Show the prospector and his burro f in our last conversation said the prospector to his burro we had considerable to say regarding the belle mckeever and other lost mines whose history is so hoary with age that it is moss mass covered and has longer whiskers than a billy goat I 1 also told you about an old lost mine I 1 happened to rediscover all of which you say you take with a grain of salt this attitude on your part I 1 must say is not at all complimentary to my integrity but I 1 consider the source and am not at all angry and so will class you with many men of my acquaintance who are so stupid that they are never able to distinguish the genuine from the counterfeit and who linger along through life with patches on the seat of their pants and an unfilled want in the pit of their stomachs merely because they believe in nothing and dis discredit crediC everything they hear but talking of these things witha with a grain of salt it reminds me that you have been to the salt lick lately and ami that you have since been as thirsty as the individual who has an insane idea that he was created to assist in the destruction of all the whisky in camp and this too makes me think of salted mines a number of which we have visited and investigated during the past year much to your disgust for your idea of an ideal life is to remain in some comfortable mining town where other burros are congregated and where you can have easy access to all of the garbage cans and slop buckets the place affords just like any other two legged bum but we were talking of salted mines and of the properties of this description which have come under our notice during the last year or so of course continued the prospector it IL takes the genuine article to properly salt a mine and the job is sometimes a costly one in olden times gold bearing quartz was very largely used for this purpose gold dust suggest nug gest and even filings from 20 gold pieces have long been the favorite salt with many of late years however gold in solution has been successfully used and these are all applied in various forms according to conditions necessary gold in quartz has often been used with success and more than one property in southeastern nevada five or six years ago was salted from the rich ore from the gold butte mine thin thia form of salting however is a risky undertaking for it is rare that gold quartz from one locality corresponds with the quartz found in another district several miles away and an experienced miner can readily distinguish between the two where ore is supposed to be free milling however gold dust is often successfully used and it is very frequently the case that the most experienced mining expert will be fooled in an instance of this kind and will recommend a salted mine to his employer for purchase I 1 see that you approve of salting and are of the opinion that the custom adds zest to the mining game which shows that you are greatly lacking in moral tone and true nobility for no man and not even a burro should countenance fraud and deception cep tion none whatever however to show you that such deception is sometimes discovered I 1 will tell you the story of the salting of the cerro eulalla eulalia mine down in bloody canyon a few years ago this mine which was owned by a mexican was offered to an eastern syndicate which was in the market for a big gold producer the syndicate was favorably impressed with the reports received concerning this property and sent some experts to make a preliminary examination A mexican miner was engaged to help and was assigned to the duty of quartering down the ore samples collected by the experts the ore was piled on a tarpaulin quartered down and a sample saved from each quarter the mexican had a brush broom with which be swept the fines to the confer of the canvass he was a busy man but not so strenuous in his exertions but that he had time to roll a cigarette every few minutes taking the tobacco from his pants pocket one of the engineers in looking back towards the greaser noticed by the light of his candle that every time he rolled his ci garrette he purposely spilled a lot of his tobacco on the whisk broom he was and that the ashes from his smoke were invariably dropped into the samples nothing was said however and that afternoon when the assay was made the ore went way up in its gold contents during the night two of the engineers engi neets went back into the mine unattended and the samples they took failed to show even a trace when submitted to test by fire it was afterwards found that one of the picks used in sampling had a hollow handle with a tiny hole on the underside under side near the head of the pick thus every time the pick was used a small amount of gold dust would spill out int into D the samples for the hollow had bad been filled with about half a pound of gold dust with this arrangement of ci garrette smoking for the tobacco was mixed with gold dust and the hollow handled sampling pick it was s pretty clear case that the samples would be pretty well salted viewed from any standpoint the vigilance of the engineer however let the cat out of the bag and the mine was turned down notwithstanding g the fact that the syndicate had made a pretty cash payment prior to examination a silly thing to do no matter how dig big and rich a property may be represented to be which all goes to show that murder will out sooner or later for if the syndicate had not discovered the fraud and had purchased the mine it would have very soon discovered that it had been cleverly imposed upon you say that a blind man ought to be able to see if a property is possessed of value and that even if it had been salted it might eventually with development prove to be a great and rich producer all of which is very true and your remarks remind me of an instance of this nature which I 1 will relate to you seeing that you are beginning to take some interest in this discussion which proves that even a burro can be roused out of his stupor if there is something interesting to talk about and anecdotes relating to mining should interest anyone who has an ounce of grey matter in his cranium or who desires to pull himself froni from the depths of poverty to a position of affluence and wealth the incident I 1 am going to relate happened in california a number of years ago and three were to be the victims of the salting of course this was a placer mining proposition and the orientals orient als were about to buy a placer mine owned by two white men on going over avei the ground the chinese were unable to get a color in their pans and the whole bartyl had become somewhat glum and gloomy suddenly one of the white men who carried a gun gull pointed to a rattlesnake rattle snake some five or six yards away the snake was coiled as it ready to strike and the man with the gun fired at once and virtually cut it into ribbons upon viewing the remains one of the white men suggested that a panning of the gravel be made at the spot where the snake had first been seen this was done and an ounce or so of coarse gold was the result A deal was consummated at once and the yellow men put into possession of course the snake was a dead one and had been coiled up in plain sight on purpose and it was an immortal that the shotgun had been charged with coarse gold but this was an instance where the salters were fooled for the took out thousands upon thousands in gold from the placers within the next two years and for all I 1 know they are successfully working it still 1 I want to tell you old long ears concluded the prospector all is not gold that glitters nor is every salted mine a failure but you can take it from me th that t many men will act dishonestly when it comes to the sale of a prospect or a mine mille abid an d there you are and then some |