Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1879-10-01
"PROSPECT TING"
ADVICE TO THOSE WHO CONTEMPLATE
ENGAGING IN MINING.

ADVICE TO THOSE WHO CONTEMPLATE
J ENGAGING IN MINING.
A correspondent of the Chicago
Times, who has spent eighteen months
in the mining regions of Colorado,
gives some good advice to prospective
prospectors He says: "There is no
doubt that next spring will witness
| NEW RUSH
of wealth-seekers from the overcrowded
East to these wealth-bearing regions
of the West To endeavor to regulate
and restrain this rush, to give shape
and direction to this inevitable tide, is
not only an act of charity toward the
"tender-feet" themselves, but one of
absolute self-defence on the part of
those already here, to dissuade persons
mentally or physically incapable of
enduring discomfort, hardship and dis
couragement, from burdening the place
with their useless presence.
Don't be in headlong hurry don't
get into frenzy of fear that you will
be too late in getting here. There is
| absolutely no limit, at least for couple
of centuries to come, to the mineral
wealth of these mountains. That the
mineral exists is as certain as the
mathematical demonstration of any
fact can make it certain. That Lead
vile and its immediate vicinity are
hopelessly overcrowded, both by pros
pectors and capitalists, is equally GER
tain; but all the rest of this vast State
of Colorado is as yet hardly in the
first stages of development. Our
children and our children's children
and their children after them will find
here ample fields for exploration and
| discovery.
"Whether you come here to seek for
days work or to prospect on a small
scale,
| DON'T COME WITHOUT MONEY.
Gwen the hardest laborer will not
be able to find work always to his
hand. He may have to wait week,
OF he may have to go from place to
place in search of it, and although the
hospitality of the miner is proverbial,
it has become in great degree ex-
hausted by overtaxation during the
past year. Prospectors had better
make themselves up in groups of three
with capital enough to find themselves
in possession, at Pueblo, of at least
$50 each-$100 apiece would be bet
| ter; but the former sum will do with
economy. Leave all your dandy-fine
clothing, paper collars, white shirts,
and patent feathers behind you. There
is neither place nor appreciation for
them here The toughest wearing
apparel you can lay hands on will
secure you more hearty respect than
would the finest suit that a Chicago
tailor ever put on the back of a man.
Leave all your epicurean tastes behind
you, too. If you have fancy palate,
an exacting tast for culinary dainties,
and cannot learn to wait upon your
self, stay at home, for the Lords sake.
You would only be q burden to your
self and nuisance to every body around
you. Your
| CHIEF ARTICLES OF DIET
| will be -four, coffee, bacon, sugar.
"The -four will be turned into flap
jacks made on the frying-pan, or into
soda bread baked in O portable oven.
The bacon you will have fried twenty
one times q week; coffee ditto, pre-
pared in style very different from
that of your favorite restaurant. If
you are in luck you may once in a
while chance upon carcass of venlson
or supply of fresh beef in passing
wagon, or vegetables but as a rule
you will have to put up with the four
articles ] have first named. Up in
the morning with the first streak OF
dawn, you start your fire, clap on
your coffee pot, saw your bacon up in
chunks, prepare your can of batter for
your fried cakes, wash up the dishes
if you should have been too lazy or
tired to wash them the night before
and lay out the table. When you
come in at noontime, tired and hungry,
the same work is before you; and
again in the evening, when supper
being over you will have about time to
smoke q pipe before you roll yourself
up in your blankets and tumble off to
sleep, as soon as your unaccustomed
ribs accommodate themselves to the
bare boards of your bunk. Add to
this that you will have to do your own
washing and mending and patching
and the picture is about complete.
And now how do you like it :? Think
well on it. Dirt, discomfort, scanty
and monotonous food, hard work and
exposure to danger from accidents
mostly the result of inexperience, have
all to be encountered and endured
patiently-a grumbler in the mining
camp runs more risk of sudden death
than q brawler in a gambling hell
he is harder to endure than all the nee
essary evils put together. If you have
the grit to stand all this, come on
You are made of the stuff that com
mands success.
81 have recommended punches o
three for
PROSPECTING,
for this reason-one man to dig anC
shovel out the dirt in the shaft, ant
two at the windlass. One man at thu
latter will get along well enough unit
you get down about fifteen feet. Aftel
that depth two will be necessary ant
in the beginning the men will find thei
hands full anyway in getting things
into working and tolerably comfortable
shape.
GAS to climate / have never had al
hours ill-health here; nor have | eve
, known anybody to be sick here wh'
let whisky alone. | have been t.
Leadville and worked there during tn
months of February and March, whel
, it showed three days out of seven ant
froze all the time, and | enjoyed first
rate health Yet Leadville was spokeI
| of oo eycentionally unhealthy but