News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1882-04-27
" PROSPECTING" OUT WEST.
TIE WILD LIVES OF THE LEDGE HUNTERS
WHO "TRACE THE FLOAT" AND
STAKE THE CLAIMS" IN THE SIERRA



of the Sierra Nevada, whose work In
the development of the natural
resources of the country is most i'm
portant, while their lives are the hard
est of the hard. They are the prospect
ors, the men who find the mines who,
with patience which is admirable and
shrewdness of induction, that would
yield them far higher returns in almost
any other occupation, trace out the
float" locate the ledge, and do the
first work necessary to reveal the hid
den wealth. The name applied to them
Is derived from prospects, as the
groupings, or that part of the ledge
which appears on the surface, are
called. The prospectors are curious
class in many respects, having as little
thought of the morrow as sailors, aban-
6oning themselves when in funds to the
widest forms of dissipation and excess,
and when their sprees are over, working
as hard as it is possible for men to
work. There are exceptions to this, of
course ; but the average prospector, in
these few words, has been pretty fairly
described. One sometimes makes large
amounts of money when by chance he
gets fair price for one of his claims !;
but as rule the money goes as quickly
as it comes. The penniless condition
that follows does not startle him, for, as
he would say himself, he has ''bin thar
afore." If he has money enough to pay
for GRUB stake, he buys one; if not,
always providing that he has the repu-
tation of being man who understands
his business, he has but little trouble
In persuading some store-keeper to ad-
vance him one, taking in return an
agreement on the part of the prospector
to put him sin the pot" This being
translated, means that the prospector
shall assign one-half Of whatever he
may find to the storekeeper. The agree
ment is one which works exceedingly
well for the storekeeper, because the
GRUB stake" is rarely worth more than
$40, and his share in a mine which, if it
is worth anything at all, is worth five
or six thousand dollars Many of the
storekeepers in the mining regions trace
their fortunes to 'grub stakes" ad-
vanced to prospectOrs ''out of luck
the euphenistic method Of describing
man who has literally thrown away
every cent he had.
The 'fgrub stake; whether bought
by the prospector or contributed by his
silent partner in the enterprise, is almost
always the same. One or two sides of
bacon, bag of beans, sack of -four,
some coffee or tea and little salt and
sugar, with tobacco of course. These
the prospector packs upon his ''burro"
the Spanish or Mexican name for a
jsckass-and with them some ammuni-
ton, an iron pot of the kind commonly
called a Clutch oven," frying pan,
his blankets, pick and shovel, some
simple chemicals, horn spoon, as an
elllpse cut from one side of a horn is
called, and sometimes a small pestle and
mortar. Having packed the "burro"
he starts out. Before leaving town
ell mining villages are called towns,
even when there are but two houses
however, an important ceremony has to
be gone through with. This is the
presentation by the storekeeper of a
bottle of whisky, theoretically sup
posed to be for use in case of snake bites
and always spoken of by both store
keeper and prospector with the utmost
gravity from this standpoint. AS mat
ter of fact, the snakes if they wish their
bites cured, have to be somewhat in a
hurry for the whisky is gone within
twenty-four hours. Having cured his
snake bites by anticipation, the Pre- a.
pector starts on his lonely tramp. If
the "burro" is young he has to be led,
but if he has been prospecting before
he viii follow his owner with some
thing of the fidelity of dog. In start
ing out the two are leaving civilization
for anywhere from one month to four.
During that time they will travel over
hills, cross deserts, climb down Into
valleys-the man always hunting for a
ledge which may contain ore. The life
is solitary in the extreme and one full
of hardships and hard work, yet the
men who once get into it find it pos
sesses some strange fascination, for
they rarely leave it for anything else.
The actual work of discovering a
TaIo.o ,,,o7 10
pose the prospector has found some
stone in which he discovers ore. From
long experience he recognizes an ore of
gold or silver as easily as man recog-
nizes the face of friend in the street.
Having found piece of stone contain
ing ore, the first thing he has to do is
to discover where it came from.
"Rock that is found away from q
ledge is called "fioat," and hunting fol-
the ledge is called "tracing the float. y
In order to do this he must reason out
how it got to where he found it. There
are several ways in which float can be
carried from the ledge. 1t may have
been moved by a stream or "cloud
brush" as sudden and very violent
floods in narrow canyons are called; or
if the ledge be on bill, it may have
simply rolled down. The prospectol
knows that in whatever way it came tc
the place where ne found it, the float
was not moved up hill, and his search
therefore is always in the direction Of
higher ground. He makes his camr
where grass for the " burro," wood and
water are abundant, and begins opera.
tions.
If he sees, as he often does, that the
piece of fl oat he has broken open is on
of many, and that there is. from where
he is standing, line of stones extend
ing up hill-sometimes In the form OF 6
fan or great triangle-his work is easy
in the extreme. He knows that all ht
has to do to find the ledge is simply tc
walk mp hill to where it is. But if he
finds his pieces of float at the mouth Of
a little canyon, up that canyon he goes,