OCR Text |
Show . FAMOUS MINING STRIKES By THOMAS E. STEWARD ,-5-4"5-444.45.4.4.4.4-4j.4i "Discovering" Salted Mines pROM the earliest days of mining the practice of "sailing" a mine, or dropping Into the pit. or test ore, some material of an average value far above that which the ground actually contains, has been one for prospective buyers to guard against with all their wits. "Salting" probably has succeeded suc-ceeded thousands of times, and in thousands of other instances the examining ex-amining expert ha3 been keen enough to detect the attempted frauds. Some years ago a young man with a high squeaky voice, whom the miners min-ers thought to be effeminate and probably prob-ably an easy one to "slip something over" on, was sent Into a -western state to examine a placer deposit. The owners had salted several pits and expected him to take the bait like a trout. When, therefore, the examiner asked them to go off for a day's hunting, hunt-ing, as he wished to dig his own pits, they were more surprised than pleased. But next day he allowed the men to go to the river witli him while he washed out his collected Samples. While he was washing, the owners of the property showed great Interest In the proceedings and crowded around him. While one of them distracted his attention for a moment, another would slip some gold dust into the pan. This they did ten times, and every time, when he had come to the bottom of the pan, he reported no gold -whatsoever. Finally he stopped work. "Gentlemen," he said, "I regret to say that there is no gold at all on your property." They could not believe their ears, for they had put in the gold themselves. The explanation was that he had been alert to their action all the time, and had washed the gold out of the pan as fast as they put It in, so that nothing appeared ap-peared when he got through. It is related that in South Africa a group of overeager miners went so far as to install a stamp mill at a point where they hoped, but did not know, that gold existed. They operated oper-ated the mill for some time, but no gold was found adhering to the stamps. Rather than admit that the stock was worthless, they decided to "suit the mill." They withdrew $4,000 in gold coins from a bank and gave It to an assayer to be run down into the form of bars, which they intended to represent repre-sent as the product of the stamp mill. In a day or two they received the bars, but found they were worth only $2,500. Naturally they were eager to know what had happened to the $1,500. "Oh, well," the assayer said, "It seems to me that the difference is no more than it is worth for me to keep my mouth shut about this matter." And they agreed with him, for there was nothing else that they could do. |