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Show WESTE RN aVEIKTIOSI 3-- A LEGITIMATE BUSINESS. An unwarrantable and unjustifiable opinion is generally prevalent that mining, as a business, lias in it a large element of risk and uncertainty. We art; willing to admit at the outset that it is risky and uncertain, but that it is more so than agriculture, merchandising, manufacturing, or any other great industry in which men engage, no one who has watched the course of legitimate mining will affirm. That large amounts of money have been lost in stock speculations, and that such operations, have dohe much to bring mining into disrepute, is too true. But these transactions are no more connected with mining for precious metals than the exciting scenes on the Board of Trade and the Produce Exchanges are a part of the work of raising grain and other products of the farm for the market. The legitimate object of mining is to produce for the needs and markets of the world the mineral products with which the earth is richly filled. Everything outside of this is foreign to its true work and consequently more or less speculative and t tages, on account of the indestructible character of product, over other lines of business which have claimed more freedom from the inevitable vicissitudes that require, in every enterprise, the presence, skill, and energy of a master mind to win the largest measure of success. THE OUTLOOK FOR INVESTMENTS. Considering the price which the United States bonds have reached in the market, it is not at all surprising that the large majority of investors arc dissatisfied with them, and arc inclined to look around to see if they cannot do better on what is at least as good a security. The fact that rates for money arc for the time low beyond precedent in this country does not affect their judgment, because they are satisfied that with a complete of industrial activity the demand for money will naturally send prices up to a higher figure permanently. For investors, State bonds in this respect offer no perceptible advantages over United States, provided they arc equally sound; and the same is to be said of the best class of municipal securities. Railroads are full of promise, but the immense activity that is going on among them, in the way of combinations, sales, leases, and otherwise, tends to make investors more careful than if they could regard those always favorite properties with a more stable assurance. Real estate is moving steadily to the front again, and is certain both by actual transfers and by mortgages, to absorb large amounts of capital again. Nothing is surer than this, whether for savings, trust estates or legitimate speculation. Still, there will always remain a very large margin of capital seeking investment ; and for this, good mining properties offer inducements the like of which the country never saw before. We have reached a new era in its history in this respect. It will not be a very long time before we shall produce more gold and silver than all the world besides, and by the expiration of ten years it may be expected that our annual production will reach the amount of $200,000,000 annually. Into mining, therefore, very large amounts of capital will go, and very large returns will inevitably be realized. Provided only that it be conducted on true business principles, it may calculate with confidence on absorbing in the future a notably large proportion of the surplus awaiting dangerous. In justice, mining can no more be charged with the speculative craze and dealing in mining stocks than farming can be held responsible for the frequent corners in wheat, corn, or pork, which crush out fortunes and leave a train of ruin when they culminate. As agriculture includes all the different products of the farm, so mining covers the various products from beneath the earths surface, and there is no more reason for speculation in the shares of the mines producing gold, silver, and copper, than in those whose output is coal or iron. The iron and coal interests of this country have assumed large proportions, and have been left comparatively free from speculative excitement to do their work in a legitimate alid regular manner. There is yet a feeling of distrust in regard to gold and silver mining largely prevalent among a certain class of business men and capitalists, while another class, regarding it entirely in a speculative light, make their investments with the same disregard of businesslike principles as they would invest in a lottery, and the great wonder is that such transactions have not been more unfortunate and more generally disasterous than they have proved to be. We venture to say that in no other business could money have been invested in such a blind, haphazard, unbusinesslike manner, with such fa vorable results as have been shown from ventures in mining un der all the unfavorable circumstances surrounding it. We will not even except agriculture, which has long been regarded as the standard of all industries for stability and reliability of returns. This fact alone goes far toward proving the falsity of the charge, so often made, that mining is unsafe and never can take a place among other recognized and standard lines of business. No one thinks of questioning the stability of coal and iron minin that ing, or the reasonableness and safety of an investment class of mining; yet such was the feeling a short time ago in regard to gold and silver mining that business men made their purchases of mining property in secret lest it should jeopardize their credit and standing, should it be known that they were investing money in such questionable and uncertain enterprises. This feeling, of course, has been greatly changed and modified as a better knowledge of the real character of mining, for gold and silver has become better known, but it still exists in some measure to a larger extent than the most careful review of the history of mining investments will warrant. It may be safely stated that the foundation and permanence of iron and coal mining is in the regularity of its deposits and the all, steady demand of its products in the markets, and more than because it stands upon it own merits, free from any unreal excit-men- t, a regular, steady source of supply to meet a legitimate and constant demand. We would then ask if the fissure veins and the placer grounds of gold and silver mining are not as reliable, as certain, sure, and as easily estimated and calculated upon as an iron or coal deposit ? Do not the markets show a steadier and as constant a demand for gold and silver as for any other mineral? Is there any more necessity of high capitalization and stock ex citcinent in one case than the other ? We have long labored to show that mining was a productive in industry, and that its highest success lies, and will always lie, the line of production, of furnishing its product to satisfy the needs of art and science, and the commercial necessities of the nations of the earth. With this end in view mining becomes one of the safest and most profitable industries known, with many advan i i 1 GAZETTEER. MINING IN MEXICO. A Leadville man writes from Mexico as follows, says the Daily Regarding this country, I can only say from what I have seen of it so far, that I think it the best mining region that I have ever seen. They dont work a mine in this country unless it pays, and I think a large amount of American mining capital will find its way down here the coming year. There a good many American operators knocking around in Sonora, Sinaloa and Chihuahua, picking up properties, and there is money to be made in that way, that is, buying and stocking mines. Many valuable properties can be picked up very reasonably. We are mill tin Sinaloa. Dont advise any going to put up a p one to come down here on an uncertainty, because labor is very cheap, and the competition is such that in many cases a white man would stand no show. We work Indians principally, and get good work done at from fifty cents to a dollar per day. I have men in the Quintara who can strike a drill as well as any man that ever lived, and they work twelve hours a day for seventy-fiv- e cents and a dollar per day. We need a few good white men about the mines as leaders and shift bosses, but that is all. We make these Indians go into the mines perfectly naked except a breech-clou- t of the smallest size imaginable, so as to keep them Indicator: 40-stam- from stealing any rich ores. A RECENT LAND OFFICE DECISION. Where a party applies for mining patent and gives due notice, but fails to pay the government price and make entry at the land office, for a period within which an adverse location could be made, he cannot prevent another party from makin gentry of the same land after due notice except by properly filling an adverse claim. In the absence of such adverse claim, the second application will be allowed to proceed as though no prior application had been made. |