The Cheyenne daily leader. [volume] (Cheyenne, Wyo.) 1870-1884, 1884-01-13
MINING FRAUDS.
A Well Known Expert Speaks His Mind
With Considerable PIainnees.
To the editor of the LEADER.

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all the m~ultitudinous concomitants of
mining camps, and amongst the COM
mon characteristics, lone are more
prominent in basSo relieve than her
frauds and errors. The former are nu-
merous in character, from the broad
cloth confidence man, who calls him,
self a promoter" a professional shark
who goes between the miner and the
capitalist. Sometimes lsuch men are
honest, upright and capable, but as u
rule are the contrary, with noble few
and honorable exceptions.
The capitalist often grinds the miner
to the wall and squeezes, like q lemon,
all the juice and vitality out of him.
Sometimes the %grubstaker takes in"
the miner and sometimes the miner
takes i'm and 'goes through" the
grubstaker. Generally, however, l
think the latter proposition Is true.
An honest miner can be coupled with
an honest lawyer. If the proposition is
true that ian honest man is the noblest
work of God" what must be an honest
miner. Even in Cheyenne, where the
honesty of its people is beyond COM
pare, we have seen glaring frauds Of
the most unblushing character.
Our people will remember how the
quicksilver dodge agitated this COM
munity for a brief season, seme two
and a half years ago, and how one of
our most prominent physicians was in
duced to invest considerable of his sur
plus capital in its fabulous prospects.
Hardly had that ephemeral fraud col
lapsed, ere auother-''The Red Rover"
gold excitement in Silver Crown dis
trict came prominently before Il
people. $4,000 in gold to the tomb
Big excitement in the papers one morn
ing. Three or four gentlemen went
out to the mine which was two or three
feet deep. The fraud lasted a few days
and rich specimens were circulated
around for pocket pieces, and were as
thick ''as leaves in Val AMBROSE" I'M
til the fifty cents worth of gold leaf
that had been purchased of a surgeon
dentist here, by an ''honest MINER
had played ont and was used up.
Then the tide turned from gold to sill
yer, and the Aladdin bonanza of the
Red Rover turned out Sl6 900 silver to
the ton. Again the newspapers teemed
with excitement and sensations about
the granite carrying gold. Even Prof.
Aughey was humbugged into believing
the fabulous yarn. A prominent as
sayer produced p big amount. Assay
after assay was brought to me from the
Red Rover, and when | pronounced it
n fraud, and not a trace in it Of either
gold or silver, l was denounced u ig-
norant of my profession. Several prom
inent citizens were bled to the tune of
$50 or $50 each. us l have heard, and
the silver turned out to be lead used as
a fink. Lately another effort has been
made on the same stuff to take in some
of our citizens with the tertiary mud,
and whicl did not, can not and never
will carry anything.
Then comes i claim in Hartville dis
Lrict, in which big assays were obtained
from Denver and Salt Lake, but in
which l could never find anything, and
thereby gained the everlasting enmity
of the owner.
The assayer who finds a little some
thing in every ore is always a popular
assayer. The honest miner likes to be
CALLED and humbugged. 1t tickles his
vanity to be able to say that his ore
ran 30 much in gold and 30 much in
silver, whether it is true or not. Many
of them will go and get a rich copper
ore, for instance, have it assayed and
show it TO their friends as coming from
their lode, when the truth is it never
came within 200 miles of it. / have in
my minds eye now a man who came
down to Cheyenne from the north load
cd with iron ore, which he tried to salt
and get a big assay frem me. 1 saw
through the fraud, and the assay
showed nothing-no gold, no silver, no
copper. He sent u specimen of the
same, or said to be the same, down to
Burlingame and the mint at Denver,
and received certificate Of a big amount
and 90 per cent. copper. The papers
teemed with the sensation, how the
colonel had struck it rich, and
mining in Wyoming was about to be
reyolutionized. That same piece of ore
came from Boulder county, Colorado.
A gentleman in the vicinity had a piece
handed to him, and the redoubtable
colonel played it off as his own ore, OBJ
tained a grub stake on it, and when the
ore was shown to me L recognized it as
the gold bearing azurite copper ore OF
Boulder county, and several specimens
of which are now in u midst. Our
people remember another fraud, called
the Alfaretta, which was said to con
tain $500 or $500 from his assays in
Denver and Salt Lake, which after /
had investigated and examined the ores
not a trace was found in them. This
| understand, vas the result of u prac'
tical joke on the unfortunate owner,
and not from ~rascality on his part.
1t is not forgotten, the fiasco of assays
made on sone gold and silver found il
some claims in Silver Crown mining
district, when many of prominent
business men were called upon and did
assist. After the first few assays,
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