Show the pro prospector a 4 ector and his burro I 1 by will G C higgins this little patch of white sage we stumbled onto this morning said the prospector to his burro looked very tempting to you and although it was so small that it would not last twenty four hours you rather insisted on our camping there using as an argument in favor of your proposition that if the supply of white sage seemed like a handout from a starving prospectors prospector 8 pack you could make it go further ty by mixing it with a lot of the salt grass growing thereabouts which all goes to show that you are like many two footed imbeciles imbe ciles who imagine that a good dollar thrown in a lot of counterfeits will make the whole lot look passable or like many mining men I 1 know of who claim they can make low grade ore and country rock marketable by mixing high grade with it such men remind me of an old codger I 1 once knew who played every winning number open and coppered all the ones that lost I 1 see you do not agree with me and argue that it is economy to mix the good with the poor the high grade with the country rock as thereby the aggregate and tonnage is greatly increased but none whatever for it is such false reasoning as this that has led to many failures in business affairs and in the mining game 1 I once knew a man continued the prospector who neve really knew the true values of his ore bodies and who fondly imagined he had a bonanza in his property whereas he never was able to take out more than a few tons of shipping ore although he had a large measure of good looking rock to draw from the vein was from four to six feet in width but averaged but in gold to the ton and was absolutely sol so low grade that it was practically worthless in spots in the ledge there would be small stringers of an inch or two which by themselves would assay up to 50 to the ton but these enriched zones were tew few and far between like your periods of seeming intelligence this raan man however whenever he would encounter these bands and seams of high grade would take sam ples pies clear across the four or six feet fedj of the face and if the average was lie would go perfectly wild with delight for this was good milling ore eventually after blocking out several thousand tons of what was virtually country rock he put in a milling plant and told his backers to get their pockets full of bank deposit slips as he would be turning out dividends by the basket full before the end of two months you say that this was a fine hearted man and that you would like to put your clothes in his trunk and you are right as far as his being a good fellow was concerned but he was entirely off in his diagnosis of the value of his ore for repeated cleanups disclosed a recovery of only per ton while the mining and milling costs amounted to over 4 As for his backers they got tired waiting for velvet money from 2 ore and used their deposits slips to keep tally on for baseball and race track scores the poor man however never could account for the discrepancy he knew the tonnage had been put through all right and the ore some of it had contained material from the high grade streaks and he could never be made to believe that by his method he had impoverished the rich ore by the mixing without materially raising the value of the almost worthless he had been putting through his mill 1 I want wani to tell you old long ears concluded the prospector you cannot sweeten the ocean by pouring a bucket of spring water into it nor can you add to the value of a ton of waste by mixing in with it a pound of 25 ore you had better save the pure water and the good ore until you get a barrel of the former and a ton of the latter until you have acquired something of real value and there you are and then some |