Show grubstaking GRUB STAKING BY THE STATE until the proposition for the establishment of the grubstaking grub staking fund out of the public funds is more definitely worked out we do not feel disposed to treat the matter too seriously says the leadville colorado herald democrat A few years a ago 0 it will be recalled there was much enthusiasm of the kind worked up by the denver r papers over a similar fund raised by private subscription nothing practical came of it for the simple reason that men armed with a roving commission com and with assurance that their hotel bills and railroad fare will be paid are not go going ing to distress themselves too seriously in the matter of finding 9 mines the sooner the old prospector is relegated to the realms of poetry and romance or if retained thena simply as a relic of a bygone age the then priore intelligently the question of ore discoveries and prospecting can be approached bied if or any other sum is to be appropriated for prospect work it should be placed in charge of a com competent competed t scientific body compos composed ed of the states foremost geologists mineralogists and togo graphical experts and a competent mineral survey 0 of f the state made we do not imagine m that th this is sum or any s um sum will be available but it is well to consider just how a fund could be utilized for this purpose to the best advantage chance luck good fortune to say noth ing of the sturdy persistence i tence of practical miners have led to the opening of mineral deposits and the progressive development of the well known mining districts if as the optimist likes to believe there are still hidden treasuries of ore which suf surface prospecting will reveal ordinary common sense teaches that it would be wise to take advantage of every modern improve ment and to utilize whatever science has placed at our hands to find these deposits colorado instead of being an unknown wilderness a terra incognita is now accessible even in its remotest and wildest section if the supreme council of prospectors had funds at its disposal it should proceed to minutely chart the mineralized areas with t the th e aid of the geological experts who have at their dis enormous masses of data relating to geological structure that could be reduced to scientific order by looking out the avitable avi lable areas the actual field work is simplified and this latter could be done by the students of the school of mines and all others who cared to join the glasses and subject themselves to the direction of the chiefs of the prospecting commission these summer field parties should be equipped with field laboratories and the results of the seasons work in any particular block carefully recorded it would mean careful topographical surveys a tracing of the geological formations and a thorough testing of every mineral indication underground exploration work the sinking of shafts and the driving of tunnels mastbe must be done by private enterprise surface prospecting on a scientific scale can only deal with surface indications or possibly just enough digging to determine the extent and general character of a mineral vein of course much of the ground has been gone over all that a state prospecting commission could do would be to carry out the work systematically and under organized direction and on the most approved scientific lines there is little likelihood of such a plan being adopted but there seems nothing unreasonable in the proposition that the state as a measure of prudence should ascertain with as much exactness as possible its wealth its resources and the full extent of its patrimony it gets beyond mere grub staking it is an economic survey of its mineral resources resource s which private capital would eagerly develop it is a species of paternalism but that word is losing some of its terrors since we have observed some of its accomplishments in other fields |