| Show OPPORTUNIY Of Til MINING SHARK San Francisco July 31Tenderfeet who have been fascinated by the stories of wonderful riches in the Klondyke mines of Alaska and who are planning to reach the land of gold had better look out for the big brother of the greengoods man of the cities the film hammer the gold brick dealer and his numerous kindred They should be particularly on their guard if they have some money and expect to buy a claim or two as the ways of the gold mine fakir are exceedingly devious and excessively ex-cessively dangerous to the novice and sometimes to the expert Ill bet my hat said one of the lucky men who arrived on the Portland the other day that there will be more salted mines sold next season in the Klondyke than you could shake a stick I at in a month The fakirs were not there this season but theyll overrun theyl the place next spring and bits of land I that wouldnt show an ounce of gold to 100 tons will be sold at fancy prices With claims and parts of claims sell Ing freely at the rate of 1000 a square foot and paying bIg profits at that I I I ll4 L Uk r r 1 Iiu IIIIIIIM 1 vA1lcIi1 flPillll s1l4 jIj I IJ11gJiI4w5k hkIi4 I 1 iqd1 I I rs1 t ii ILf I p I 4ft I THE 3U2TOO 2OJST AND THE GREENHORN FEOYE TH CITY the fakirs will be able to get big wads out of the greenhorns and a really expert salter may make deals involving involv-ing millions I has been done before in less favorable regions than the Klondyke and i will be done there assure as-sure as gold is gold One of the simplest ways of salting such a mine originated in Colorado and has been worked several times with marked success The old miner has two claims one a half days journey in the wilderness and the other near the main group The latter he frankly says is the richer of the two and demands de-mands his full time He will sell the distant one very cheaply after its value has been determined by a practical prac-tical test He offers to go out with the stranger and spend a day on the claim panning the sand the proceeds of the days labor to be equally divided di-vided This is a fair proposition and if the stranger is fair game he goes Long before daylight the comrades start and reach the claim in time to put in a fair days work The claim pans only moderately well and at the end of I the day they have about five ounces of I gold dust worth about 90 They go back to town the stranger and the old miner divide the proceeds and the newcomer immediately sees visions of millions He figures that he can take S40 or 50 a day out of the mine without with-out any outside help The old miner says he will take 1000 spoUsash for the claim and he usually gets it Bright and early the next morning the new owner Is back on the claim panning the sand like a steam engine I c Everything runs splendidly for the first few hours and then the dirt grows rapidly poorer and usually before nIghtal the amount of dust found becomes be-comes infinitesimal The next day is worse than the preceding afternoon The bottom of the gold end of the mine seems to have dropped Jut but the innocent in-nocent keeps on working valiantly and at the end of a week has about three ounces to show two of them being the j fruits of his first days labor I he is wise he goes back to town in search of information and to talk informaton over the erratic showing in his mine Then the first honest man of experience he strikes will give a guffaw and shout the melancholy word Salted I How did the old miner salt the I mine Easily enough The common i method is to take a shotgun put in a moderate charge of powder and a quarter or half an ounce of gold dust on top Then he fires the gun into the dirt the gold dust scattering widely i wide-ly Repeating this a dozeh or 18 times i tme the old miners mine is ready for the 1 I I innocent The old miner can tell just where he fired the gold dust and the i i first days work there is sure to lead I to the recovery of most of the salting I This is one way the mining buncoer works but there are others In one I of the northern states of Mexico an English syndicate narrowly escaped paying 800000 for a mine that wasnt worth SO The money was sent over and deposited in a San Francisco bank and the payment was about to wa I b made when a halt was called by an American mineralogist The English I men had first sent over an expert who made a most caheshrdlu vbgkqffiffj made a most careful examination He spent two months on the work and ad his findings fully demonstrated the truth ot the sellers statements Without notifying the first expert a second expert was sent over and he spent some six months in the work First he visited several large American can mines and then he made a close study of the Mexican people with the result that he determined to trust none of them He decided to get the ore get or himself breakingit off with a pick and sealing it up in glass bottles os that if these were tampered with he would know of it by the braking of the seals He hired a old white haired I man decrepit and feeble and blind in I one eye to hold the box while he chippe oft the ore with the pick Noon No-on else was ollowed in the mine The bottles holding the ore were carefully shipped under his supervision to San Francisco wher they were tested and I when his report was sent to London I and compared with the other It Wa f un that it confirmed the finding of the first expert ton this the money was sent with instructions to pay the 800000 on the final condition that a well known American mineralogist |
