person bearing the odious, well-understood title of "shark" enough to claim him early, the business of mining would be materially benefited. The post-office officials of the United States are to be commended for their efforts at curbing the despicable operations of these fakirs. Occasionally the papers come out with the news that a firm's offices have been raided and their business stopped. These news items fall as awakeners upon the hundreds of gullible, middle-class persons all over the country who are known to actually force their cash remittances upon these fraudulent operators, much upon the plan of a department store's supposed bargain sale.

In spite of the "bad name" that has been attached to the persons engaged in starting up enterprises, there is a real need for more activity in the matter of inaugurating real, legitimate mining enterprises. Persons who devote their brains and energies in the direction of furthering worthy mining propositions do really "promote" the interests of such companies. What shall such persons be called if not "promoters"? There does not seem to be any other word that expresses the occupation of such persons. The real solution of this dilemma in which the honest men engaged in such work find themselves placed is to denounce, forcefully, the charlatan as being not a real promoter but a gross misrepresentation of one.