Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1887-1890, 1889-11-20
AMONG THE MINES
SOUND OPINIONS AND FACTS RELA
TIVE TO BARKER.
Instructive Comparison Between the
Black Hills and Belt Mountain
Mines-How Mining Property
Increases in Value.
Especial Correspondence of the TRIBUNE.

lDpeGlHl correspondence u lile 1HlbUNh,
BARKER, Nov. 17.-The future of the
Belt mountains is a question that is at
this time perplexlng many and the silent
thought of the laborer and the capitalists,
"what will the morrow bring forth" All Of
us would pay high prices for tickets to
the theatre that would raise the curtain
and expose the panorama of ten years
hence, but as we cannot do that, we must
do the next estthing, take acriterion and
and use our judgment.
In 1876 the writer came into the Black
Hills, Oak, and watched the growth of
that country from a wild, untramelled
wilderness until it became one of the
richest, greatest, grandest countries on
earth. The stability of It's mineral re-
sources is unexcelled, its farming and
stock ranges are good and with those adj
vantages alone-fOr it stood surrounded
by hundreds of miles of rolling prairies
sso'ated and alone-it grew from a wild
erness to be the home of millionaires
Now the Belt mountains is country
paratively the same. Surrounded by
as good farming country and better
stock country and out side of the gold
mines it has Just as good mineral resour-
ces. They have lead and silver, so have
we; they have tin, so have we; they have
70 coal mines in their foot hills, we have;
no outside country closer than the Sioux
reservation, we have. They have
large gypsum beds and mills
to manufa. ture IT,; we have the gypsum
md Will have the mills. They have no
water power near them as we have; they
have no smelter and ship their ores to
Omaha, while we have smelter at home.
They are community Of people like
:selves-"one touch of nature makes
he whole world kin" What they have
done we will do, and better still, improve
thereon. They are ten years in advance
of US and in ten years more we will be
up with them or ahead OF them. That
must be the inevitable result.
1t seems not hard to look into The fu-
tule of this country, yet some think it is.
But some people will live in a rented
house until they are obliged to move out
to make room for brick block; then go
10 another town just like the first and
| wonder il it, too, will ever build a brick
block. Our future depends OH our mines.
Have we got them? The answer is like
u |. ss-short, but sweet-"Yes ." We have
MOI only mines, but we have hundreds OF
p. aspects where the shining metal in the
ores crops out of the ground. These
a.e at present unworked. But where
mineral in any sized vein is found crop
pi 1g out of the ground, itneeds no expert
10 tell us that there is mine beneath il,
FOR nearly everyone knows that mlnera
is not surface race.
The prospects of the Black Hills in
their early days were the same as these
end those miners were willing to take al
most any price for them. These miners
are doing the same. The Florence mine
| sold in the spring of 1877 for 800 in gold
| dust, though its value was really known,
and the money went to buy grub-stake.
One year later it sold for $4,000. The
General Merritt sold for 5000 and today
| is worth as many thousands. The Father
de smet sold for $500 and cannot today
be bought for half million. 1t was. not
the deprecated value of those mines that
made people sell them at those figures
but the circumstances of the owners and
the condition of the country. A man
with such prospects there today need not
sell them for less than their value, nc
matter how poor he may be. Times have
changed since then. Capitalists have
swarmed into the country and the pros
pector is no longer called upon to sacri-
fee his property.
The same change is coming here. The
mines that today are worth hundreds viii
sell for thousands There is no riche
field in Montana today for capitalists thar
tie Belt mountains. The Belt mountain
railroad has torn down the barrier o
thraldom and the Belt mountains vii
emerge from their isolation to prove
gem in Montana's financial crown. ON
thing about the Black Hills mines tina
the mineral body lies closer to the sur
face than here. Colorado and Wyoming
mines are the same way. The mlpera
body in this country lies deel
below the surface and the ma
jority of miners get discouraged AM
and quit work before the mineral Il
, reached and then say the mine is playe'
, out.
ARCH F, ED.
The Belt mountains though long dis
; covered are yet practically new anu cfJ
ing for eastern capital to come their ale
: The old pioneers are still here and tia
/ means more than one would think. Fo
t when all of the open enterprises ar
q taken up all the now vacant places al
}. filed. The capitalist comes and buy
t up the county and the copper penn
\ takes the stwo bits" place. The pionee
t moves on goes to some other new countr
!. and looks back on the gilded mansion
the millionaire and remembers that h
cabin once occupied the site. The ['lac
Hills are mostly developing upon th
ENORMOUS tin mines. What is the matte
u of the Belt mountains producing Il
n mine? The writer has seen in the hand
If Of ignovant prospectors specimens OF II
3. found in these mountains as nice lookln
as any in the Hills. Some old Blac