Show tale of the arl grindstone mine MI de BY FRANK C GREENB far be it from me to knock prohibition but in all fairness it must be said that if prohibition had come to nevada and utah in the early days this story might never have been written for the facts would not have materialized and im sticking strictly to the facts and john barleycorn is not here to embellish them now A bunch of the boys were hitting it up in the malamute malamate Mala mute saloon as friend service would put it when the story started that was away back in 1875 and just by way of bringing the yarn up to date I 1 might state that the second book is just in its incipiency since the play is about to be re enacted along more scientific and effective lines but as I 1 was saying the boys were hitting it up that was in Pio pioche clie nevada away back in 1875 pioche was some camp in those days much farther west you might say than it is now or should I 1 say that the east gone as far west as it has now essayist Assay some optimist well anyway there was an assayer in town about that time who was a little too friendly with the prospectors he was some optimist this boy he could find values to make one hesitate before passing up the poorest piece of ordinary rock ever brought in from the painted desert he happened to be the subject of general conversation on this particular night and in an alcoholic fit of civic pride the boys decided it was not for the best interest of fair pioche to have in the midst of an honest to goodness mining camp with a future as palpable a wildcatters wildcat erps friend as this here assayer acid test but this fellow had bought a few drinks in his time so some of his friends held out for giving him a chance they finally agreed to a primitive form of acid test it was easy to test an assayer A piece of an old grindstone that stood in front of the malamute malamate Mala mute or whatever the name of the dive was answered the purpose the gang broke a piece off and toted it up to the defendant then they went back for a few more rounds and made some t bets on the outcome grindstone was rich the friends of the acid monger lost for excitement over the bets downtown had not subsided when they received his report and say no wonder he hit the trail swiftly eight hundred and thirty seven ounces of silver to the ton was his written report of the assay he claimed to have made on that fragment of sandstone two more rounds paid for by the erstwhile friends of the chemical gentleman and I 1 then a red liquored committee served notice in the salt lake herald republican tele gram eram on that gentleman that his health would be best conserved elsewhere than in the confines of civically proud pioche would he go certainly but before he left hed like to know whence came that grindstone the information was easily obtained it came from leeds utah mormon traders had hauled it in with a number of others the assayer went and he went to leeds it was his arrival there that started our story leeds you must understand was in those days exclusively an agricultural community the mormons cormons who had come west in the early days were devoting their attention strictly to the agricultural possibilities of their country gentiles might fuss with holes in the ground but the mormons cormons would have none of it except to put in the time between harvests hauling supplies to the miners and prospectors As an aside it might be stated that casting up the accounts today shows they probably lost nothing in the long run by holding aloof from direct interest in the mines well the assayer landed in leeds and formed an alliance offensive and defensive with one john barbee and W T barbee his brother locates grindstone source after they had made their first move the mormons cormons of leeds may have felt toward them a good deal as did the whisky soaked patriots of pioche but they werf left unmolested as they proceeded to locati locate as a mineral claim a large body of ground on oil what is known as tecumseh mount in which is a little pimple on the face of the earth a lood good 1 1 deal similar to the descriptions of the messines ridge over which the allik alli have spilled blood in their holy holi cause how the thing was financed is not known but at any rate the grindstone coull try bore fruit our assayer hero and hia prospector friends sunk a shaft and put in a mill from that sandstone ledge they extracted more than worta wort i of silver it was plain white sandstone but lit in his assay of the grindstone the assayer had seen values and they existed in the ledge just as they had in the utilitarian fragment lethad he had put through his crucible nowhere else in the united states has white sandstone ever given forth silver in paying dunn town transformed the advent of our assayer friend was revolutionary to leeds it transformed a P peaceful easeful agricultural community into such a ripping metal camp as the pioche he had left the metal content of the sandstone was something almost unbelievable in a trice what had been just stone had become rich ore houses and fences were broken brozeit up to be put through the mills for the values they contained the barberes had scarce put their tecumseh mountain property on its feet when they started another project on white reef across the gulch from which they took a cold on white reef were located the buckeye last chance california maggie and kinner properties which pro produced deuced in the aggregate more than even more was produced by other properties and it is estimated that the silver reef district added between and to the metallic wealth of the world complications develop all went well until the sandstone had been stripped down to a considerable depth when complications developed which baffled the extraction processes of those days and 1888 saw the closing down of the last mill in the district quicksilver was used extensively in the amalgamation process employed As depth was reached copper values appeared and the copper ate up the quicksilver which cose cost 4 a pound it kept on until the loss amounted to three pounds of quicksilver for each ton of ore handled nothing under 20 ore could be worked and ultimately the story of silver reef was considered closed the harpies who had come to leeds for their prey vanished with the miners and again the district became a quiet agricultural community alex aiex colbath all was placid and pastoral until about two years ago when one alex colbath who knows a lot about mines and metals and is willing to learn more chanced that way the statement that 20 ore such as he found in the silver reef dumps could not be worked at a profit challenged his attention two dry dusty sweating years alex sometimes aided by W F snyder passed in and about the silver reef As a result the district is to be reopened based on his investigations and backed by his experiments colbath has worked out a process which is to save the values and make silver reef bear white metal fruit again how often colbath was about to give up hope of solving the refractory ore probably never will be known but anyway he and arrangements are now complete for the construction of a mill which will work at a profit ore discarded by the old time miners as worthless and will convert into ready cash the tailings that once went through the pioneer mills new method gets results is the method to be employed the experiments have developed that tl the ore is especially adapted to that process heated to a temperature of de grees centigrade the metals in the crus crushed lied dirt are transformed into gases which are passed off into cottrells cottrelle cot there to be caught by an electrical precipitating apparatus it is claimed that this method will save at least 90 per cent of the values and that any ore running over 10 a ton will be worked at a net profit of 6 enough ore is in sight to keep the mill running seven years handling tons a day this is including the tailings which colbath and his associates have acquired the dumps of ore which they propose to work assay from 10 to 27 a ton what they will encounter when they sink further into the reef and take out the ore abandoned by the old time miners because it contained copper is yet to be se seen the copper shunned then for its penalty on amalgamation is prized for its value under the new process so goes the story of the grindstone once told and ended the yarn of the grindstone quarried and shaped from the bleak hills of leeds by a mormon pioneer is about to be re enacted the barren sandstone will produce again |