The morning call., 1895-02-08
In THE COAST MINES.
The Annual Assessment Work
on Claims.
WHAT CYANIDE HAS DONE.
A Decision for the Miners Of West
Point.
EXTRACTING GOLD FROM BASE ORES.
Risks and Hardships in Store for Pros
peetOrs Who Intend to Go
TO Alaska.

Two years ago Congress passed an act
suspending part of section 1924 of the Re-
vised Statutes of the United States relating
to the annual assessment work required on
claims. This act relieved the miners from
doing the usual assessment work required
by law for the year 1898. Congress again
suspended the same portion of the law for
1894, requiring only that each claim-owner
should file with the County Clerk or Dis
trict Recorder "notice of good faith. ]"
By filing this notice that he intended in
good faith to hold and work his claim
the owner was freed from the necessity of
doing the 500 worth of work usually re-
quired to hold title to the claim.
The object of this law was to help the
silver miners in the various States and
Territories, many of whom were unable to
carry on work owing to the very low price
of silver. 1t applied, however, to all
classes of miners. For the silver miners
this cessation of assessment work was a
very good thing, but it is very doubtful
if it served any good purpose when it APP
piled to the gold mines of this or other
States. OF course many miners who are
holding claims only to sell were pleased
with the action of Congress, because they
could simply sit still and not touch their
claims, whereas before they had to do 500
worth of work to keep possession. While
it may be of temporary convent ence to an
individual to permit men to hold mine
without assessment work, it is bad thing
for mining, region. Men who take up
claims should be compelled to work them
or drop them entirely so others may do so.
All successful mining countries require
some sort of annual expenditure. 1t IS
only by work that q prospect is devel-
oped into mine. Where no expenditure
is required, claims lie idle for years await
ing a purchaser, where there is really
nothing for purchaser to see.
This is what the Mariposa Gazette has to
say on the subject: There are men in this
country who are "holding down" mining
claims in the hope of making a stake by the
sale of their property. Yet some of these
same men are doing little if anything to
show that their claims are worth purchas-
ing. The law renting assessment work
on mining claims has, in one way, been a
detriment to the mining industry, as those
who are shiftless or unable to develop their
holdings have thus kept others from doing
what they have failed to do. If one knows
that assessment work must be done some
way will be found to do it, and even this
small amount of work might show it worth
while to do more. A claim will sell for
| just what it shows and no more, and an
undeveloped mine has positively no value
in the market. Capitalists are not invest
ing in prospects, they will only buy GER
tainties. A location alone is not worth the
paper it is written upon. Any miner who
has reason to believe he has a good claim
and fails to work on it should get off the
earth, at least that portion of the earth. If
you have good thing, prove it.
The Phoenix (Ariz.) Gazette also takes
IL hi cI1b Ic nodded
is simply law compelling those who To-
cate mining claims to work them and de-
velop their wealth or else forfeit their
rights to those who will do so. AS it is
now man may locate one claim-or half
a mining district, for that matter-and
withhold it from development all his life
by relocating it year after year. Whole
mountain ranges are thus dotted with
squadrons of boundary monuments, ST.
lently warning off all corners and prevent
ing exploration, and, mayhap, the discov-
cry of rich mines, for no one will waste
time, prospecting a section where location
may only lead to litigation.
Thus the country remains unexplored,
and these spectators, in their short
sighted greed, not only defeat their own OBJ
iect, but retard the development of the dis
trict.
Assessment work is the most important
stimulant of a mining district. The mis-
chievous and pernicious laws allowing ex-
emption from assessment work for the
years 1898 and 1894 were engineered
through Congress by rich man for the
benefit of rich men, and were met by
wall from every mining camp in the West.
They were the most serious setback that
the industry has ever received. Even the
demonetization of silver was less per-
nicous in it's effects. The least of TIL e
evils engendered by these exemption laws
is the prevention OF the disbursement of
over $1,000 among the poorer miners of
this Territory-an amount they learn by
doing the required work for richer mine
owners and corporations, and which en-
ables them to develop their own mines.
No legitimate miner ever wished to evade
the assessment law. He does much more
every year.