St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-12-08
Is One of the Tricks That Give
Costly Experience to Ten
derfeet.
The Business Has the Element
of Luck as One Of It's
Features.
Interesting Points as Gath
cred by an Observer in the
Black Hills.
The New Tin Mines Are Being
Pushed With Favorable
Outlook.
Special to the Globe.

Special to the Globe.
RAPID CITY, OAK, Dec. thinning is
peculiar industry. 1t is the one buSl-
ness in which all the requisites for sue
cess in other pursuits are ofttimes only
adjuncts to defeat, and which are never
successful except when aided by some
thing apparently above and beyond hui
man control. This something is the
luck, the faulty which holds the pros
pector to the search through hardships
and privations unknown in any other
avocation, until he has found lode
which gives good promise. After find
ing, the claim must be prospected, sold
and developed before
IT IS A MINE.
And how much these words will tell
the men whose days have been spent in
pursuit of the phantom future through
the rocky Businesses of the Western
mountains. Of the prospector much has
been written. He is the hero of many
romance, poem and picture, and abounds
in the novel and on the stages. 1t need
only be suggested here that the same
rule of eXaggeration as applied to other
idealistic creations when contrasted to
the real applies to the prospector, and
the man who patiently trudgeS over
mountain and valley during good
weather. and complacently loafs in
camp or town during bad, resembles
very little the red-shirted, full-bearded,
PRODUCTION OF ROMANCE.
''The Lord will provide" is a matter
in which the prospector unconsciously
trusts, and good luck and bad find and
leave him very much the same.
But the shrewd diplomat who gets
along side ethe prospector and secures
first his confidence. and then his finest
specimens and his permission to sell,
and then goes forth to find purchaser,
and eventually succeeds, he is the man
without whom mining country could
not exist. A mine may be ever so rich,
and, if undeveloped, it will be WORTH
less. To develop it takes money, and
the mission of this man is to find the
money. 1t is needless to eXpatiate on
the qualifications of such a person, for
aDy man who has ever undertaken to
sell anything knows how suspicious
capital is: and when it is considered
how delicate a matter approaching
man to sell him at high figure some
thing he nor no one can tell anything
about, it may be seen what world of
nerve, assurance and tact the man has
who makes it his business. There are
some WAYS attributed to this individual
that NAV be classed as dark and devious,
but as all tend to the just end OF en-
listing needed money for the legitimate
enterprise of mining, it is the charitable
custom of Western people to overlook
any little moral obliquitieS i'll which
this man may indulge.
When a miner has "struck lead''
that ssshows up WE'LL" he is soon found
by one Of these men and price agreed
on for the property. Then the agent
seeks buyer. The agents commission
is all he can sell the prospect for in ex-
cess of the price stipulated with the
prospector. This is one way OF getting
A MINE STARTED.
It is of course not necessary here to
dllate Oh the methods employed i'll en-
listing capital. 1t frequently appears
that where the sale is finally made the
agent pockets at least double the sum
received by the locator. Another way
to get mining property on the market is
to organize stock company, but there
is usually very little money in this plan
for the prospecter. By far the most i'm
portant period in the history of the
transaction is when the expert visits
the property. He always comes, and OF
course is expected to favor the interests
of the eXpectant purchasers. But the
wary seller not infrequently makes
favorable report an object to the eX-
pert, and the sale is accordingly con-
summated. 1t not often happens, too,
that the expert employed knows but lit
tie of the task at which The is set, and
then the work OF, bamboozllng him is
comparatively easy. In this connection
reference of course is had to mining
claims of doubtful value. Good claims
need no undue influences to recommend
them. There are many ways of salt
ing' a mine, so many, in fact, that the
expert has to be continually alert to
avoid the swindlers' work. The COM
monest way, but one rarely tried on
none of experience, is to procure lot of
rich ore from good claim, and with it
fix the poor claim in such shape as to
give it the appearance of great value:
This is usually done for the benefit OF
stenderfeet." But of the other ways a
volume might be written and the half
not told.