Saint Paul weekly Minnesotian., 1859-07-09

1925; sold their claim for $1,000; are now
working claim on the Hunter lead have
only sluieed one day; three men employed
| produced $85. ID. n. as.s a.
Bates & Co., one sluice, run half day
produced S75. -. -
! Colman, King & Co., one sluice, run half a
day; produced $75. ... .-~
Shorts d Collier bought our claims seven
days since, Of Caste, Kendall & Co., for ST.
5OO Mr.. Dean, from Iowa, on the 9th inst,
washed from single pan of dirt taken from
the claim, $1E 80 hare been offered SIC, 900
for the claim & T -. E
s, G. Jones &Cc:, from Eastern Kansas,
have run sluices two days, with three men !;
yield 1925 per day. -
Some forty or fifty sluices commenced, are
not yet in operation; but the owners inform
us that their "prospecting" shows from 10
cents to 70 to the pan. Many persons who
have come here without provisions or money,
are compelled to work as common laborers, at
from 81 to So per day and board; until they
can procure means of sustenance for the time
necessary to prospecting, building sluiees, &c.
Others, not finding gold the third day, or dis
liking the work necessary to obtaining it, leave
the mines in disgust, after very short trial,
declaring there is no gold here in paying quan-
titles. 1t should be remembered that the dis
coveries made thus far, are the result of five
weeks labor. +-'-'
In nearly every instance, the gold is esti-
mated by the miners as worth $50 per ounce.
We cannot conclude this statement without
protesting most earnestly against a renewal of
the infatuation which impeied thousands to
rush to this region month or two since, only
to turn back before reaching it, or to hurry
away Immediately after, more hastily than
they came Gold mining is business which
eminently requires of its votaries capital. ex-
perlence, energy, endurance, and in which the
highest qualities do not always command sue
cess. There may be hundreds of ravines in
these mountains as rich in gold as that in
which we write, and there are probably many:
but, up to this hour, we do not know that any
such have been discovered There are said
to be five thousand people already in this ra-
vine, and hundreds more pouring into it daily.
Tens OF thousands more have been passed by
US on our rapid journey to this place, or heard
of as on their way hither by other routes
For all these nearly every pound of provisions
and supplies of every kind must be hauled
by teams from the Missouri river, some 700
miles distant, over roads which are mere
trails, crossing countless unbridged water
courses, always steep banked, and often miry,
and at times so swollen by rains as to be ut
terly impossible by wagons.
Part of the distance is desert, Welding
grass, wood, and water only at intervals Of
several miles, and then very scantily. To at
tempt to cross the desert on foot is madness
-suicide-murder. To cross it with teams
in midsummer, when the water-courses are
manly dry, and the grass eaten up, is posi-
BILE only to those who know just where to look
tor grass and water, and where water must be
carried along to preserve life. A few months
hence--probably by the middle of October
this whole Alpine region will be showed un-
der and frozen up, so as to put stop to the
working of sluices, if not to mining altogether.
There then, for period of at least six months,
Will be neither employment, food, nor shelter,
within five hundred miles, for the thousands
pressing hither, under the delusion that gold
may be picked up here, like pebbles on the
sea shore, and that when they arrive here.
ay"n though without provisions or money,
thelr fortunes are made
ureat disappointment, great suffering, are
inevitable; few can escape the latter who ar
rive at Denver City after September, without
ample means to support them in very dear
country, at least through long winter. We
cnarge those who manage the telegraph not to
diHuse part of our statement without giving
substantially the whole and we beg the press
to unite with us in warning the
whole people against another rush to these
gold mines, as il-advised as that of last spring:
a rush sure to be followed like that by a STAN.
pede, but one far more destructive of proper
ty and llfe Respectfully,
HORACE GREELEY.
A. d. RICHARDSON,
HENRY WILLARD