The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1880-02-07

1t took the q honest miner - long
time to learn that placer " operations
the washing of metal from the sands
were not certainty nor permanency,
and the capitalists who came in after
him also long time to make expensive
experiments, and equally expensive
mistakes, and to come. down to what is
technically and happily called " hard
PAM" and operate to some extent with
proper means, skill, and common-sense.
There was one collapse about 1864, and
of course the panic of 1873 affected the
progress of the State. and it may fairly
be said that the real ssflush times in
Colorado are these in which we are now
living. In spite of all disappointments
and drawbacks, steady progress has un-
doubtedly been made, and great results
accomplished. Mining is, beyond all
question, the foundation of the growing
greatness of the State, and it is most in
teresting to learn from an elaborate cal
culation, coming recently from a re-
sponsible source, that after making full
allowance for the labor of all the men
employed from the beginning, and all
the money sunk, the residue shows a
better return then any other investment
in this country. 1t must not be forgotten
that this is an Average, and that the for
tunes of TWO or three bonanza kings
balance the losses of thousands of poor
men; and against the result of this cal
culation should be set the assertion-for
which ample support can be Obtained
that at least up to 1871, when railroads
cheapened living and introduced greatly
improved facilities, the proportion of
miners who could be called successful
was one in fve hundred. as
1t is to be noticed that here, as in
other similar regions, public interest is
continually attracted to new discoveries,
and a floating population at once drawn
thither; and events move SO rapidly that
an account of the state of affairs in the
mining regions may be stale before it is
in type. On the other hand, it NAV be
said that even if some of the people go
away, the mines remain, and the silver
and gold come out just as surely and
easily as before; and a larger area than
ever is now the scene of active opera
tions.s 49, N
Starting from the north, we come to
the mines of. Boulder County, not far
from Longs Peak, where there was an
ephemeral excitement, some three years
ago, about tellurium veins. Then came
those of Gilpin (Black Hawk, Central
City, etc. and Clear Creek George
town, etc. counties, the former noted
for gold product, and both containing
what are called "true fissure veins, .
where the rocks have been broken or
torn asunder by earthquakes or volcanic
disturbance. In this neighborhood some
of the earliest discoveries were made,
and the bullion product of the two coun-
ties is large ard steady. Then come
various points in the South Park, and
just between the Park and Main Ranges,
California Gulch, now known from one
end of the world to the other, for herei Is
Leadville. South again, and between
the Sierra Mojada and the Sangre de
Cristo lie Rosita and Silver Cliff, and
southwest again of this, the great
San Juan district. Discoveries have
also been made in the Gunnison
and Elk Mountain country, away west
of the Snowy Range, and only time can
show what other now hidden treasures
are to come to light in these regions. 1t
is needless to say that several quarto
volumes could easily be written about
these mines and their operation, aud
still much be left unsaid; and perhaps,
indeed, in view of the rapid movement
of events, the writer of such work
stands in greater danger of being behind
the age than he who attempts some ram
dom sketches of the haunts and ways of
the "honest miner so first called, it
is said, by aspiring patriots who sought
his suffrages. Mr.. Harte declares that
when sets of pictures portraying the
solute miner were first sent out to Cali
fornia they utterly failed of their effect,
for the reason that the average miner
refused to recognize himself in either
capacity.
A man may come to Colorado with
resolutions worthy of Leonidas; he may
treat gold and silver with lofty dis
dain; he may be doctor, lawyer, parson,
schoolteacher, book-agent, lightning
rod man, or dealer in sewing machines
ANY thing but miner; all in vain,
for. sooner or later, if he stays in Col
orado, the mania for the precious metals
will make an easy victim of him; he
will seek a "claim," and fondly see
bonanza in the smallest and shallowest
of his "prospect holes. "-A. Il. Hayes,
Jr., in Harper's for February. q
HERE is the most remarkable presence
of mind heard from so far: A brake
man on the Rochester, Lockport and
Niagara Falls Railroad had his r;oht