Show prospecting past present and future by S F hunt the present participle verb prospecting means when applied as a term to mining broadly to survey and explore with less latitude to view or expect with reason to hope and narrowly to seek search look carefully and dig for veins and deposits of ore logically it is a process of reasoning by induction from known facts and causes to possible and probable effects and results the curved shadow of the earth on the moon in eclipse the washing ashore of two strange human bodies and other proven facts were the data presented to ferdinand and isabella by columbus which finally induced them to outfit him with ships and sailors to explore for a short westward route to the rich trade of china and india and which resulted in columbus discovery of the americas at that time the atlantic was called the sea of darkness and until his return nobody knew positively that the earth was round yet it had been proven inductively for a long time if not all of them practically every great discovery di covery and advance in science mechanics invention and human knowledge have been made by processes of inductive reasoning or exploring from the known for the unknown so prospecting is one of the primary processes of evolution and advance from a lower to h a higher order of things and those who accept the responsibilities and burdens of prospecting for the new things of worth are the wheel horses of human progress they are the atlases upon whose shoulders the world of others are borne the word prospect implies the idea of futurity an outlook or expectation worthy of exploring the explorer i or prospector then is one who employs inductive alss in his processes and methods of bringing t new things into ito use he is a trailblazer trail blazer for those wi who lo 10 follow a and nd prosper from his sacrifice work and discoveries the earliest prospectors marco polo christopher columbus and john cab cabot at were ivere explorers which is the broadest sense in which prospecting for the unknown can be used in the thirteenth century 1275 marco polo journeyed overland across the continent of asia from italy to china he also went on to or japan and discovered that country to the europeans columbus crossed the sea of darkness four enles nies it in search of india and finally died poor broken parted hearted and in disgrace because he failed to find any mines y and could not supply the spanish king with gold king henry the seventh consented to john cabets voyage to sarch arch for a short route to the spice islands in 1497 which resulted in cabets discovery of north america he aried back to england some indian traps two wild turkeys and the rib of a whale but no gold so henry and the e english forgot about the new world for years re ie sotos daring expedition iti in 1539 traversed the south from florida to the mississippi river river in in search of gold Q mines his expedition ended in failure and de sops ta body was buried in the muddy waters of the sippi which he had discovered instead of gold after founding the first F english settlement in ameri r a in 1585 sir walter raleigh was knighted by queen zabeth he introduced the use of tobacco and the rais rais 1119 of potatoes into europe but finding no gold he was rown into prison by bv king james after many years 1011 bement ne ment he was released by this money loving monr a ch ach and sent to south ameika to get gold and when 4 returned to london don without any gold the king felt so iut nn out about it lie he condemned and belie be headed abed poor old walter in the vernacular he got it where the chicken got the axe for failing to return with gold daniel boone built the wilderness road miles ion long over the mountains of tennessee into kentucky and the mississippi watershed this was the first road for wagons to choss cross the appalachian mountains boone died poor and old in missouri begging for a piece of land yet he won his niche in the hall of fame captain sutter living like a prince where sacramento now stands owned head of cattle and head of sheep at the time his sawmill saw mill man marshall discovered gold on the american river california in 1848 both sutter and marshall died penniless in a land of gold in the summer of 1807 people gathered on the banks of the hudson river to laugh and jeer at Ful tons folly his clermont steamboat but the cry of wonder winder and astonishment which arose from that surprised throng ashe she moves she moves echoed around the world again in 1844 after years of labor and privation samuel F B morse then a gray haired old man taught little annie ellsworth to send the first telegram from baltimore to washington what god hath wrought the congress that gave to construct his forty miles of telegraph lines ridiculed his plan as being as fantastic as building a railroad to the moon and finally there has been some laughing and joking about ford cars yet these great men were all prospectors and explorers in the field of science and applied mechanics the present in our own time discovery and invention have crowded each other in the field of science and mechanics the telephone phonograph moving picture photography the automobile the submarine boat and the are examples of modern developments these and kindred devices have revolutionized the work of the world and have largely supplanted the older outdoor forms ot of exploratory effort the discovery of the south african and alaskan gold fields are the only two recent happenings or events that have started general stampedes and excitements excite ments tono pah goldfield and cobalt had their days of favor fustian and noise but hardly passed beyond local excitements excite ments the big low grade copper developments have been the outstanding features of interest in modern mining the magnitude of these operations being nothing short of wonderful and the processes evolved for tile the successful treatment of these ores are quite as remarkable twenty years ago the idea of flotation was a nebulous possibility in the minds of half a dozen experimenters during the last seven years millions of tons of ore have been successfully treated by this process which could be handled in no other way but these accomplishments have hav e brought tile the mining world to the end of a cycle in the case of the big copper mines when a ton of ore can be mined transported by rail or train ten to thirty miles milled and reduced to bullion for per ton or for one tenth of the cost of producing a ton of potatoes the margin of possible reductions of cost in the future are insignificant and for the last twenty years all kinds of exploration parties and concerns have been trailing each other back and forth across the five continents and over the whole face of the habitable globe abe in search of new districts and deposits of the precious metals not much territory now now remains prospectively undiscovered for the surface globe trotting prospector to work on yet this is the golden age of the scientist and explorer they are to become the rich and powerful the dollar a year men of the present the future it is patent to all that mere roving around over the surface in search of mines is wasting time the outcrops have about all been discovered there is nothing in it any more for anybody so another direction is indicated now there remains only two more directions to explore the first is straight down and the second straight up the rocky crust in which veins and deposits of ore reside is in most places covered with a heavy mantle of wash and soil it is out of si sight ht below the surface there is no sense in in prospecting 6 the surface here the only right ands and remaining way is to dig down go down after the ore following this plan of exploration not many new districts will be discovered but a great number of new mines in old districts will be developed the future production of the metals largely depends on this line of work and the outlook is splendid yet it is easier said than done and it does not appeal to the ima imagination the prospector and field man can ride and ramble around and the going is fine over a thousand miles of country in half the time and for half the expense of sinkin sinking C a foot prospect hole it is going to hurt the prospectors and exploration concerns feelings like h 1 to realize and admit they must begin to dig down their only alternative is in going straight up going straight up stocktaking stock taking on the old year by january 15 1922 will impress not a few that their holdover assets consist mainly of a bad cold yet if this infirmity enables them to get an occasional wheeze it may be after all not a very bad cold it is reported the planet mars is the next new prospect field to explore and some big propositions are said to be in sight astronomers believe prospect prospectively prospective iv ely there are great canals and rivers of water broad stretches of f fall all timber wide aide valleys of rank grass and grain mountains of nickel ridges of silver and gullies of gold ib old up there and that for fo r years the martians have been shooting into space thousands of tons of nickel and meteorites to let their neighbors know what they have in stock to trade and that they 1 are out of gasoline and cant come down the martians want copper iron gas as and snuff in exchange for their surplus nickel silver gold and yag waddle pronounced with a swedish accent a drink unknown on this planet since our mythic ancestors ran out of ambrosia even now a party of astronomers are on their wa way y to south america to erect a great telescope to look up good landing grounds for the gravitated de ether boats which must be built to cross the new sea of darkness rolling between earth and mars some of these ships may be lost in space but it should take no longer time to io make the trip than it did columbus to cross the atlantic john has the gasnow gas now where are the ferdinands and isabellaa isabellaa to grubstake a crew of for the voyage to mars there will be who will want to go on days pay but there is one volunteer who will be glad to make the trip for one drink of yag waddle for 1922 the world wants a new ambition a new sensation a new star of hope and something new to talk about it needs an outlook to lift the stolid pall of sameness which hangs about like the cold rings of saturn and hovers above like the he t dense fogs of neptune a drink of yag waddle from the fountain of change to cheer it up les aves go 0 0 I 1 ll 11 A it C am ism 0 C ID C 0 3 j id a 0 C q au 0 X OZ 0 gu 0 cr 0 E 0 au TV sy cn VU r tm to 3 PV 0 t 0 0 N 44 W I 1 e ta qc 7 0 0 0 IPA ti en t n CL A PI aj |