The Montana post. [volume] (Virginia City, Montana Territory [i.e. Mont.]) 1864-1869, 1867-09-14
A CABIN CONFERENCE.


miners hesitating whether to return TO
the States during the winter or remain
in the mountains We have DO advice
to offer affecting their decisions on that
point. Ifthey remain they will prob
ably wish they had gone; if they go they
will probably wish they had rehIained.
This result is so well assured that we
have no disposition to present the in
ducements on either side of the question.
But to those who remain we have a word
to say. Nearly every miner owns un-
developed quartz property. In that con-
dition it is comparatively worthless on
the market, although it may be intrin-
sically of great value. The development
of property by the labor that owns it in
wolves no expense that need prevent a
thousand leads being thoro'ly developed
this winter by the money that would else
go into whisky shops and hurdy-gurdies.
For capital to develop them requires a
heavy outlay, and with it's proverbial
cautiousness and the unreturned invest
ments of the last three years staring it
in the face. the mineral resources of
Montana are net likely to be speedily
brought into prominence unless it is
done by the exertions of the laboring
class. Every practical and scientific man
asserts the unparalleled richness and ex-
tensiveness Of our mineral veins, and the
beliefin their ultimately taking the first
rank in the bullion producing world.
Yet it is useless to attempt Disgusting
the fact that score offailures lie along
the roads to the few successfully operat-
true, lie not in the minerals, but in bad
machinery and bad management. This
does not alter the temporary effect, how
ever, and unless the next twelvemonth
secs better success in our mining enter
prises, we will have gone in the steps of
other Territories and have a depression
in our mining interests from which it
will take years to recover. The Indian
war came inopportunely, and prevented
emigration, machinery and capital from
reaching us this season, when the full
tide was setting in toward Montana.
Only a certain portion of capital tends
toward mining enterprises. The oil. coal
and iro2 regions of Pennsylvania, the
lead of-Nll., the copper of Lake Super
ior, the iron of Missouri and the bullion
regions of the West have virtually mon
opolized it. 1t tends strongly toward
one point; if successful it becomes per
manent, Unsuccessful, is withdrawn at
least for a time. 1t yet tends this way,
but is II meeting with encouragement 2
Will not the discovery of tin in Missouri
and the adoption of oil as fuel, open a
new channel for capital and leave us
high and dry to await the next flow of
the tide. unless greater inducements are
offeredf All the inducement that is
needed development. The quartz is
here, ami it contains the gold, silver and
copper, but when the purchaser visits a
famous lead instead of being taken down
into q well defined crevice, one hundred
or two hundred feet below the surface,
be is shown a four inch stake with a
gopher hole dozen feet deep, and hand
cd an assay certificate of surface speci-
men, it is not surprising that he holds
silly enough to purchase them hap-haz-
ard, what better can be expected than
an ultimately bankrupted company.
Now if this were unavoidable, if miners
could net develop their leads for want
of means, we might calmly await the
slow influx of capital and machinery to
do it, and submit to what was unavoid-
able. This is not the case, however.
What is the course pursued by the pros
pector and miner? They work hard dur
ing six months and move into the towns
to spend their money in vice and idleness
during the winter, and go back to labor
in the spring, dead broke. If, instead
of coming into the towns, four or six
men interested in a lead, would erect a
building upon it and each work half q
dozen hours a day during the winter in
developing that property, would not the
development of thousand leads, TO q
depth of 200 feet each. be an easy win
tiers task1 Would it not either fill
many poor fellows pockets with gold
en- fortune or prove the Territory worth
less. Would it not settle at once the
question of development, the extent rich
ness and quality of our minerals and be
an inducement that capital has never
had before. Would it require as much
actual expenditure of hard earnings, AZ
/ ii does to drag out a six months miser-