Evening star., 1896-09-19
BULLION AT THE SHELTERS.

in solid quartz mixed with deposits Of ar
seric and sulphur. The arsenic Is pure.
You could commit suicide at almost every
step If you wanted to, and the sulphur is
SO strong in places that with your candle
you can burn 1t and fill the caverns about
you with flames of birthstone. In other
places the gold is found in a black rock
which looks for all the world like slate,
and other where's 1t appears In solid rock.
1t is not found in nuggets. or grains. or
pockets. but 1t seems to be a consistent
part of the clay and rock, distributed in
infhitesimal particles at the rate of
quarter of an ounce and upward to the ton
OF rock. A quarter Of an ounce to the ton
would be about as much as one part in
W.OoO and IL you will. take $4,000 shot and
imagine one of them to be ground up and
Its dust to be distributed equally through
all the others you will have some idea Of
how the gold runs through ton of this
rock
The average last year was only s12 to the
ton, or just little more than half an
ounce to the ton, about one part in 49,
700 Still, 1t is out of these low grade ores
that much of the product of the world s
gold Is comirg today. The ore of this region
is SO easily gotten out that 1t can be mined
at a great profit. The rock Of the Golden
Gate mines is said to be much richer than
that of the Mercur. but 1t is mixed with
arsenic to such an extent that great loss
occurs in reduction. All Of the large mills
about Mercur have their chemical labora-
tories, and at the Golden Gate there is an
ii
pert chemists and metallurgists that mon
ey can command are at work trying to
1nd the most economical and best methods
for getting out the gold. The Mercur, as
We'll as the Golden Gate and all the other
mines here, is run on business principles.
No money is spared to cheaper the cost Of
production, and the cents are carefully
saved as in the Wall street counting
house where the broker saves the envel-
opes of his correspondence to figure on. AS
1t is, however. the Mercur still loses II
per cent of its gold. 1t has mountains of
refuse about its cyanide mill, and every
ton of these mountains contains from s.. so
to 81 worth of gold. In the future some
one may discover a process by which this
refuse may be worked at a profit.
Down the Mountain on an Ore Car.
Think Of riding down through silvery
mountains on a bed of gold! 1t was in this
way that we came from Mercur to the
Utah valley. Our party consisted of Mr..
John Dern, the millionaire of the Mercur;
Mr.. Heintz of the Rio Grande railroad, Mr..
Hanson, the city editor Of the Deseret
News, and myself. Squatting on a rock
pile of gold-bearing dirt and rock worth at
least 500, holding on to the jagged stones
for dear life, we flew round and round
over one Of the most remarkable railroads
of the world. 1t was built in 1894 at a
| cost Of $15O,OOO 1t is only four miles in
| a straight line from the point where 1t be-
gins u tne point WneTe IL enoS, Dut II
takes more than eleven miles of winding
| curves to make the journey. It begins at
| q little over 5000 feet above the sea, and
| in this distance it carries you upward an
| altitude of almost half a mile. l have
gone up the little narrow-gauge railroad
which takes you from the plains of India
| to Dar5eling in the Hinialaya mountains.
| 1t is only two feet wide. and it's cars are
not much bigger than store boxes. The
| Mercur and Salt Lake railroad is of the
| standard gauge, and 1t has curves so shor
! that standing on the rear of the train we
could at times almost touch the engine as
| 1t flew around them. Now the engine
| seemed to be climbing an inclined plane
and we were pitched almost straight dowr
! to the level below. We could see the line
| running in parallel tracks down tht
| mountain, and it seemed as though W.
could easily have jumped from one tracl
| to the other, thus cutting off the distance
| which by curves required several miles
| AS we went down we hung in places, a.
| 1t were, on the sides Of the mountain. W.
could see the great Utah valley stretched
| out below us, the Utah lake shining lik,
| silver In the horizon, and beyond 1t, on tn,
| opposite side wall of mountains tn,
| Wasatch range, whose silvery peaks will
| their ragged edges cut the azure sky. Ant
| 80 we went on and on, winding in and ou
| like snake, now travelling toward tn,
! east, now to the west, now to the south
| until we came to the foot Of the mountain
Here we stopped before a large franz
building. Our cars carried US up on
trestle work, and we stood on the tract
and watched the ore dumped into tn
crushers Of the Mercur cyanide mill. W.
duction, and then taking the train, foun,
| ourselves in little more than an hour bacl
hcme in Salt Lake City.
FRANK G. CARPENTER.