OCR Text |
Show i e . jrva ? f ator 10.0os- -.0 ? FROM 39 JV Vft 11 .. .0f.....' tr cj 4, r . tav t .0.0T, 4 0- - f y.j MINING DEPARTMENT ll ACTIVITY IN NEW 3IEXICO PLACERS. J v fc,,.fclky, mrmr LAXD OF SHINING GOLD. JS vR tS JS St -- (Sitka, Alaska, Letter ) gold in a hith-rt- o unsuspected country has made piillionaiies out of poor men. In a minute from poverty they came into affluence. The United States will have more than ever, more plutocrats, and more "sudden riches. Canada has not struck it so rich, for the successful prospectors have almost without exception, been United States citizens and residents of the states. In the sudden making of millionaires it is difficult to tell who has struck it richest, aciounts are so widely divergent. But all agree that no accounts have exaggerated the facts, so far as the finding of great quantities of gold is concerned. The lichest man among the new Alaska millionaires is Joseph Ladue, the owner of the town of Dawson, and the finder of enormous gold deposits. Ladue is a resident of Schuyler Falls, Clinton county, N. Y., where, it is said, he is soon to be married to an old sweetheart whom he could not before afford to wed. When the gold fever broke out in a mild form two years ago he went to Alaska, after a failure in the Black Hills, and found enough to tell him of greater things later on. He returned to his home, hut later went back to Alaska, took up a claim in the very heart of the country, paid for a certain quantity of land which was then for sale at a very low figure, and started in to look for gold. His first find brought settlers there by the dozen. "Dawson the place was called, and as the owner sold off small portions of the land his fame grew and spread. He now owns Dawson, having sold but little, and is so many times a millionaire that his wealth cannot be estimated. He is the Barnato of Alaska, the man who struck it rich, and, knowing a good thing when he saw it, held on to it. It is only another tale of South African luck, but much nearer home enviously near. The rush to the Alaska gold fields is such that all outgoing steamers are filled far in advance. These steamers run intermittently after the cold weather sets in, and there are long intervals when few Alaska voyages can be made. This accounts for the awful haste to reach there before the inland waters become nnnavigahle. There is also an overland route, but this also becomes impracticable after awhile, owing to the lack of traveling accommodations and the long distances that must be gone over without finding a habitation. Alaska has never been "settled, owing to the great cold there, but it is thought that it might in time be made as livable as any of the other cold cities, and, indeed, as St. Petersburg or Christiania or any of the large cities. But this is quite a step ahead, though not at all improbable. At present, if you want to get to 'Alaska and become a Barnato, there are two ways of going. One is by soa and the other is overland. If you take the sea route you can start Ly steamship from Seattle, if you have been fortunate enough to secure accommodations ahead, and crossing the Gulf of Alaska, touch first at Unalaska, passing through the Aleutian Islands. From there the route lies directly north, getting colder and colder every minute. Here you will need all the arctic wraps you have brought with you. The ships fare will be warm, nourishing food cereals, chocolate, meats and spices. But for all that, you will need fur overcoats, fur hoods, blanket wraps, woolen d mittens and big, warm, bags In which to sleep. For one going from a very warm city Into this region the change is so great and so sudden that there is sure to be great suffering, and Barnatos turn many of the would-b- e back here. The crew, on the other band, enjoy it, being accustomed to a polar latitude for you are now approaching the pole. In spring the weather would be getting daily warmer as the season advanced, but now you would find it steadily growing more biting. The steamship stops at St. Michaels; and here, within sight of Behring sea, almost within hailing distance of the Behring strait, you leave tho steamship and start inland to search for gold. The Barnatos have The sudden finding of es - 5 J8 tK :Jt nearly all followed the Yukon. It leads into Klondvke, and one of its tributaries is the Klondyke river. Dawson, Joseph Ledue Barnato's town, is on the Yukon; and Circle City, another rich spot, lies on Its banks. Land is for sale here very cheap. Or you can do as many prospectors in hunting for gold have done-s- tart without making too many Inquiries. The find is so sudden that there is no sharp line drawn between that which is sold and that which belongs to the United States, and a man is free to hunt wheie he will. For your own comfort, however, It is well to have some definite arrangement made with the nearest authorities, so as to avoid trouble in case of a rich find. Another way to reach the gold fields is ly the overland route. Many journey this way in wagons, as they went to Pike's Peak or bust years ago. The rente begins at Seattle and follows the coast north past Sitka, past Juneau, And and through the Chilcoe pass. so north through the gold fields to Dawson. The finds here are rich, and when Klomlyke is reached, on the other side of Dawson, a man finds himself in the very middle of the gold country. The distance to be traversed is great and the journey is a long, bard one, but notwithstanding this, thousands are struggling Alaskaward. It cost Ladue nothing to become a Operations Being Extended Rapidly Rights of Miners in Suspended Forest Reserves. ALASK. COMMERCIAL CO.'S HEADQUARTERS, ST. MICHAELS ten times the sum required a year ago for traveling through the settlements One of the party should of Alaska. be a practical chemist, or understand the compiling of drugs, and one should be able to sew. A woman is of the utmost assistance, but few of the sex have ventured out. In the baggage which the four carry should be pieces of tanned skins, shoe leather, flannel, and wool, everything for repairing the One of the Alaskan wearing apparel. number should be able to cook, and the fourth should understand the art All of putting up a quick shelter. should be willing and ready to share One of and share alike in hardship. North-of-Euro- The Rooter's Mistake. He was a rooter if ever there was one. His enthusiasm was at a boiling heat all the time. He rooted with joy when the home team scored, and he rooted with disgust when the opposing nine added to its score. In every movement of either team he saw an occasion JOSEPH LADUE, The Gold King of Alaska Barnato. But those who want to follow in his footsteps will need someIn money. The thing like $1,000 country is more thickly populated now and prices have gone up, whereas they used to be next to nothing. At Circle City you must now pay $40 for a fur coat, w hen you used to get one for $3. And flour, sugar and spices, tho absolute necessities, have advanced 50 per cent. The luxuries tea, cofbutter are bringing fee, eggs and fancy prices, so that a man now needs sNv XV the hardest things the prospector has to endure is the sight of the sacks of gold dust that are being shipped from every seaport and tlio tons of ore that are being sent down from St. Michael's and south from Juneau. In one day there came advices from St. Michaels that $1,400,000 worth of gold dust would be shipped by the Wells-Farg- o south, and that $708,000 in dust was In one day awaiting transportation. there came down on the Puget Sound steamship $200,000 in Alaskan gold. There is, as usual, a howl about the exaggeration in values hereabouts. But the facts are as stated and greater. It was so when gold was found in the West Rockies and in California. There really was gold and plenty of it, and so in Alaska. There is a chance for twenty Barnatos, but, of course, among 20.000 the present number of applicants that have ap-P- 'at the steamship and overland offices there must he many disappointed ones. Even without making a Bamako fortune, a man may do well here, for there is a fine chance for Yankee ingenuity and the building up of fine American cities in the very far north. LOUIS STATION who have already acquired property on the Klondyke by right of location and possession, if not by title from the government, and to prospectors who are proposing to go there. The right of the Canadian government to make such regulations is unquestionable; the There is a suspipolicy is doubtful. cion that they would not have been so severe if it were not that most of the miners in the district were Americans, and the rush of prospectors thither promises to be chiefly American also. It was, of course, to be expected that the Canadian government would take measures to reimburse Itself for the expenses of administration in the new district, and there is a plausible reason for a departure from the policy of liberality in granting public mineral land for the purpose of developing the unsettled parts of the country, sirce it is likely that the Yukon district has few natural resources besides its mines, and when the latter are exhausted the district will be abandoned; nut this looks only to the easily worked placer deposits, and fails to take into account the lodes whence they originated, which some day will require capital and industrial freedom for their exploitation. The measures adopted, however, seem to us unwise, owing to the retardation in the development of the mineral resources of the Canadian Yukon which they will cause, and the hard feeling they are sure to breed among the American prospectors, who are likely to clamor for retaliatory measures. These will be, moreover, difficult and expensive taxes to collect, since it will be nearly Impossible to watch every miner, and the Klondyke is so near the American frontier can that clandestine exportations It is a sound hardly be prevented. principle of government that revenue needed should be raised in the most inexpensive manner possible, and any other system Is unjust to the people v ho have to pay the taxes. Most of all to be regretted, however, is -e possibility of friction arising between two nations whose interests are really identical; since recent history has demonstrated that rich gold mines are a prolific source of contention and hard feeling. Engineering end Mining Journal. ,- fur-line- TRADING BAY. ON THE YUKON. T. STOKES. Canada's Policy Is CrltlcKcd. On July 7 the Dominion cabinet decided to demand a royalty on the output of the new diggings of the Yukon. Under regulations previously issued, a fee of $13 per claim for registry and a tax of $100 per annum were imposed. Now, in addition to this, a royalty of 10 per cent of the output is to be collected from all claims producing $500 pef month, and 20 per cent on these producing more than that amount. Moreover, every alternate claim on all placer ground is to he reserved as the property of the government, to be sold or worked for its revenue. The establishment of such a system, which is, we believe, without precadent on this continent since the end of Spanish rule In Mexico, la startling to those for rooting. He knew the game and understood It at least he thought he did. He made his comments whether those around him liked his complaints or not. The rooter always claims the right to be the critic of every one connected with the game, from the lordly umpire to the maseott who hasnt yet reached his teens, and including the barefooted, ragged urchin who gains admission to the game by recovering the ball that was batted over the fence. Our particular rooter exercised that right, not bothering himself a hit whether he was allowed or not. The result of the game was in doubt, and the Interest was intense. The Hardfords were in the field, and the opposing nine was at the hat. A batter made a swipe at the ball as It came like a shot from the hand of Vickery, winding into a graceful inshoot when The bat it reached the home plate. whistled through the air, but didnt come wPhin hailing distance of the ball. Just then a spanow rose from the turf The and flew toward the left field. death like silence was broken by the rooter shouting: Go for it, Pettit! Every eye was turned toward the place from which the loud bass voice of the rooter came, and every one won- A correspondent of the Denver Republican at Santa Fe writes as follows: The placer gold deposits of this territory are just now enjoying a boom. Every sort of information concerning them is eagerly sought for. Scores of applications for pamphlets and maps have been pouring in upon the seeie-tarof the' New Mexico Bureau of Immigration for three weeks past. Territorial Secretary George II. Wallace redemand for ports an unprecedented copies of the New Mexico corporation laws and within a few days a dozen inquiries for Information as to the location of good placer ground have been received by various residents of this city. These calls for information come from a widespread territory from Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Texas, Indiana, Ohio and New Jersey, and as they almost invariably specify placer ground the natural inference is drawn that the much talked of placer discoveries of the Klondike country have Inspired the inquiries. The principal placer fields are located In Taos, Santa Fe, Colfax, Sierra, Grant and Lincoln counties and their development, eliietiy by local Interests, is proceeding with ttie greatest vigor. In of what Is Taos county, if one-haheard here, proves true, an extraordinary gold yield is assured before winter sets in. According to parties w ho have recently been over the ground, the La Belle project to extract gold from the sands of the Rio Grande river bed by the dredging and sluicing process has proved most successful. It is said that the dredge boat, upon which is powerful machinery, is working an eighteen-foo- t gravel bar, lifting the gravel through twelve feet of water and handling 1,000 yards daily, from which is extracted an average of $1 per yard. A similar boat Is about to be contracted for to be operated in the Chama river, where there is known to exist abundant gold, though perhaps not so coarse, and therefore not so readily saved, as that in the Taos section of the Rio Grande. In the Elizabethtown district, whore the placer deposits have been steadily yielding profits for thirty years, the golden harvest will this year be about double all previous records. One new plant there deserves special mention. On the Moreno Mining Companys claims, one mile from Elizabethtown, one of the largest modern plants of machinery ever erected in the West is now In course of construction and in thirtv days Manager II. H. Argue says it wiil be under full headway. The plant is to have a capacity of handling something like 50.000 cubic feet of gravel per hour. On the unper Red river, six miles west of Elizabethtown, Messrs. Kelly, Dougherty, Pope & Company, have just and it proves made their first clean-uhighly satisfactory. Below them other placer companies are in full operation and results have shown conclusively that the Red river Is rich In placer Jrold. In Santa Fe county, where insufficient water only prevents 100.000 acres of placer ground from becoming a genuine beehive of industry, hundreds of dry placer machines are being operated by hand with good profits to the miners. Here the most expensive work at present is being done bv the Monte Cristo Mining Company of Kansas City, which is sluicing gold by the ue of water from a tubular well and for which Pennsylvania well experts are now engaged in driving five additional wells. Those great placer deposits are y thirty miles distant from and between the Rio Grande and the Pecos river. Some day, it is probable, some enterprising syndicate will ditch the water from one or the other of streams Into the vast gold impregnated district and extract a fortune therefrom every day. lf p mid-wa- Gold Dredging In Montana, Dredging for gold Is a form of gold mining that is yearly attracting Increased attention. In California and New Zealand the results are satisfactory, and other sections are passing beyond the experimental stage. Two years ago this paper had an illustrated account of the first dredger In Montana, operating in Grasshopper creek, near Bannack. A few weeks ago a third dredger of greatly increased capacity was put In successful operation there. The Bannack Dredging Company Is the owner of the A. F. Grae-teThe Bon Accord Company lias placed an order for a fourth dredger In the same vicinity. With the F. L. Graves the Gold Dredging Company cleaned up $80, 000 in a four mouths run last season. These dredges take the place of the old rockers used in that vicinity for the past thirty years, and for thirteen miles below Bannack Grasshopper creek Is devoted to placer mining with these effective appliances. The upper Sacramento In this state affords example of similar profitable work, and a dredge is now building at Smarts-villYuba county, that is expected to be of practical value. Mining and Scientific Press. r. dered. Bob didn't obey the command of the Rights of Miners In the Suspended Ferrst Reserves. rooter, and this made the rooter mad. Mr. Gifford Pincliot, special forest He began to abuse Pettit, and for a minute Bobs reputation as a baseball player suffered. What did you want to have him get for? asked a person who was sitting near the censorious critic. Why, the hall that was batted into left field. The hall! Why, ycu blankety blanked chump, that was a sparrow, replied the other. The rooters rooting ceased. Hartford Times. See here. That horse Impossible you sold me runs away, kicks, bites, Btrikes and tries to tear down the stable at night. You told me that if I got him once I wouldnt part with him Defor $1,000. Well,, you won't. troit Free Press. agent of tho Interior Department, thus replies to a query if the present regulations governing tlie suspended forest reserves deprive miners of the right to take and develop claims: The regulations issued under the law permit tlie devtlopment of mines under tlie same regulations which exist outside, with tlie exception that, where timber does not exist on a claim in sufficient amount to develop it, other timber may be used to tlie extent of $100 stumpage value without charge. For larger amounts a permit is required from the secretary of the interior. The text of the law is as follows: Nor shall anything herein prohibit any person from entering upon such forest reservations for all proper and lawful purposes including that of prospecting, locating and developing the mineral resources thereof, provided that such persons comply with the rules and regulations covering such forest reservations. Another section is as follows: All waters on such reservations may be used for domestic, mining, milling and irrigation purposes under the laws of the state wherein such forest reservations are situated, or under tlie laws of the United States and tlie rules and regulations established thereunder. The validity of existing claims and patents within the reserves is in no w ise affected, while the settler is given the option of exchanging his claim or holding tlie same area elsewhere outside a forest reserve, without cost to linn, except that he must comply with tlie same conditions which would have been required on bis original claim. 'Wagon roads may be constructed under authority from the secretary of the interior, and land may be occupied for schools and churches. There no regulation prohibiting the ingress ctr egress of any person upon tlie forest reserves for lawful purposes, and in general the regulations have been so framed as to allow every possible freedom consistent with the preservation of the forests. Mining lutnre of Mexico. The outlook for the mining industry in Mexico Is extremely favorable, and that nation with her wonderful mineral resources is destined to take high rank in the comparatively near future. For many years tlie nation wait handicapped with an unstable government, but the present administration has shown that a stable government can he maintained in that couutry and industrial development can be safely prosecuted. While it is true that Mexiean coal, as far as at present know n, is not hat still It might be termed makes a fairly good fuel, and tlie remarkable richness of the country In other minerals compensates for the inferior quality of her coal. However, it is more than possible that large areas vv first-clas- of comparatively good coal may yet be discovered in that country; in fact, items are published in the daily press from time to time noting these discoveries of valuable coal seams. Many of these items are manufactured out of the whole cloth, particularly those which chronicle the discovery of coal seams that are ns good as Pennsylvania anthracite, or as good as the best Connellsville coking coal. It is possible that anthracite of good quality may eventually be discovered, in Mexico, or that coking coal as good as that of the Connellsville region may be found there, and if it ever is the Mexicans will not be slow in taking advantage of their good fortune. Colliery Engineer. Poor Milling:. When one has had occasion to have much mill dirt or low grade ore treated at different custom mills, he ceases to wonder at the small amount of development that has taken place In a number of old camps. The great wonder is that as much development as lias taken place was possible. For shiftless, careless work we think the average custom null takes the lead. Many a hard working miner has sent his dirt to mill, expecting to receive a little money, and, instead, has been brought in debt. No wonder that such work is both disheartening and disgusting. The treatment of low grades y offers a better and more profitable field than mining itself. We believe the different processes now being pushed to the front will at least result ill one that will both save values and handle quantity, at a cost per ton that will make profitable properties out of a great many that cannot now be worked. Mining Industry. to-da- Lead Ores Shut Out. representative of the Omaha and Grant Smelting Company, in an Interview in an Omaha paper, says that the duties on lead ore prohibited them from treating any of the British Columbia ores on this side of the line and they expect hereafter to do the bulk of their business at the smelter they recently purchased at Pilot bay, A start up on September loth. President Nash of the company says that owing to the rapidly increasing production of lead ores in British Columbia more than one smelter company would find its way across the Canadian border in the next twelve months, and that these smelters would be literally driven out of the country by the high rate Imposed on lead ore in the new tariff bill. In a year the Omaha and Grant Company lias paid out t),000 on import duties oil ore from Kootenay mines, but cannot afford to import the ore at the new tariff rate. find which they will Mining: Quotes. J. B. Grant says; I have out that, with lead at 3.G0 andfijrnnxl sdver at 55(2, It is just about as profitable to a miner as when lead is $3.25 and silver C5, and argues that the present low price of silver will have no serious effect upon the production of lead. Director of the Mint Treston announces that the price of silver bullion makes the commercial ratio between silver and gold 30 to 1, and predicts that within six months silver will faff to 40 cents an ounce. He estimates that the world's production of gold this year will be about $240.0ooqoo of which the United States will about $;o.ooo.fMH). J. T. Van Smith. Prescott, Arizona has patented a contrivance to save the fine gold which ordinarily eseanes from a stamp mill. The device con of several sets of silver-platesists w ire screens, kept in motion bv a small water-wheoperated by tliewa-te- r running through the sluice The water containing the tailings in suspension runs through about twentv of the screens, which take up the gold These are taken out and the metai brushed off as it accumulates The screens are then in quicks!-- I ver and are again dipped ready for use is practically automatic in jperationIt 'eon-tribu- d el j |