The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-12-15
LUCK IN MINING.
An Old LendviIIe Man Talks of His
Mistakes and Lost Opportunities.

Mistakes and Lost Opportunities.
From the Philadelphia Times
Hill City, S. D., Nov. 3O.-An old Lead
vile mining man who passed through the
great silver carbonate boom of 1S7S-S1
and is now in the Black Hills, antici-
patlng similar wave of mining invest
ment and wealth production, tells a
number of interesting stories of his e.
perience in Colorado.
THE biggest mistake / ever made"
said the genial white-haired raconteur,
was in refusing to purchase half in
terest in a little fiat-iron shaped piece
of ground lying near the famous Little
Pittsburg, the great sand-carbonate de-
post, which first made Tabor rich and
famous. The claim was the merest frac-
ton, its longest side measuring only 10
feet. When the owner offered me half
interest for $l25 / almost laughed at him.
l wasn't up to fractions, you see-I want
ed a whole claim or nothing. The pros
pector was hard up and he finally sold
out to Tabor for next to nothing. The
three-day senator from Colorado got
$125,000 out of this little patch of sand
and gravel. That man Tabor never took
hold of anything in Leadville that did
not pay. If l had bought the ground
the chances are ten TO one that l should
never have found the big chamber OF rich
carbonates IL contained, because the shaft
sunk in prospecting would have been kept
closely timbered. AS Ii was, the careless
ness of one of the men led to the dis
covery The drift under this little tri-
angle as in most of the claims, was made
up of gravel, clay and tale. This tale
rock would stand in the walls of a shaft
for several feet without timbering If
carefully handled. Well, when the min
ers had reached depth of about forty
feet and had left the walls to stand
or fall in for ten or twelve feet, one of
for timbering, stuck his pick too Wig
orously into one side OF the shaft and
great slab OF tale loosened by m ,3
ture slid down with thud, revealing
one of the richest deposits of carbonates
ever discovered about Leadville. If this
chance stroke had not shown the ore II
more than probable that Tabor would
havessunk a couple of hundred feet with
out finding anything. In the ordinary
affairs of life luck is myth, but in
mining ii often proves a positive factor.
That was not my only mischance at
Leadville. / did some geographical min
ing when 1 first went there in the fall OF
1875 Richie had taken Tabor's quarter
of beef, bacon, flour and groceries-Tabor
kept a little grocery then and grub-staked
miners. He had gone up into the hills
some months before. He found the Pits
burg and l was one of the early arrivals,
while the boom was gaining impetus. Lit
tie was known of the nature OF the for
nation, its geology was problematic then,
though the glacial deposit theory has
since then been generally accepted.
reasoned that boat-shaped piece OF
ground surrounded by such rich claims as
the Pittsburg, Chrysolite, Vulture and
other PRODUCERS ought TO catch the beds
of argentiferous sand somewhere, and so
bought an interest in undeveloped ground
purely because of its location. The VEN
lure proved disastrous. l sunk shafts on
ali parts of the ground, one to a depth of
$50 feet, without securing more than prom
Using float Three beds of what might be
termed silver placer, were capped with
iron carbonates; they lay Just below the
rim rock on the terraces of California
Gulch and this iron rock was regarded
as an almost certain indication. One
day we came upon some broken masses
of this capping-float and began to feel
rich We laughed at an offer of 5000,
considered il in the nature of an insult.
The next day we were through the float
and never saw a sign of ii again. Those
alterations of hope and dependency, a
normal state of mind in speculative min
ing are, l suppose, responsible for the
abundance of my gray hairs.
1.-The most beaten, disguised and disap-
pointed lot of people ever in Colorado
were, 1 believe, the partners in the Law
property. when the Lew q. Letter inter-
gathered up something like 100000 worth
of rich carbonates, which we had mined
and ready to haul to the smelter. IL was
the question of the right to follow a de-
posit across side lines.
'Judge Miller had decided that owners
must confine their underground workings
to the side lines of their claims in a test
case arising on the Pittsburg HILL The
law now recognizes the right of the dis
coverer of a lode to follow it into adjoining
fiicting. The famous. iron silver ground
Joined the side lines of the Law, our prop
erty. The Iron Silver people had pushed
their drift until it broke into the workings
upon our ground. They were taking out
thousands daily and we knew they would
claim the right to follow their lead. We
were not sure that the decision made
would protect our side lines, as the forma-
ton was not a blanket or fiat deposit,
and so prepared for the worst.
"Only the richest rock was mined for sew
eral days and we had barricaded the drift
connecting the two properties. A big Irish
man with a rife was stationed to guard
the approach and warn off intrduers. When
everything was ready, we arranged to
remove the ore at night TO avoid the pos
sibilty of an Injunction. On the night chos-
en- we reached the shaft quietly men and
owners were lowered into the workings
and everything looked favorable for the
enterprise. But we were not permitted to
rob our own mine and thus save the rich
ore. Our Irish Horatius had abandoned
his bridge. The barricade was down, the
ore gone and the drift In the possession of
Iron Silver forces. We were betrayed,
beaten and utterly cast down. We made
no useless demonstration. but retired as
quietly as we had come. The fellow who
sold US out was never seen In Leadviile
again. and have always admired his good
Judgment in deciding upon an immediate
change of residence"