Wichita eagle., 1889-06-16

Ii there is disappointment, then there's liable
to be murder or two, as it would be called
In the east-"a shooting scrape," as it is called
in the glorious, free and boundless west.
INTERESTING INFORMATION.
| 1t is well to give, in conclusion, some Of the
natural phenomena connected with silver
mining, and a brief digest of the attempts
made by miners and legislators to define
them. Let us suppose that we have located a
mineral outcrop. We have dug and blasted
and assayed till we have got 100 feet into the
hill, and find orevice, let us say six inches
wide, tolerably well filed with ore. Are wenot
luckys We'll, that depends. There is perhaps
one chance in fifty that we are on our way to
good mine. For the reason of this disgust
ing fact we must go back to the origin of
things and consider how mountain came to
have crevices in it at all. Suppose noun
tain Of massiverock, or of massive rock below
cap of sedinentary stratifed) rock, and then
the whole mass broken across by force acting
from below
Obviously the crevice thus produced would
be tolerabiy regular until it neared the sur
face. Then it would shatter the cap Of the
mountain, that is, If the mountain were of
massive rock. But if it were stratifed rock,
whether limestone, slate porphyry OF what
not, with lines Of cleavage already present,
the fracturing force would, of.course, follow
these lines, and thus you would find scores of
crevices at the surface for one main crevice
far below. Indeed, what miners can a
mother lodeT is often like tree in its up
ward development. The outcrops which lead
to the noted Comstock lode start from a
width of ], 200 feet. Hence, if we should de-
velop true vein and big bonanza, we
might be certain to find dozen or more fell
lows located on the neighboring outcrops,
each claimant indulging the hope that his is
the true location, but secretly expecting the
true owners to buy him off.
Now when we began our work we had to
put up paper something like this:
NOTICE
We, the undersigned, of the town of Fair Hope,
state of Colorado, this Goth day of May, 1889,
claim by right Of discovery one thousand five
hundred 500 feet along the course of this ledge
or vein of mineral bearing rock with all its dips
spurs, angles and variations, as allowed by law
Also one hundred and fifty C50) feet of surface
ground on each side of the central line of said
lode. JOSEPH HOPEFUL.
LYNN c. DOYLE.
This is according to the latest law. At
first each little mining district made its own
Derringer, when the shotgun was not con-
venient. Little by little out of this chaos
grew up general system, and tho territories
passed general laws. In 1872 Congress re-
duced the whole thing to very complete
code sof mining laws, granting GOO feet in
width and l 800 feet in length. The terrific
ries had power to limit the width, and Colo
RADIO has limited it greatly. But as to the
amount of work to hold claim, each dis
triot is a law unto itself Now comes an
other element of uncertainty. Not one loca-
ton in ten is ever sunk to depth of fifty
feet. Of those SO sunk not one in twenty ever
proves of any value, and Of those which may
be called of some value, not one in twenty is
rich enough to get excited about Hence it
is constantly happening that abandoned or
half abandoned claims are being taken, and
equally, of course, out Of many thousand such
cases there are a few dozens where the new
man discovers that the old man had blum
dered, and actually develops rich mine And
when that happens mine lawyers are in
clover, land don't you forget it," In these
cases are all the elements which make law
suits delight to one whose mind is a store
house of local expedients, articles and lodges.
There is one more element. Sometimes a
Nci ulallc ID oCNStopcA, JIG VSih III IL ID
full of ore, but the ore is just little below
the grade that would make its working profit
able in that place. Thus mine yielding ore
containing $40 per ton would be very valua-
BILE in some districts, while one yielding IS a
ten would be of no value whatever.
The opening of railroad will frequently
make a mine extremely valuable which was
of no value before. Quite enough has been
said to show that, of all departments of law,
mine law opens the greatest number of ave-
nues, and most attractively open avenues, for
trickery, fraud, forgery, subordination, per-
jury and general indiscriminate lying, and,
as is perfectly natural, the men given to that
sort of thing have embraced the opportunity.
Mining is a good deal of lottery at the best;
that is, the finding and developing Of mine
is lottery. Once a mine is found TO be val
liable mining is as legitimate as any other
business and hence in all mining countries
there is an element of uncertainty, Of unrest
and a tendency to gamble.
j. E BEADLE.