| Show BALLIET TELLS NEVADA MINERS WHY SO MANY OF THEM LOSE OUT at a club luncheon in tonopah a short time ago letson balliet consulting engineer addressed the assembled membership upon the subject of nevadas minin mining b situation he said it nevada is a big state so thinly populated with many parts so remote from water supplies and transportation that the state has been only superficially prospected prospectors have not been able to carry water and supplies into these remote and inaccessible places in sufficient quantities to stay for any length of time perhaps here and there they have broken a corner off some rock ledge or boulder without much if any digging below the surface gold prospecting cannot be done without a mortar pan and a tub of water true specimens can call be carried to water holes for panning but even so if the prospector undertook to carry a specimen of every thing that he would pan if water was ivas handy he would soon have himself loaded with hundreds of pounds of rock moreover the very ones he failed to carry to water might be the ones that were the best because every specimen show the metal and again abrain z when he does arrive at a water hole with a hundred different specimens to be panned he may find one specimen of great areat value but it ia has become mixed with others and he has forgotten just where he found it frequently this leads to tile the story of ot another lost mine I 1 no one knows this better than the men who roam the desert why prospective mines are lost cowpunchers Cow punchers riding riding z tile the ranges and sheep herders gerders tending their flocks have frequently b gathered specimens but usually without marking the place if some mining 2 man mail Is shown the collection who finds among the specimens a sample of valuable ore it is seldom that the finder can return to the spot perhaps it was the only piece that was e exposed at the surface if a little trenching drenching tren ching or digging h been done it is possible that the vein from which it came could have been found but let him try to go back onto the desert to find the spot for trenching drenching tren ching and he many miss it by many miles in fact he might be mistaken in the piece of rock mixed with the others to such an extent that lie he has gone in the wrong direction that is what I 1 mean by superficially prospected I 1 think as civilization and settlements encroach upon the remote and inaccessible places more thorough prospecting will uncover unknown veins that the migratory prospectors pec tors cowpunchers cow punchers and sheep herders gerders cannot find in their Avander wanderings ings over the surface in quest of high grade I 1 mean by that to convey the idea that most but not all of the places where the rich ore veins have come through to the surface have been found and that nevadas future mineral production will avill be greater and more important than ever when miners dig for it below the surface instead of depending 6 upon the migratory Z fortune hunter roalin roaming 6 the surface again we find that the fortune hunting prospectors do not consider many showings b s because the specimens are not rich enough the low grade propositions that would be the most profitable and mean the most to nevada are not reported at all nevada mines have made money like tonopah To goldfield and the comstock where the tonnage production has been sometimes less than one ton per man on the payroll and from that up to two or three tons per man if y you ou stop to to think you will ivill realize that a ton per man makes the labor cost along 5 to 6 per ton nevada has much in reserve that has never even been considered where modern methods will permit the production of six tons per man on the payroll at a cost of 1 a ton therefore nevada has more to expect from aroi n the economic in mining ining of large ore bodies found at greater depths than it ever has had from the superficial prospecting and fortune hunting in rich deposits thus far the prospector has not brought in in the 5 and 6 propositions they been rich enough for him even to see them without pausing even if he does find them he cant sell the claims because the desert settlements are filled with fortune hunters who rush to rich strikes but who have not the means nor the connections necessary to finance a big low grade proposition nevadas best is yet to come |
