The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1890-05-06
THE MOTHER LODE.

The regular time having come round the
public are informed in the usual way that
"the mother lode" has once more been dis
covered, this time in Grub Gulch-happy
name-in Fresno County. Men of enter
prise are notified that locations on the lode,
likewise corner lots in the nearest town, are
going off like hot cakes and they are advised,
if they have any regard for themselves or
their families, TO secure at least one of each
before it is too late. In very little while
the whole mother lode will be gobbled by
remorseless capitalists and, as for the town,
lots Will be worth a fortune. We have not
heard, however, that any rush of investors
TO Grub Gulch has compelled the railroad
company to put extra cars on its southern
bound trains nor has the labor market
showed signs that miners are migrating to
the new FL Dorado in overwhelming multi
tudes. The public have received the news
with remarkable composure.
This general Indifference to a discovery
of such importance may arise from a posi-
bic doubt in the public mind whether there
is any mother lode at all. 1t was an article
of mining faith years ago that all the gold
bearing veins that had been discovered in
the Sierra were spurs, stringers from veta
madre, as the old Spaniards called it. The
Yeta riadre, or mother lode, was pregnant
with precious metals and had oyerflowed
into number of little rivulets of mineral
lied quartz. 1t was these rivulets which
had been found. If only lucky miner
should discover the fountainhead the
source and spring of all the precious metals
which bad made so many fortunes in the
Sierra, what a Cresus he would become!
Men spent their substance in prospecting
for the mother lode somewhat after the
fashion of the man who went for the goose
who laid golden eggs.
1t viii be time enough to argue the ques-
ton whether there is or is no. mother
lode when scientific men agree upon some
plain explanation Of the genesis of veins.
At present no two mining experts agree on
the subject. Some believe that the mineral
was projected upward from masses of mott
en- metal beneath the crust of the earth
and filtered into cracks in the strata above
Others hold that the metals were held in
solution in the atmosphere and were pre-
cipitated to the earth, where they were
gradually condensed ana in a liquid form
allowed to flow into creyices and hollows.
Where such doctors differ the layman can
but suspend his judgment and join the
band of agnostics.
There is just one fact which modern
mining enterprise has proved beyond ques-
ton and on which some theory of mineral
deposits may perhaps be partly based. 1t
is reasonably certain that the richest ores
are found within short distance below the
surface and that the old theory that the
richest ore would he found at the greatest
depths was a delusion. Ore not unfre-
quently improves in grade for two or three
hundred feet, but, with rare exceptions,
below those depths it grows poorer, until
it reaches point where its value is more
than consumed by the cost of hosting and
pumping This does not necessarily imply
that it will not pay to work ores below 500
feet. In modern mining low-grade ores are
often more profitable than very rich ores,
Which are apt to vanish without notice.
But all the same, when our Fresno friends
build nigh hopes of discovering bonanzas
at great depths on their mother lode it is
proper to say that modern scientific ex-
perienee is against them.