Show the prospector and his burro by will C higgins the thundering of the stamps in the big mill up the canyon said the prospector to his burro is pleasant music to my ears and although we are in an isolated region where transportation facilities are not of the best there is every reason to believe that no difficulty will be experienced in getting the product of the mill to the nearest railroad as gold bricks can be toted down the mountain in a pack saddle or even in a gunny sack for that matter and a gold brick always looks like ready money to me and is never refused when put over a bank counter or the bar of the always welcome down in the little camp at the mouth of the canyon and a miner with a few nuggets of the yellow stuff in his pocket is never broke and is given the glad hand wherever he goes As you have fre quen aly observed I 1 am never more happy than when shoveling up the gravel in gold placer diggings or when I 1 am engaged in the running of a little gold mill and while there may be as much money to be made in mining for silver lead or copper there is always something so fascinating in handling the wall street metal that I 1 spend the greater portion of my time in the search for deposits of either placer or quartz in which gold predominates and the more free the ore or the richer the gravel the more I 1 am satisfied and pleased and I 1 believe that this feeling and preference prevails in the breast of almost every old time prospector and especially so where they I 1 leave the haunts of men and penetrate almost inaccessible regions far back into interior ranges in such places in many instances I 1 have found traces of these old timers and while they have L never developed big mines there is no question of doubt but that they have found rich veins and rich gravel from which they have taken gold far beyond their needs the result being that their desire for wealth being satisfied they have abandoned its source in order to turn their footsteps footstep s once again towards the cities and towns where they would be able to buy what was wa s to lo them unobtainable before for it is only with the miser that the hoarding of gold is a real pleasure but what is of great interest to me is the primitive methods employed in the recovery of gold from the quartz or in placer mining operations by these old time mining men of the hills in many isolated localities cali ties one may still find evidences of the skill and ingenuity of prospectors of many years ago and in my wanderings through the canyons and mountains mounts ins I 1 have of often ten stumbled upon the half buried remains of crude arrastias arr astras or little stamp mills from which undoubtedly many thousands in the yellow metal had been taken while I 1 have frequently found the remains of old sluice boxes along the course ol of small streams or near some unknown spring all of which goes to show that it is not always necessary to make a big investment in equipment me nt in order to receive satisfactory returns and no matter liow how crude the equipment for treatment may be if the ore or the gravel is rich enough the output will most always enrich the small operator some twenty years ago continued the prospector when I 1 was down in the mis quite range I 1 found the abandoned camp or early day miners that there were two of them I 1 could easily see as there were two old bunks in the little stone cabin they had built by the side of a great rock rear near N the cabin there was a water hole that held water a greater portion of the year while over a big boulder nearby there had been hung a spring pole to the free end or of which attached by a strip of rawhide there was a 40 pound iron stamp below the stamp a mortar had been contrived out of an old quicksilver flask the top of which had been sawn or cut off while near the bottom holes had been bored as an outlet for the pulp while a fine wire screen had been wrapped around the bottom of the flask or improvised mortar so that the feed could be retained until reduced to the desired mesh the stamp fitted into the mortar with but little play and as one partner worked the spring pole tile the other liand hand fed the little mill at the same time supplying the necessary water by means ean of an improvised pro dipper made out of an old baking powder can from the little mill the free gold pulp was fed onto a series of ripples after first passing over a very small copper plate and while the recovery was not necessarily high it was evident that the two men had taken out quite a fortune by this method and of this I 1 arn am quite confident as I 1 later on followed an almost indistinct trail that led to a prospect up in the hills and found the source of their gold bearing ore I 1 think it was a gash vein they had found and had developed by a tunnel that was in about feet the ore body was solid quartz twelve inches in width and going in the neighborhood of per ton but on the hanging wall side some two inches of the vein panned at least 1000 to the ton and it was this thi streak the men had been treating at the little mill of course it was slow work but if they only milled i t thousand pounds or even a ton a month they must have made big money as their expenses were com comparatively ively small wh while ale they were out nothing at all for labor jn in later years I 1 r revisited evi sited that section and after considers cOn considerable sidera die prospecting found the mother vein and while it was not as rich as the gash the old timers had worked so successfully I 1 was able to turn it to an oklahoma syndicate who have since developed it into a dividend paying mine to my mind however the pioneers of the mesquite Mis quite 1 te made more good money in working the gash vein than they could have taken out of the mother lode I 1 discovered for it was much beyond their means and ability to handle the big vein while they were able to work the rich streak in the gash easily and at a profit 1 I want to tell you old long ears concluded the prospector the word 4 success is only a relative term and I 1 am of 0 the opinion that the two men with their make believe stamp mill won as a much of a measure of success comparatively as if they had been able to put up a great milling plant and I 1 know they felt just as good and satis fled and there you are and then some |