St. Paul daily globe., 1895-12-15

hoarse in their efforts to buy shares
for which customers in all parts of
the Union are clamoring. Almost
| market is eagerly snapped up. There
are ten purchasers to every block Of
a thousand shares. That is why the
brokers push and jostle and shout.
They are trying to fill barrel out of
a quart measure.
In the mining exchanges at Color
ado Springs and in Cripple Creek
itself the same scenes are occurring.
Chicago has got it bad. Gotham has
heard the news with incredulouS
ears, but, while Wall street yet re-
mains apparently undisturbed,. the
calm may be broken at any moment
and everything else be forgotten in
the mad race for mining stocks.
In Denver over 100000 shares
have changed hands in day. The
three exchanges of Colorado Springs
have turned over 1,1S0,000 shares in
a few hours. Pueblo has new min
ing exchange where $4,000 shares
were handled recently in a day.
1t is the small investors who are
creating all the excitement. The
man with million to invest does not
telegraph a strange broker to buy
stock which he never heard of until
a few hours before. 1t is the man
with a few hundred dollars who does
this, and his name is legion. He
would rather have 100000 shares at
one-half cent a share than 500
shares at 81 a share. To use a rae
ing term, it is the "long shots" that
the public is after, and very '1ong
The fascination comes when the
buyer persuades himself that these
shares which he buys for one-half
cent may in a month or two be sell
ing at 81 each.
But down below all these shaky
air castles there is a firm foundation.
The gold boom is not all built on
wind. We don't have to believe all
the reports that come from Cripple
Creek either. 1t is a strange strike
that has been made out on those
Colorado hills, and the strangest
part of some of the stories told about
the new gold camp is the facts in
them.
The streets Of Cripple Creek are
paved with gold. Sounds like Mum
chausenism, doesn't it? Well, that
statement is very near the truth.
The explanation is that low grade
ore is reckoned of so small account
it has been used to grade the streets
with. Ore that will assay $12 to the
ton is not thought worth sending
| to the smelters. The railroad run
ming into Cripple Creek is ballasted
| with ore that is worth $10.75 cubic
yard. There is no use sending such
stuff to the smelters nowadays. They
are running night and day separat-
| ing the yellow metal from ore that
| yields s, 10, 25 times as much. Ore
that produces less than $25 to the
ton is stacked UP in great heaps to
wait for day when more smelters
| can be built or cheaper process
shall have been discovered. This
| gives you some idea of the richness
| of the mines there.
Here is another strange fact about
the camp. When gold was discovered
| there three years ago, the scientific
men went down and looked at the ore.
Then they laughed ait the miners. Gold
| in granite! Who ever heard Of such
foolishness2 There might be a few
stray threads of gold, but none worth
working those rugged hills for. The
miners were crestfallen. They believed
these eminent minera1ogists. Lots of
them sold out their claims for little or
nothing and went away. A few held
on and kept ON digging into the gram
| ite hills.
Finally it became noised about that,
| in spite of the scientists, these stub
born miners were actually digging ore
that was fairly rotten with gold, The
men Of science took second look. The
miners showed them how they could
take piece of granite and roast it so
that the precious metal fairly oozed
out in golden drops. Then they be-
lieved the miners, but they said that
they would have to reconstruct their
books on nineralogy.
The richness of some Of these holes
in the ground is almost beyond belief,