The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1894-07-06
THE DAYS OF GOLD.
California Has Promise of a Revival of tho
Mountain Mining Camps of 40.

California Has Promise of a Revival of the
Mountain Mining Camps of 40.
The suggestion made by the Argo-
naut several months ago that the bat
talions of the unemployed who were
clamoring for charity in this city might
make u living in the abandoned dig
gings has produced quite literature.
The newspapers of the regions where
the pioneers dug and washed have dis
cussed the matter and information has
accumulated The Argonaut made on
~ one mistake and that was in suppos-
that the sort of men who haunt soup
houses and flock to cities looking for
work" have the stuff in them to be min
ers. In the dollar-a-day army out at
the park there are doubtless many hon
est, harmless creatures, but none with
the vim necessary to try to be independ-
ent of an employer. 1t remains true,
however, that any man without fam
ily-and what right have men to bring
into the world families if they cannot
feed them?-can, if he possesses good
muscle, willing heart, and little in
telligence, wrestle out a livelihood in
the placer sections. Doubtless much
mineral land has been covered by
agricultural patents, yet the holders
of these patents are often willing
enough to sell to the miner the privi-
lege of working. The Chinese buy
this privilege frequently. The Tele-
graph, of Folsom, relates how the en-
terprising Mongol has caused a rancher
on the American river, near Salmon
Falls, Ell Dorado county, to think
meanly of the Caucasian brain The
river bed at his place had never been
mined. Some Chinese offered him one
hundred dollars to let them try their
luck on it. He stood out for one hum
bred and fifty dollars, half to be paid in
advance and the remainder at the end
of the year. He exulted when the
coolies, after long haggling, accepted
his exorbitant terms. As soon as the
lease was signed the Chinese went to
work, and in week washed out eight
thousand, seven hundred and twenty
dollars, and in all cleared up over
thirty thousand dollars.
These sharp Cinnamon We're old
miners to be sure, but experience does
not count for much in placer and
pocket mining. The editor of the Pet
aluma Imprint, who had spent his pio-
neer years in the gulches, insists that
''it is an indisputable fact that
from the earliest days down to
the present time in the min
ing regions of California a ma
jority, probably nine-tenths, of
the new discoveries have been made by
greenhorns." The chief trouble with
old miners, he remarks, is they think
they know where gold is not to be
found, and they will not hunt for it in
greenhorn, who hunts for it every
where, and succeeds in finding it where
its presence was deemed most improba-
BILE or impossible 1t is the Judgment
of another old mining expert that "a
man can yet make a good living work.
ing on any of the river bars, and there
is large section of California which
has never been thoroughly prospected. :"
Even water is not indispensable to the
gathering of gold. On the desert side
of the Sierra Nevada great deal of
coarse gold is reported as having been
found. The section is waterless, even
what the men drink being hauled to
the diggings in barrels. The gold is all
''washed' dry. That is, the gravel is
shovelled into machine, worked by
hand, like an ordinary grain tanner
1t passes through several sleeves of diff
ferent sizes, the dust is blown away,
hn fol fol lie RI
nugget worth over one thousand dollars
was picked up there.
1t is these chances of big finds that
make mining the most fascinating oc.
cupation in the world In all the canons
and gulches and river beds, once
thickly populated by the pioneers, old
fellows are scattered. They live a rude
life, but not hard one. Pork and
beans and coffee content them in their
little cabins. Clothing costs them next
to nothing, and there is nothing to pay
for rent or fuel They manage to
gather enough dust to pay their hum
BILE way Very few of them make
wages" for they are not Industrious
and do not care for wages. Not one of
them would exchange his lot for that
of the best paid city wage Garner, for
ever ahead is the chance for wealth.
1t is not by any means an illusionary
chance, either Any day the nugget
may appear in the pan or rocker, or
the rich pocket be uncovered. Their
life is incomparably more independent
and manly than that of The ordinary
workingman. They own themselves,
and have the dignity of players at a
game which has made millionaires Of
hundreds of men once as poor as they.
The Argonaut would not recommend
the hazards of prospecting for gold to
any young man who has the ability to
make his way oreditahly in the city,
but for all who have capacity for moth
ing higher than manual labor, and
who possess the courage to wait, the
strength to endure, it certainly does
advise the risks and the self-respecting
freedom of the placers, old and new
San Francisco Argonaut.
A MlCROBE-PROOF BUILDING.