The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-10-05
TIE COLD MINES OF NEW MEXICO.

AhH OVHD MINED OF VIEW MEAICO.
From Correspondence Of the Springfield Republican
AS the last rays were shining luridly, aud
we had begun to think mine-hunting bur
den, we beheld lone frame house, stuck in
the mountain side, with a rude porch hlled
with men smoking. Any one cal find a mine
by careful looking for it. The process gone
through is usually this:-"Lne poor old
miner, intent on fortune, takes a fe v
necessary tools and a little bacon, coffee, snd
flour, and starts off alone on an old pony,
if in safe country; if not, with party
equipped like himself, and after risky and
tiresome search finds q lode. Sinking
hole 10 get specimens, he
takes piece of the rock pounds it to dust,
puts it in large horn spoon and washes it.
The gold sinks to the bottom. Do not
imagine, however, that the miners fortune is
made. The reason we are not all nabobs out
here is because it needs one fortune to make
another out of. He can do one of three
things;-Camp on the spot, pound that noun
tain up by hand and wash out the precious
metal, sell the claim, set up a quartz
crushing mill which costs any where from
$4,000 up. He generally does the second,
perhaps reserving share himself A quartz
mill is huge steam engine which plopels
great iron stamps, in this mill fifteen in num-
Der. Barnum used to say that he wouldn't
be hired for $500 to understand the prnci-
Piles of simple steam engine; perhaps owing
to our limited mechanical brains, we had
better confne ourselves to what we saw
rather than try lucid explanations.
We beheld car running perpendicularly
down the mountain loaded with dirt which it
tipped out by the mill and went out for more;
man shoveled said yellow dirt slowly into
narrow deep troughs, when down came the
heavy stamps and smashed it to powder.
Then a stream of water washed it down long,
wide, tin-lined troughs; quicksilver had been
IN 20 H. a.,t
down. Having an affinity for gold, they unite,
and the dirt passes away. Once week or so,
according to the richness of the mine, these
troughs are scraped, and whitish combina-
ton of gold and quicksilver is obtained,
which is then subjected to the action of fire,
retorted as it is called the quicksilver pass
ing off in vapor. 1t is smelted afterward, and
when the bars of gold begin to increase I
suppose the miner feels paid. Miners who
work in mills, however, are paid regular
wages and have no chance of profit except
stealing nuggets if they choose. Not
being able at the Aztec mills to see gulch
mining or panning out, we repaired to the
Moreno mines, near which has sprung up
one of those iniquitous dens a new town
called Elizabeth. Armed with pick and
shovel, and clad in a costume which seemed
to consist of shirt and rubber boots, said
boots looking about a yard and half high,
the miner picks and shovels the dirt down
into the trough, often standing to his waist
in water. To judge where the rich spots are,
he frequently stops to ''pan out" He takes
sheet-iron pan, like a small milk pan, and
fills it with dirt just as it comes; then he dips
the pan in water, and shaking it carefully the
fine dirt settles. Then he throws out the
pebbles and dips it again, pouring off the
water and dipping it perhaps twenty times.
At last in teaspoonful of black sand which
will not pour off, being as heavy as the gold,
you can see minute specks of yellow gold. If
it pans out a cents worth to the pan, man
could make living at gulch mining. When
1t shows sixty or eighty cents to pan, behold
coach-and-four in the happy miners vision.
One can understand the frontier expression
tDout individuals, she don't pan out we'll !"
Tie yield of mines is, of course, varied; at
the Aztec $4,000 a week has been found,
but it is hardly safe to rely on the owners
story of his own mine, especially if he desires
to sell.
And now, with sluicing, tunnelling, fun
ing, gulching, smelling, and other unknown
terms ringing in our ears, let us sum up.
1t is usually exciting to envy one to view
other peoples possessions, butwe still con-
template with serenity our empty pockets, if
they can only be filled by our turning miner
1t would take an extraordinary prospect, say
five dollars a man or SO, to induce us to
shoulder pick and scour among Indians for
lodes or leads, or to stand all day in rubber
underclothes seeking yellow fy-specks in
bushels of dirt. Gold hunting is like all
other lotteries, one prize perhaps and thou
sand Of disheartening blanks, besides the
diseases fastened on the miner working in
the close, noisome tunnel, or breathing the
foul mercurial air in the retorting room.
Though the majority of miners are drudges,
once miner always miner. The unini-
tiated can hardly understand the fascination
of ''grazing without lariat, "-but as for gold
we prefer to shovel it in civilized bitches for
certain sovereigns, to relying on finding those
coins in their crude state.