Show NEW PROSPECTS rs AND BOOM TOWN S A prospect matter no how Pro promise has to overcome many handicaps and dif faculties before it can be classed as a ard pro and paying mine where financial conditions are not of the best and when an appeal has to be made t to 0 the investing public for funds to carry on development and to furnish equipment about the worst drawback that a prospect has to contend with is the boom town started on the strength of the splendid showing made in the new discovery or because of the promise of the district in which the prospect is located attracted by reports of a new discovery bordering on the sensational hundreds of get rich quick individuals flock I 1 into n to the district in which the strike has been made these immediately begin a townsite boom A few buildings are erected and mercantile and other similar institutions ar are e represented in the business of the new town this would be all right if this townsite activity would pause for awhile at this point but the boom goes on apace newcomers comers think there is still a big chance for speculation more buildings go up more lots are sold and it is not long before the new town has a population of from two to three thousand and this mind you upon the possibilities of a few prospects which have not as yet shipped a hundred tons of ore and which have bee been only super superficial fical ly developed while the payroll or the district would not reach more than fifty men of course with such a small income from ore shipments and the circulation med medium um curtailed to the earnings of a handful ol oi men about the only way for the town boomer to play even is to draw from the newcomer and from those who like himself are engaged in speculation rather than in legitimate mining or upon the earnings of mining properties this condition cannot last for long as the whole proposition soon settles down to a phase where the new community is living upon the money it brought in and it is not long before town tow 11 lots go begging at the original purchase sc price for there is nothing substantial so 80 far for the support of the town and its ats overpopulation over population when this period is reached there is a gradual abandonment of town tow and it is no lot holdings of every description long thereafter before there is as much of a stampede out of the new town as there was into a few months before and the of the tn finale of the boom witnesses a few b U 11 strongest mercantile institutions doing business a few of the staunchest believers le lievers III the e the camp still loo looking kin forward to what future will bring fo forth rth those who ha t left in disgust and they are in the gre gr majority spread the report far and that the bubble has burst and that the town and the mines are no good but one would say if the prospects the properties undergoing transformation and developing into real mines are really possessed of merit how can they be harmed by the rise and fall of a boom town in their midst As a matter of fact they are not harmed but how about their owners who must depend upon the assistance of outside capital in order that development may be carried on in order that equipment may be bought and installed capital is ever timid and foolish as well foolish because it is willing to invest in a good mining proposition when a townsite boom is on and timid about making the same investment when the boom is on the decline As if there were any connection of any im in between the future worth of a mining investment and the rise and fall of a townsite boom it is too ridiculous to even contemplate and yet it is often that the very life of a new mining district hangs upon such a feeble support and it would have been much better for such had the town never been started in time the prospects will develop into paying mines the nearly abandoned town will revive and will be proportioned in size and volume of business by the mine output and by the payroll but it would have been better for all concerned if the town had grown with the mines instead of overtop ping them at the very start |