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Show ; MINING AND FINANCIAL The mining folk are beginning to ask: "What's the matter with American Fork?" We bite. What is the matter with American Fork? , From the maps, gazetteers and government re ports is derived the information that American ! Fork is a canyon extending northeastward into 1 the Wasatch mountains from a town of the same ' name. It was inhabited originally by a tribe of flapjackeaters known as prospectors. Traces of their presence are still to be found in the weird names inscribed on the stakes with which these queer people marked their habitat. The prospectors seem to have attained a considerable con-siderable degree of civilization for there is a tradition tra-dition that they mined sufficient silver-lead ore to supply the furnaces of a small smeltery some miles up the canyon for a number of years. Later on, however, tho canyon reverted to its primitive condition and the- Dark Ages continued until the missionary labors of Charles Tyng dispelled dis-pelled the gloom. Some say American Fork was discovered by General Connor's men. Others maintain that it has never been discovered. The latter seem to have the better of the argument. If it were really discovered, they say, it would be as famous a mining camp as Park City, or Alta, or Bingham. The geologists declare Park, Alta and American Fork to be on the same mineral zone and enriched en-riched in the same manner at the same time and from the same source. No one has been able to draw a line making where the ore of Alta quits and the ore of American Fork begins In their recent active search for now ore bodies in Little Cottonwood tho miners have followed fol-lowed the veins over the divide and found themselves them-selves almost before they knew it in American Fork. The men who rediscovered Alta may yet be honored in history as the real discoverers of this other canyon. The ore that gave American Fork its early reputation and fed the little smelter, came principally prin-cipally from the Miller, the Live Yankee and tho Wild Dutchman. It was mined near tho surface and belonged, evidently, to younger geological members than those in which the Alta and Park City bonanzas were disclosed. There seems to have been no sustained effort to explore the underlying un-derlying lime or test at depth the possibilities of the ore-bearing fissures in the quartzite. The Tyng brothers entered the district when it was as dead as was Alta before courageous promoters revived it. They took over the deserted desert-ed Miller and Wyoming mines and demonstrated K in a short time that the earlier operators had B merely nibbled at the resources of the ground. H ( ' From these "extinct" properties they extracted Hr f enough mineral to keep thirty-live teams on the Hj b l road during the hauling season and to earn a H goodly fortune. Their ardor was dampened only B by the tragic consequences of a fearful snow- Bi ' slide. H1 ' H Enthused by tho successful outcome of the H effirt to rejuvenate Alta, some of the best niiu- H! ,' ing talent in the state is administering the same H sort of elixer to American Fork. The now devel- H p opment has not yet reached a stage at which the Hfe' participation of the public may be invited, but it H is approaching that stage and no one need be H ' surprised if another season witnesses the advent H ' of a number of new ore producers on the stock H exchange. H It isn't easy to pick the winners in a mining H , contest. Hundred to one shots seem to take the B' money as frequently as the pedigreed favorites. M Judges of form say that the Miller, the Pacific, H . the Texan, the Dutchman and the Mineral Flat H tv are now in the lead. All of these properties had H i more or less ore near the surface of their ground; H now they are getting it at great depth. H , The work of the last few months has estab- H lished beyond question the point for which Amer- H ican Fork miners havo contended these many H J, years that the mineral values go down. True, H no great chambers have been entered, but there H will be time enough to look for them after the H veins are investigated more thoroughly at their H new levels. H A drive of a thousand feet brought the Pacific H i Mining company's tunnel into the vein opened H j above and gives the company several hundred H j! feet of backs. The ore is said to carry as good H values as it did in the workings nearer the sur- H i face. The quantity of ore near the tunnel level H I is a matter which cannot be determined in a M ,J day. H ; Tho Wadley lease on the Miller Hill is pro- Hj ducing enough ore from its deepest workings to Hj, keep three teams constantly employed. Another Hl '', lease on the same property has been saving ore H( from the Kalamazoo claim and had out seven H' jj or eight tons when the falling of the ground com- H I pelled the miners to stop breaking ore and go H . to timbering. This ore is said to be a high- H i grade carbonate. The ore shipped from the Miller H f during the Tyng regime ran about $53 a ton uni- H formly and at depth the values are proving to be H I no less. B H1 I The Dutchman is another old property in which H I the confidence of the lessees has been justified. A H j large amount of excellent ore was mined at the H f top. To tap the vein at depth a very long tunnel H j was needed and this has just made the connec- H tion. The ore at the tunnel level assays $50 a H' i ton and there is a lot of it apparently. H .! Conditions like these put American Fork in B the same rank as Alta and Park City. Men used B ' to answer the question, what's the matter with H American Fork? by explaining that the values H'l were erratic, the faulting severe and the transpor- H tation expensive. All but the last of these objec- H tions have been removed. H. H' Stock valuations are going back gradually to H the levels they occupied before the break in the H Cottonwoods. They can't stay down in the face Hl If the growing ore production from Alta. Several S' buyers made some easy money by buying South H' Hecla and Albion on the break, and holding it for H the recovery. A carload of ore is being shipped H j daily from the lease in South Hecla's Quincy tun- Hj,, nel and the lessees are getting ready to make it Hj ' two cars. The ore varies from $15 to $25 in H value. The best ore is used to sweeten the lower j grade product. The dividend payers will .soon be perking ur in anticipation of quarterly dividends. Silver Kinr. Consolidated is rising already. It averaged abou 50 tons a day in August of the very high grade sulphides for which it is noted and on this production, pro-duction, with lead and silver both in the dumps, earned a large surplus over the month's dividend needs. After paying the October first disbursement disburse-ment the King Con. should have better than $200,-000 $200,-000 in cash and cash assets. The Alta Central Mining company of Alta, is operating two machine shifts through the Centennial Cen-tennial Emma tunnel at the rate of six feet a day according to L. U. Adsit, who with Alex Col-bath Col-bath is handling the property. This tunnel is being driven on a northeast fissure leading to the Braine and other eastern and western producing pro-ducing fissures. This property has great promise and adjoins the Old Emma ore bodies, being in tho same lime bed as several of the former dividend divi-dend payers of the Alta district. A strong djr rectorate is behind Messrs. Adsit and Colbath aifd development work is being rapidly and systematically syste-matically done. |