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Show 4 INTER-MOUNTA- IN bodied mail, if prolonged beyond eight hours, but beneath the surface, away from the sunlight and surrounded by artificial means of ventilation and the ever present impure air, such prolonged exertion might be injurious to the health. Hence the court cannot find that the law limiting the period of underground service to eight hours is not calculated to promote health, and the mandatory provisions of the constitution have not only not been disobeyed or violated, but they have been enforced. The decision is lengthy, embracing about 5,000 words, and many authorities are quoted. It exhibits a careful and exhaustive examination of the question in all its bearings, and every provision of the constitution that applies is reviewed, as are also the adverse points of the defense. THE ELECTION. At this writing, while returns from the election are not nearly complete, sufficient are at hand to concede the election of McKinley by a decisive majority. Not only have some of the states in which Bryan was believed to have a good fighting chance, rolled up overwhelming majorities for the gold standard, but states that were supposed to be safe for Bryan are now in the doubtful column, with the doubt in favor of McKinley. With the result the hopes of Western men in particular and of students of finance generally, that the nation would throw off its yoke of gold, are shattered, and in place is the knowledge that if McKinley as president lives up to his party pledges, four more years of the depression that has crushed the life and spirit out of our industries is assured to the nation as its lot. There are those who take a more hopeful view of the situation and believe, now the struggle is over, that times will become better, but they are unable to give a logical reason for their optimism. It is difficult to agree with them in view of the conditions, for the country is now on a single standard sytem with not enough of the money that is the standard to go around. It is also difficult to hope for better prices from a probable protective tariff. Our lead fails to find a market under the tariff duty that is now on the metal and the duty cuts no figure in the quotations. It is an instance where protection dont protect, and as people havent the money to buy lead it falls in price below the figures that free trade nations, plus our duty, put upon it. It is to be hoped that these gloomy forebodings for the future will prove groundless, but present indications point in no other direction. QUARTER OF A CENTURY OF PRICES. of Mr. Ellsworth Daggett of Salt Lake, Utah, and a minining engineer and student of finance of international reputation, has contributed a valuable pamphlet of :ixty pages under the above title. The pamphlet contains tables showing the paying years, and the power of all commodities during the past twenty-fiv- e purchasing power of gold in the same period. The work contains no argument and advances no theory, but is simply a tabulation of the cold, inexorable facts compiled by a man of practical mind who has treated the subject as he would a problem in the higher mathematics, and presents the solution to the world, not as his own doctrine but as the sum of the computation with given figures as abase. Twenty-on- e articles through which most of the worlds commerce is conducted, are selected and their prices tabulated for twenty-fiv- e years. The figures show the extent of their depreciation during the period covered, and also the depreciation of silver in the same period and the appreciation of gold as .a purchasing agent. When the diagram showing the prices of the commodities is compared with the one showing the price of silver, the ratio of silver to commodity prices is established beyond argument. In the five years followcommodities deing 1890 the paying pi ices of these twenty-on- e clined 31.3 per cent. The decline in silver in the same period was even heavier. The sum of Mr Daggetts figures is presented herewith, and the argument is one of calculation and not words, just A MINING REVIEW. as much as the rules of common arithmetic .give results that are absolute: In the same years the purchasing power of gold increased 45.5 per cent. Measured by commodities the debt of 319,027,170,546 in i89o to $38,o54,00o,000. amounts y If any one can read carefullv the pamphlet, taking account of the authonties drawn from and the conclusion reached, and not be alarmed at the situation of the country, then such a one has more faith and hope than 1. The book should be read bv every student of economic literature and by everyone, in fact, as it presents the true meat of the great ques-ioof finance with figures, and minus unneccessary verbiage. to-da- n LAND OFFICE DECISION. In the case of David Leche vs. the Union Pacific Railway Company, involving title to the east half of section 5, township 2 north, range west, the register and receiver of the United States Land Office in this city have rendered a decision in favor of the protestant Mr. Leche. The land in question is located on Antelope Island in Great Salt Lake and contains valuable ledges of gold, silver and copper. On May 25 1896 the Union Pacific company filed list No. 16 praying for a patent from the goverment for the tract, claiming the same under the land grant from the government. On August 19th, David Leche filed a protest in which he set forth that the land in question is mineral bearing, and that it is more valuable for its mineral ledges than for grazing or agriculture. At the hearing on October 1 8th, the railway company presented no evidence, while the protestant stated that he had located the ground as mineral ground, had expended considerable capital in developing the ledges, and that he had opened up and proved the existence of deposits of silver and copper in sufficient quantities to prove that the greatest value of the land was in the mineral. In their decision the register and receiver summed up the case as follows: But one conclusion can be reached from the testimony offered in the case, and that is, that the land is not only mineral in character but is more valuable for the mineral it contains than for agriculture. The tract is essentially mineral land, and being such, does not passio the railroad company under its grant, but is especially excepted from the operation of the grant. Our decision is that list No. 16, by the Union Pacific company, be rejected. mining expert who has been struggling with rock determination writes of the difficulties he is encountering, to the Engineering and Mining Journal as follows: I am getting so that I can identify rocks right smart. That is have made several slides. My difficulty is that persons who make rock are not always careful to have them correspond with the descriptions in the books, so that when a petrographer of experience comes along (like Blank) he is apt to give a different name to the thing or invent a new rock species. Well there is no use in becoming discouraged. The rock sharps themselves have a hard time of it. You can seldom get one of them to give a definite name offhand to a hand specimen of any of the eruptives. Then, after a slide of it has been ground and examined under the microscope, there is likely to remain some uncertainty. Fortunately it does not matter much for practical purposes in mining. We do not mean to disparage the value of the scientific investigations of the petrogra pliers which will, we trust in time result in generalizations intelligible to the laity but for the miner the good old term porphyry covers a multitude of species, and yet is usually defintte enough to make b phln about what is meant. Of course there are some "exceptional eases, as in contact veins with two nearly alike eruptive country rocks, but they are not many. Our correspondent, by the wav, has hit upon a solution of his difficulty. He continues: My trick is to (1) identify tjje component minerals, (2) note which preponderates, (3) regard a structure, (4) a lot of minor considerations then toss up for A name. In a neat little printed note setting forth the late develop) uents in K10 the mines of Tintic district, the passenger department ot the Grande Western has issued an invitation to visit the mines of tn different camps in the district, on Sunday next. The object i to g1'' those who have heard of the growth of the district, an oppori aunty to its investigate it themselves, and the company will run a train ot coaches, leaving Salt Lake at 8:30 A. M., and returning, arrive at Salt Lake at 8:45 p. M. Seven hours time will be at the disposal the visitors to examine the mines. !r-cl- j |