The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-10-18
THE OLD DAYS PASSED,
Mining and Prospecting as Carried
on Twenty Years Ago No
Longer Possible.
The Growth From Panning and
Rocking to the Modern
Hydraulic Plant.
Rich Find on the Mother Lode In Idaho
Tho Morning Sale-FrOm the
Cumberland.

Old time mining and prospecting have
gone by forever, and the social conditions
which they produce are nc longer possible
in the United States. They live only in the
stories of Bret Hart, the "Roughing 1t" of
Mark Twain. and the memory of those who
are a part of them. This hurdy- gurdy, the
gambling tent, Mother Shipton," the pros
pector with his bag of gold dust. the rough
and-ready life in a house whose roof was
the starry sky. the enthusiasm and mischief
and hope of youth. the good fellowship
and royal nature, the honor that comes
from confidence and trust, if from no
deeper source, the daily coming of the mail
coach, the occasional whisky racket or
gambling duel when some one turned up his
toes to the daisies, and the healthy, enjoya-
Bile life of work and fun, where aristocracy
WAS a matter of intellect II honor instead
of money and clothes, exist now like a
dream. In a few years more they will be
wholly historical, like the events of the
days when our New England ancestors
went to church carrying their muskets for
pr election from Indians.
Perhaps it is just as we'll for humanity
that this old life is gone. It would be folly
~ @ IA0u ~ oApSf ~
provements of civilization are not better
for the world than q frontier life. free and
happy as it may have been.
But II is something to have lived in those
days, and formed q part of their life. The
man who grew up with them has seen typi-
fed in a small way the growth of mining as
a science and an art since the days Of civili-
cation. In fact he has seen the introduce
ton of nine-tenths of the Improvements
that have ever been made. He has seen
placer mining. which consisted of panning
and rocking-which it had always been
emerge into the use of a 'long torn," then
a sluice box and finally the browning tri-
umph of Yankee ingenuity, the modern by
draulic plant. He has seen the Mexican
arastra superseded by the Georgia stamp
milI'' with wooden stems, and that in
turn s%upplanted by the modern mill.
He has seen roasters. desulphurlz-
ers, matchmaking pans, ieaonlng
processes without number come, create
their sensation, awaken the hopes of the
people, fail and disappear, only to be sue
oeeded by some other thing Of a like nature.
He has seen the coming of the foreign ex-
pert, who was once supposed to know every
thing. and listened to his more or less
learned, wise or otherwise theories, and has
seen most of them disproved. He has
watched the development of the mining
swindler in his glory and the coming OF
the sucker in his innocence, and out of it
all has evolved a few general truths, learned
a thousand valuable lessons and become
very skeptical about the value of all new
things until they bear better credentials
than new things are apt to bear. If he is
scholar enough in the domain of natural
science or student enough to 60 to the
foundation Of things and study cause and
effect, he has been educated in the school
of schools whose lessons are the hardest and
most valuable that mankind ever did or can
learn.