The Arizona sentinel., 1888-05-26

metal. The location of it precludet
 any thought of salting. and the caml
 went wild. It went if any thing. {
 little wilder when it was found that
 the stranger had already staked off the
 best claims. A mining claim, theoret.
 ically, may extend down to the center
 of the earth. and his. of course, cut
 through the spot where the quartz was
 found. The same day he was offered
 and accepted good many thousand
 dollars for the property.
 It was subsequently, discovered that the ragged stranger and the man with
 gun were identical H. had filed
 down twenty-dollar gold piece,
 loaded a gun with the dust, and fired
 into the face of the cliff This man
 had been deserter from the United
 States Army. His name escapes me.
 Sailing with chloride of gold. so
 called. was the invention of Q Cali
 fornia man and practiced by him at
 the hydraulic mines in the northern
 part of that State. l will leave some
 chemist 10 state what the powerful re-
 solvent was that held gold suspended
 in infinitely small particles, but such
 an agent he did discover and used with
 success. Hydraulic mining is done by
 means of a very long sluice or trough
 with slats nailed crosswise along the
 bottom. As muddy water, with which the rich earth has been mixed, is passed through this sluicc. quicksilver in the angles of the slats attracts the atoms of gold, and the alluvial de- posit forms an amalgum. At several worthless mines this chloride of gold
 was emptied into the water, and the particles of metal united with the quicksilver in exactly the manner of nature. It deceived all the experts and realiz d fortune for the swind- Ter. He built a summer hotel on the Pacific coast with the proceeds. and this was shortly after destroyed by fire. Thus vice was ultimately pun ished, just as it is in novels, plays and real life.
 Who has ever heard of 'Grattin's bottles?" Very few, and yet they at one time puzzled numerous leading scientists of the country. This is briefly the history of them: A man named Grattin owned cluster of bar ren claims in Colorado. He wont to a St. Louis capitalist and told him a wonderful story of gold, which existed, he said. all through the loamy subsoil of the mines. The capitalist became interested. and went out to investigate, Grattin giving him four glass bottles in which to bring home specimens of the earth. These he brought back, securely sealed, and an assay discov- cred gold running thousands of dollars to the ton. He bought the mines and Grattin disappeared.
 When the mines turned out to be absolutely worthless the question of how the swindle was perpetrated arose. The slrictest search failed to show any signs of salting. and then the victim thought of the bottles. They were ordinary glass jars holding a quart each, and there was apparent- ly nothing suspicious about them. However, he had them scalded out and filled with earth from his garden. In few days the jars were opened and unquestionable traces of gold found in the contents. He was Scientific men examined | Ihem, and could make nothing out of | the phenomena. No matter what was put into the bottles gold would ap- pear in few days. It looked like 
 Finally it occurred to some body to ,ut into the corks. and then the secret | was out They were made of a con- position of shellac. powdered cork and gold dust. This had the property of gradually disintegrating and dropping )f, and the more the bottles were han He'd the more gold would be found on assay.
 Mine salting has been practiced so requently in Colorado that smelters md miners are extremely careful to whom they sell rich ore, lest it be put O improper uses. Hence it is mat CT of some difficulty to obtain the alt. This was rather ingeniously overcome some years ago in Lead file. A salter wanted some ore from he Robert E. Lee mine. at that time he richest in the camp. He obtained as a laborer. and every -ay, af,er he had eaten his dinner in me of the drifts, he would fill his 'ucket with ore. In a short time he ad the necessary quantity. Some miners who noticed the trick en- loved it to steal orc and were getting lch when the whole story came to ght and they came to grief
 Very few smelters have ever been windled by salting. They take ex- raordlnary precautions against it, all the ore they buy from at east a dozen places, and then grind lg up the balance and samplinp it fresh. In some smelters as many as 1rty different samples are taken. It is singular fact that not only ave poor mines been salted with rich re, but rich mines have been very salted with poor. The cir under which such an ap- aren't paradox would take place are hes: Explorations are being made ( l some part of mine and vein of 1 cry rich mineral is suddenly un- ! overed. Ii the superintendent has ]