The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-10-22

three years the gulch was dug out and
| the camp deserted. Now it resembles
the wrinkled lava bed of an extinct vol
| cano, while Virginia City is not even
ghost of her former self.
There are promises, nevertheless, of a
revival of gold mining in this district by
the use of machinery capable Of handling
great deposits of placer ground at a small
profit to the ton. A fine illustration of
what old prOspectors think can be done is
| the result of u sailing scheme which sur
| passed all others in the outlay of money
| and patience by the schemers.
Six years ago two brothers named Nc
Donald came to Montana after cutting a
wide sWath in the real estate markets of
Spokane and other northwestern cities
Each had inherited considerable money
from relatives in Philadelphia, and had
turned it several times over in real estate
investments When the sun commenced
TO set and the Curbstone brokers in real
estate were looking for three meals day.
the McDonalds, like many people over
confident in their luck turned to mines.
A man with money who has never
mined, but knows all about it, is bird in
a tree for a Montana shark. The Nc
DonaldS we're duck soup" They were
quietly moved over to Alder gulch by a
syndicate of sharpers who needed "mOre
money to develop properties" After list
ening to lurid tales about former glories
and Vigilante ways for month or more,
the brothers were suddenly informed one
evening of a new and vastly rich gold dis
cOvery in an unwOrl1ed portion OF the old
gulch. The sharpers who had located
the ground took the McDonalds there the
next day, and by prestiditiation which
would have made Herrmann's eyes open,
dropped enough dust in the pan TO make a
great showing.
But the McDonalds refused to swallow
the line. They had been told to look out
for mining sharks, and were only willing
to nibble at the bait. They told the own
ers to 90 ahead and develop the ground,
and if it showed up well to report to
them. Then they went to Philadelphia
and spent the winter dancing germans
with their old society friends.
In the face of this discouraging re-
suit the sharks started ahead to
finish the game At a cost of sew
eral thousand dollars they built a
hume, put in a hydraulic plant, and gath
cred a pile of loose dirt to wash down the
ditch ilume where the gold is gathered.
Placer gold, as every body knows, is gath
cred by washing the dirt until the gold
settles to the bottom and, curiously
enough, with all modern science, this sys-
TEN has never been improved so as to
make placer gold mining profitable by
any other method. With hydraulic
power the dirt is washed through the
tiume, and the gold running along the
bottom is picked up by the little beds of
quicksilver fixed below the bed Of the
fiume. At the cleanup, usually at the
end of the season, the gold is retorted
from the amalgam.
The sharks in this instance raised $50
900 for a gold dust fund The dust was
run evenly over the quicksilver, so that
when the McDonalds arrived from Phila-
delphia there was everything to show an
enormously rich placer ground. The
brothers insisted on a cleanup after the
first fortnight's run and added so much
Joy TO the sharks If il had been a weeks
run, the JOY would have been greater.
The bait this time was swallowed with
most gratifying avidity. The McDonalds
fairly jumped at it. They paid S25O, 900 in
cash for the property and thought they
were getting il cheap at that. They
mined the remainder Of the water season,
which is almost always over by Sept. ],
and finished 10 find only the amalgam left
by the sharks Ia the absence Of any ac-
curate analy sis their feelings at that
time can only be conlcctured. Tho sharks
IA the mean time had jumped theoountry.
One Of them named George Hayes turned
up near De Lamar, Idaho, last year, and
uusuccessfully promoted sailed mine
called the Crying Jennie. This was an
alleged sapphire deposit, and was ex-