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Show LEADVILLE. 'Tonus America" in Fall Blast. A Wonderful Camp and Still More Wonderful Town, The Character of the Mines. Leadtillb Ccl . Nor 9, 1S79. Editors Herald: LeadviUe is "way up" -10.300 feet. It 13 a consolation to know that we aie eo near heaven. LeadviHe, too, aa a city is Young America America under full sail, a strange mixture of vice and virtue, of wealth and poverty; motly crowd of strangers m a strange Uad. Tbe solemn cadence of the death march floats en ...4 ail nun juu Bsjc ma cause. Some one haa "croaked" ia the ever ready answer. In most mining campe they would have respect enough to eay "he has passed in his checks." The cortege patsw and the carnival goes on. Sabbath evening lets down the sable curtain of night, and the peal cl church bsli is heard above the din of buisy streets, where 30,000 people dwell. Tbe churches are full, the sidewalks crowded and the theatres and b&Ioodb are packed to overflowing, while the danje house baa its quota of those who "look upon the wine when it is red," ' and drink in the giddy mazes of the dance with Eve'a red-eyed red-eyed and fallen daughters; and tbe dance inferno holds high carnival until the curtain of night lifts and the flood gates of morning are open. Mingling here is the beardless face of boyhood and tbe gray beard of age; but where are the wives, the mothers and Bisters ? Spread out on a great, grand plateau at tbe foot of tbe oarbonato I Beds, ia a oity bo young in yeare, so wonderful in size, that it is marvelous to those who see it and fabulous to those who read of it. Structures ol stone and brick Beem to have raised as if with a magic hand, and business of ail kinds to have wheeled into line on the double quick, presenting a front solid enough for any dun and fascinating enough for the most fastidious. fas-tidious. Well might the poet have said: "With all thy cussednees thou art a daisy, O Leadville." But as I am not much of a oity j chap, I will tell you all about the mines just to please the children. chil-dren. The students of . geology geol-ogy are slowly reading up the great volumes of nature's hietory locked up in the earth. They ; bave found a page here which seems iobd hard to read twice with the jeame meaning, and with so many I possibilities and probabilities that I one gets slightly mixed in the solution solu-tion ol tbe problem. Prof. A, says: j "Let ua suppose that a period prior to an epoch ol which we are to speak, did exist. Now let us take a drink." Prof. B. says: "Old Mr. Carbonate did not take up hia bed and walk accoiding to command but went down to Leadville to take a smile, and from the very nature of the whisky he 'croaked.' " This theory I did not acoept, however, as after a careful examination I am of the opinion that the carbonate deposits got here first and in fact there ie conclusive con-clusive evidence that the deposits were either made before Rachel wepi, ur tjiso buoaequeot 10 luai memorable event, for it is cortain that tbe ore ie here at the present writing, but just where this system of carbonate beds begins, or just where it quits ia a question that the winged winds aoswer, "in a horn." Mining operations, however, begin where the streets of Leadville fade into nothinguesa, capped with the slab house just like tho one seen everywhere else, whu a clothes-line at the corner, and extenda southerly five or aix miles to the Mosquito range. The manner of development is peculiar to thia camp only, and is like prospecting a sandwich, as the ore i3 found in tbe contact of porphyry por-phyry and lime, which ia usually encountered en-countered at a depth of from fifty lo 200 feet, having a dip of twelve to twenty degrees easterly, and varyiog in thickness, owing to an irregularity of the lime or foot wall, from a seam to tweoty to thirty feet "of carbonate' and iron. Tbe average grade is good, and the ore smelts very easily; all tbe requisite material for flux is obtainable at reasonable rates. Thirty blast furnaces are in and about Leadville, from which 100 Iodb of lead bullion are moulded up every I twenty-four hours, worth from $300 to $500 per ton. A few years ago it was Baid that we could not smelt ore at these high altitudes. alti-tudes. It looks now as it someone bad made a mistake, but when a man gets it badly and wants to tell the world something, why don't the world stop and listen. Everything goes fast up here; everybody every-body lives fast, and some die in a hurry. Leadville, as all the world knows, is on California Gulcb ol old-time placer notoriety, and is forty miles from tbe end ot the track of the Denver and South Park road, and there will be rejoicing among men and mules when the iron horse ebail make bis bow to Leadville. As a mining camp this is the wouder ol tbe age, hut with the progress of the timea to-morrow may bring something more wonderful than ail. G. B. Moulton. |