Show the pro prospector UP bector and his burro by will C higgins 1 I notice in many of the leading min ing publications said the prospector to his burro that much mu C h space is i 9 being devoted devo te d to th the 0 discussion as to the reason why there has been such a decline in prospecting during the past few f ew years and that quite a number who are airing their views on the subject give it as their opinion that practically all of the big surface veins and deposits have been already found and located that the day of the old type of prospector has been relegated to the dim and shadowy past and that hereafter pros pecking will be carried on upon a scientific basis meaning that in the future prospecting will be done with the aid of a field glass from the hurricane deck of an automobile or while riding through the mountains in ill a pullman ear car 1 I 1 generally am feeling in robust health most of the time continued the prospector but when I 1 read a lot of tommyrot like this I 1 feel a pain in my solar plexus which term being properly translated means in the breadbasket bread basket and then t too oo 00 1 I feel real bad for those who have been led to believe that all of the big surface mines have been discovered when there are isolated areas as big as some states in some of the vast regions of the west where the hand of man has never set foot and where other Com stocks other silver kings and other bunker hills will yet be found and without a question of doubt great discoveries will yet be made in mining districts which have been mined and prospected for years and it will be the old time prospector who will make these finds instead of the scientific man and it is more than likely that a patient old style burro will be packing his kit for him while he is making it the time has not come yet continued the prospector and will not come for a hundred years or more when the prospector and his burro will be crowded out of the mining game financial conditions and the very puerile attitude of the government regarding patent applications during the past few years may have had the effect of biting our activities for a period but dont you think for a minute that the old time prospector is a perishing race none whatever and what is more just let us have a cycle of good times once more and more favorable and just mining legislation and you will see the hills as full of prospectors as they were just after tonopah and goldfield were discovered and as for the country having been thoroughly prospected there is nothing to it and I 1 am willing to wager a er against a power drill that I 1 can go into any old camp in this western country and by careful prospecting find a body of pay ore in localities which have been overrun over run by mining men for a score of years or more you think this would be a good joke and state that such a discovery would tickle you as much as if you were to meet up with that old outlaw of a jack of yours in ili the hills unexpectedly but do not doubt or question my ability to do just hat chat I 1 have said I 1 could do for it is not more than five years ago that I 1 pulled down the jackpot jack pot on a similar proposition at the time I 1 speak of I 1 had been out in the hills for a month or more when one day I 1 stumbled into an old mining camp that had been practically i deserted this camp had been a hummer in its day and its mines had paid millions to their owners but had become practically exhausted it was an old silver camp and no one had thought of looking for gold bearing ledges in the vicinity the first night I 1 bunked in with an old watchman who was about the only man left in the camp in the morning we made the rounds of the old producers and at noon we catour eat our handouts hand outs cuts while sitting by a well worn trail that crossed a change in the formation the character of this change interested me greatly as it was so entirely different from that in which the mines of the district were located these being on well defined fissures I 1 asked my companion if this belt had ever been prospected his answer being in the negative and that it had always been believed that no pay mineral existed outside of the fis after finishing my lunch and taking a pull at my canteen I 1 made an examination of my surroundings and speedily arrived at the conclusion that there had been a break in the formation there and that a strong contact vein ran through the country for miles A few hundred feet up the side hill I 1 noticed a yellowish brown cropping which looked more like baked clay than anything else taking my pick I 1 soon removed the capping which was much disintegrated te and found solid formation which in reality was ledge matter breaking off a piece of this which proved to be rose colored quartz of flue fine texture I 1 found it to be lousy with native gold it took but a days work to prove the width of the vein and only a few more to locate a group of claims I 1 took the watchman in with me on the locations and in six weeks we had a carload of ore on the market that netted us to the ton in three months more we had a tunnel in on the ledge for a hundred feet or more and would have been mining and shipping today hut but for the fact that we had a good cash offer for a controlling interest this we accepted and a company was organized the mine has been steadily working ever since and we have been drawing down handsome dividends every quarter and more my discovery caused a revival of interest in the bhe district and a number of mines have been opened on the gold belt I 1 discovered it is no longer a dead camp but a hummer and it is a crime there to speak disrespectfully of the prospector no matter how lowly he may be ili 1 I want to tell you old long ears concluded the prospector the day of the old line prospector has not passed by any means he may be a negligible quantity just at the jre present sent time but believe me when a big mineral discovery is proclaimed ten or a hundred years from now you can bank on it that the find was made by an old prospector with patches on the seat of his pants and with his toes sticking out of his shoes and there you are and then some |