Show the prospector and his burro it beats all said the prospector to his burro how much work people will put upon boys and kids of tender age I 1 have known strong men who judging half grown boys and young men by their own strength seem to think there is no limitation to the capacity and eno endurance urance of children and the consequence is we often see men who are broken down and who are all in who are enfeebled and incapable of a full days work when they should be at their prime you want to know what this has to do with mining well of course with your feeble intellect you have no idea of my pointing a moral to the tale but I 1 was getting around to it and had a number of illustrations lust rations in rn my mind when you butted into my narrative the point I 1 had in my mind and intended to make was this A really good prospect proves a failure because it is burdened in its young and tender age with more than it can stand it is not given the credit of being only a prospect but is made to stand responsibilities that an established and producing mine would stagger under to begin with the man in charge the manager or the superintendent imbued with the idea of his greatness falls fails to realize the fact that in nine times 0 out dt of ten the company owning the prospect cannot boast of a million in its treasury and probably has only a few thousand the however with manager or superintendent the idea of the immensity of a silver king of a highland boy of an united verde or of a bunker hill sullivan has the thought flickering through his rattle brains that his prospect must have the best there is going and straight forth he begins to equip it as far as he can with the same equipment that one would expect to see as the mercur the utah in such a property copper or the portland he does not begin with a little preliminary work to s see ee if the prospect has ore to see lee if it is worth extensive develop development me nt on the contrary ho workings he starts a long begins expensive tunnel he avoids proving up the surface that this is tho the de veins even if he knows sire of the company his camp must be like a parlor with every convenience obtainable tai though he is only developing a prospect a piece of ground the value of 0 which is yet to be determined his camp buildings are unusually substantial and therefore expensive the ordinary candle is not good enough for him in the evenings and therefore he has a rochester lamp or two with other comforts pertaining to a well proven enterprise and which are out of place where a mere prospect is concerned he has no idea of economy but he hasa great many wild theories of his own that he would like to prove and solve and therefore he keeps on developing everything else but ore to block out ore is what the company wants him to do but he is always trying to find out what is the source source of the ore instead of the ore itself the ore can wait and the company does too until its money gives out and the property is closed down nothing doing you say well I 1 should remark the kid prospect had more than it could stand under the load was too heavy it was too young and undeveloped to stand the heavy expenses that a full grown mine should bear therefore it died an early death and today is referred to as a failure and all because the thickheaded manager or superintendent would give it no chance because he would not consider it in the light of a prospect but as a proposition which would stand up under any load without a whimper something to spend bohey money upon in a lavish manner no matter what the financial condition of the company might be 1 I want to tell you old long ears incompetent men should not be placed in charge of the development of a prospect I 1 w would rather have your advice in a matter orthis of this kind than to trust some men who to all appearances are perfectly sane and levelheaded level headed but who dodie dodge the most important feature of mining operations 7 the finding and development of ore bodies and who spend long years and barrels of money in work which they should not do shying t away from the main object as you would shy away from a buck indian with a lariat in his hand and this is why many mining enterprises are a failure it is not the fault of the prospect but it is the misfortune of the company who has placed in charge of operation a man who does not know the value of money and who does not understand the first principles of real mining 1 |