The semi-weekly tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1890-1891, 1890-05-03
THE GREAT MINING CAMP.
Blunders Set Right by q Practical Miner
Barker Does Not Need Mistatements,

Blunders Set Right by q Practical Miner
Barker Does Not Need Mistatements,
Especial correspondence Of the TRIBuNE.1
BARKER, May IA certain Great
Falls "~annual" in speaking of the Belt
mountain silver and lead mines, says:
sores assaying so to 80 ounces of silver
per ton and so to 10 per cent. lead, which
have heretofore been worthless t o mine
owners, will command q good price from
the smelters and insure a margin of pro-
tt." This may be true, but it carries the
idea that ores carrying a less amount of
silver and lead will still remain worth
less; that 80 to 80 ounces of silver and so
to 10 per cent. of lead were the highest
and lowest average.
Such statements are really misleading
to people who would like to invest in
mines, but have no real knowledge of
hem, their outputs or their average
value. When a mining camp is built
upon such statements, the miner and
prospect0r must maintain them by de.
ception to the would-be-purchaser or cool
the ardOr of his high expectations by tel
ling the truth. When IN inexperienced
man comes to buy a mine he also comes
loaded with such information, and if the
miner tells him the truth-that his mine
will average one ton with another 10 or
20 ounces of silver and 40 per cent lead,
it falls 80 short of what his knowledge
of q mine is, that he thinks a "wiId cat"
is offered him and he quits it for some
thing more favorable. But if the miner
selects him a piece of ore and he has 1t
assayed and it rum 80 ounces in silver
and 80 per cent. lead 1t then fills the
standard and he purchases the mine
hauls q few o q to a smelter and finds
that he is lucky to get 10 or 20 ounces of
silver and 40 per cent. lead. Ores do not
always average what q specimen will as
say and the average of q hundred ton
run through a smelter will likely fall
short of an average assay of one ton, but
when 80 ounce Of silver and so per cent.
Of lead are taken as the lowest grade of
paying ore many important Belt noun
tain mines would not pay.
The Wright q Edwards average of
2,70O tons wa 80 ounce silver and As per
cent lead. The Barker's average of 300
tons was 40 ounces silver and 40 per cent
lead. The Silver Bells average of 1880
tons was 81 ounces silver and 65 per cent
lead and yet "by the crude and expensive
system of mining and smelling then in
vogue" they were considered high grade
ores and we're worked at a profit.
There were many tons of the Silver
Bell ore that ran as low as IS ounces, yet
Its free smelling qualities made it q valu-
able ore and yet it does not fill the stan.
dard on silver o reach the height OF
the standard on lead, but remains per
haps the most profitable and valuable
mine in Meagher or Cascade counties.
This "annual" is supposed to be an adj
vertising medium for this country and
they send some one-don't know who
to write up he don't know what, and calls II
the "mineral u Of Montana" This
same annual says of Barker:
"A smelling furnace was erected by
the Clendenin Mining company and sue.
cessfully operated for about two years
Labor, fuel, transportation, ETC., were al
that time enormously high, rendering II
impossible to work at a profit anything
but the highest grade ores"
Yet the pres worked by that smeltel
were all taken from the Barker, Wright
& Edwards and Silver Bell mines, which
by their average do not come above the
lowest line of his average. Again it says
"As an illustration, one item of expense
alone, that of transporting the bullior
produced from the works to Fort Benton
the head of navigation on the Missouri
river, at that time the nearest shipping
poiEt, was 500 per ton." Now this is &c
far from the truth of the fact that the In
formation is worse than mi The high
est price paid for the transportation o
bullion from the works to Fort Bentor
was ia per ton and had nothing what
ever to do with the shutting down of thu
meter.
The mining resources of Barker ART
worthy of adjoining a few pages In tn
Engineering and Mining journal, wher
written up by such men as R. W. Ray
mond, but when d printers devil attempt
to give the values of our mines and throw
them recklessly upon an unsuspectinG
public, we object. The closing down o
the Clendenin. Smaller was somehow
caused by a business failure out ride o
the smelter. The real facts of the cas-
are known by but a few men.
M. e. RIFT.
White Bed Spreads at $1.10. Big Bar