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Show INTER-MOUNTA- IN AT LEADVILLE. Matters appear to be settling down at Leadville, although all danstate ger has not yet passed, and the mine companies say that the nontroops will be retained for some time yet. Nearly 400 men, all union, are at work in the mines, and many others are at hand to go to work. The mine owners refuse employment to any and all who will not give up their adherence to the Leadville Union. The result is that very few union men are applying for work, and the mines are filling up with strangers, many of whom are not miners. As a last stroke the union called out the pump men on Saturday, but the call was not responded to by but four men, and this last attempt to ruin the properties has met with such a signal failure that the strength of the union is regarded as exhausted. From present indications the strife, although it promises much bitterness in store, gives signs of an end in the next few weeks. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF ALASKA. James Edward Spurr, who made the survey of the Mercur district, accompanied by H. B. Goodrich and F. C. Shrader of the United States Geological survey, have reached San Francisco on their return from Alaska where they have spent the summer in compiling a report on the prospects of quartz mining in that region. After crossing the Chilcot pass the party reached the upper Yukon in June, and went down the Yukon, inspecting all the mining camps on their way. Their investigations lead them, to believe that there is a bright future for quartz mining in Alaska. They discovered that a large ledge, similar to the Mother Lode of California, ruus across the country from southeast to northwest, and it is on this ledge that they expect to see mines developed. From the dispatches it is apparent that the report will cover the economic as well as the general geology of the region, and it will he eagerly looked for. WESTERN ENERGY. A New York 'periodical says that all the great New York newspaper successes in recent years have been accomplished by Western men who have completely ignored the traditional ethics of Park Row journalism. The circumstance is regarded with wonder by the New Yorkers, but conveys no such impressions to the people of the West, who are accustomed to making marked successes. The explanation is easy. Western men are cast in a bigger mold, and the environments under which they grow to maturity are conducive to the fostering and developing of the very best attributes that men possess. In his native region the range of vision of the western man has not been limited. He has grown up surrounded with the wonders of Nature's mightiest efforts, and the granduer of his surroundings has made him so that no small thing can find a resting place in his soul, and his emulations comprehend vast and magnificent enterprises in keeping with the greatness of the west. Just now there is a notable example in the public eye of this dominating western energy in the person Of the democratic candidate for president. His canvass and his platform are evidence of how completely he has ignored all the traditional ethics of his party and of national politics, and when he is presideht he will just as completely ignore all the traditional ethics of Wall street financiering. It will be another great success by a western man. I 1 The story of the desertion by Harold Ackland of a party of twenty-two webfoots that he had led into the wilds of Montana on a hunt for a Wyoming valley containing fabulous riches in gold, shows that the suckers are still plentiful, and the bait does not have to be artfully contrived so long as it is attractive. The story is not very complete in details, nor is Aklands desertion before the prospectors had reached the rich valley, accounted for, but it is presumed that having worked the party for all they were worth he made his escape before explana- nations were necessary. The valley, according to his story to his victims, was found in the usual manner that is used in finding rich mineral countries by the authors of sensational literature, and was lost to the outside world in the same way, Ackland being the only one left alive who knew of its location. It was south and east of the Yellow MINING REVIEW. stone Park, was eighteen miles long and 600 yards wide on the bottom, and was all one big placer so full of gold that it could be shoveled info sacks. The dirt averaged $5 to the pan and the suckers figured that there were at least 90,000,000 to be cleaned up by keep, ing mum and standing in with Ackland. Wyoming has many rich placer fields, with some, probably, that have not been discovered, but existence of such an Eldorado within mining men will not claim-ththe boundaries of the state, nor will mining men be caught by the story as were the twenty-tw- o Oregon suckers. e The annual report of Commissioner Lamoreaux for the last fiscal year, has been tiled with the Secretary of the Interior. The report shows land selections for the year aggregating 13,209,000 acres, of which 6,789,591 acres were railroad selections. The acreage increase over the previous year was 4,802,673 and the cash increase $72,709, the total cash receipts amounting to $2,106,361. The railroads received patents to lands on grants covering 1 5,527,844 acres, being an excess of 7,343,508 over last year. Agricultural patents increased 2,684,380 acres, the total being 5,570,400 acres. The total number of acres for which patents were issued was 22,669,989. The surveyed vacant public land is 3 16,65 1,861 acres, the unsurveyed 283,388,810 acres, a total of 600,040,671 acres yet unoccupied. Of the surveyed acreage 8,908,808 acres were added during the, year. Recommendations are offered by Commissioner Lamoreaux for the good of the department, as follows: For the continuous appropriations for surveys and resurveys of public lands; for the creation of the office of surveof Alaska; for the establishment of a national irrigayor-general tion commission; providing for the compulsory attendance of witnesses in contests before district land officers; for the protection of timber on the public domain and on public forest reservations; and timber from destruction by fire. The report covers a review of the operations of the present laws governing the general land office. After having produced millions of dollars, the famous Drum Lummon mine of Montana is reported as worked out, and is llow being closed down on instructions received by cablegram from London where it is chiefly owned, and where Manager Bayliss now is. It is stated as one of the causes that led up to the closing down of the property, that when at the 800 level the vein forked, and as the forks were followed down to the' 1600 level the values gradually declined until the mine had become such a low grade proposition that there was no longer a profit in working it. Fifty men operating the Burleigh drills have been laid off, and the genet al mining force is being reduced by a systematic weeding out of the poorer workmen. The men who are retained are to be employed in the development of some of the many properties of the company located in the same vicinity, It is not known what disposition will be made of the big plant, and it is not known for a certainty when the mill will close down, but it is believed that it is intended to run it but a short time. They do things quick in British Columbia. Here is one from the Toronto Star in a special from Rossland, which for quick work and ready analysis will make the mining men of this region think themselves extremely slow : A body of ore thirty feet in width was struck yesterday in the Mayflower mine upon which the smelter returns last night put a value of $56 per ton. That is pretty swift mining that demonstrates in the same Jay that the strike is made that the vein is thirty feet wide, and gets out a lot of ore and runs it through the smelter before evening. In this country smelter returns are usually more than one day in coming in, but it may be different in British Columbia. The same report suites that the ore is chalcopyrite and that the quartz and galena are gangue. Here are a few pointers for some of Salt l akes curbstone mining experts. Judge Ritchie has handed down his decision in the Marion f suit. The decision takes as a basis the assumption that the M;u ion patent was issued on tne silver vein, and that the claim of extraterritorial rights on the gold vein opened up later could not be established The peculiar form of the Marion claim, being, as Judge Ritchie a twelve-sidefigure resembling a boot, makes it impossible, ac. to the decision, to define end lines to the property in harn ny with the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in sim ilar -- er ey-s- pi-s- ik Tiling d As end lines are necessary to establish the objection of the Geyser people is sustained, and as cases. extra-territori- al rights the silver bearing vein upon which the Marion is located does not pass through that can be considered end lines, no basis is presented for such rights. The decision met with popular approval as soon as it was anhouueeu.. |