Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1896-10-17

W/.< that he had recently
contracted for mills
| in Montana and Nevada, and that number
were going up in Utah. Colorado and Ari-
iona. In Juab county, Utah, the old dumps
of gold mines are now being worked over
by means of cyanide. and the same is to be
done with many Of the abandoned gold
mines of Mexico I am surprised at stories
| I daily hear as to the new developments CT
| our gold territory. The old districts are
being rcprospected, and from the results it
| is safe to say that the best of our mining
regions have not as yet been touched. The
great mountain chain running from Alaska
to Nicaragua seems to be an almost I'M
broken mineral bed. Gold and silver are
found in the continuation of the chain in
South America. and miners are working to-
day at intervals all along the western part
of our hemisphere from the Yukon river
| even to Patagonia.
Gold I'm GnA and Water.
The most Of the gold which has made the
world rich in the past has come from mug
| gets and from veins so large that you could
| see them. The flood of the precious metals
which is now beginning to deluge the earth
| comes from infinitesimal particles, SO scat
| tered through the rock that not CLEAN
nor a CLINT of them can be detected by the
| gold has been deposited in the rock in he
| form of gas. Ages ago,say they, there was an
eruption in the bowels of the earth, at
which time this gas mixed with gold rushed
up through the vertical assures with great
force and soaked it's way into the porous
rock in which the gold is now being found.
1t was by this means that the little bits of
gold were dropped throughout the rock, the
precious particles being so small that they
could not be detected Many Of the old
miners had no idea of their existence, and
their extraction now Is only possible by
n cans of the cyanide process. There is
plenty of gold in salt water. Scientists say
that gold is generally dIfused IN the waters
of the ocean, and one eminent chemist
states that the sea water Of the British
coast contains one grain of gold to every
ton of water. The proportion is much
larger in the Great Salt lake, and the man
who can invent cheap process of getting
out such gold will have fortune.
Forms I'm Which Gold Is Found.
Few people have any idea Of the queer
forms in which gold Is found. Dame Ma
ture is the most wonderful of jewelers., and
she has decorated the bosom of old Mother
Earth with gold in a thousand different
shapes. 1 saw a box of gold nuggets and
crystals taken from the Little Johnnie
mine Eear Leadviile. Many of them would
have made beautiful brooches without re-
decoration. Some appeared frosted, and
others had been torn from the rock in the
of gold is found in crystals. Not long ago
there was brought to the Philadelphia
mint four thousand dollars worth of Aus
tral.an gold 1t was made up of little gold
crystals, ranging in size FROM that of a
marrCwfat pea to that Of the head of
pin. Gold is also found in cubes and eight
sided crystals are common. Some Of the
gold nuggets from the California mines
are shaped like moss. The Little Johnnie
has produced great deal of wire gold.
have seen bits of rock from Cripple Creek
upon which when subjected to an intense
heat the geld would bubble out and stand
up like little gold pin heads upon the dark
stoLe. Gold in its natural state is usually
mixed with silver. The new Utah gold de-
posits are associated with arsenic. In the
Mercur mine you find the yellow ore in
connection with quicksilver, and in South
America it is sometimes mixed with bis
muth.
Placer Mining and Gold Nuggets.
/ have spent some time watching the
placer miners in different parts of the west
Placer mining was the chief source of gold
production in the days Of 1949. 1t is still
carried on, but the output is much less than
in the past. The chief placer mines of to-
day ara In Siberia, where the earth has
sometimes to be dug up il a frozen state and
melted before the gold can be extracted
This is the case in some parts of the Yu-
kon river mines. The fact that there Is a
gold placer Is an evidence that there Is
y,
| tend to tell from the character of the gold
| Of the placer as to the nearness of the gold
bearing rock from which 1t comes. If the
gold dust is very fine 1t is supposed to have
been Carried long distance. If coarse it
Is thought that the lead is not far off.
Some Of the first mining of California was
of gold scales which measured less than
1-16 of an inch in length and one MILL
meter in diameter
Placer miners usually find their biggest
nuggets in streams where the powders are
large. Where the streams are fine gravel
the gold is generally small and scaly The
biggest nugget ever discovered in this coun-
try was taken out of a mine at Carson
Hill, in Calaveras county, Cal. 1t weighed
1875 pounds and was worth more than
$43 900. A number of other large nuggets
were found in this same region, ranging In
value from $1,000 upward In 1855 a
nugget of gold was discovered in Sierra
county, Cal. worth $4,000, and in 1850 a
mass Of quartz and gold was picked up in
10000. Outside of California some of the
biggest Jumps of gold discovered in the
United States have come from the south.
North Carolina has produced three nuggets
ranging in size from Ii 1-2 pounds to 81
pounds, and in Georgia number of big
nuggets have been discovered, the largest
of which weighed 1871 pennyweights.
The. Wonderful African Mines.
Through the mining engineers whom I
have met here in the west and information
which has recently come to the director Of
the mint at Washington I am able to give
some facts as to the mines of Africa which
are making such change in the gold
product of the world These gold mines
are a surprise to biologists. One famous
man said that he would have rather ex-
pected to find gold in the fens of Scot
land than in the Rand district of South
Africa. Mr. VIM. Weston, a leading mining
er gineer of Cripple Creek, and a graduate
of the Royal School of Mines of London,
tells me that he believes that the South
African gold deposits originally consisted of
the bed of great lake, which, having been
dried up and solidhed, was by the ac-
ton of the elements so heaved up that it
stood half on end. The upper part of this
great gold deposit is now being mined, but
as the region is further developed the
miners will have to go deeper and deeper
into the earth and the cost will be much
greater. AS it is, the prospects Of an enor-
nous quantity Of gold from South Africa
are excellent. Hamilton Smith, who is
perhaps one Of the best mining engineers
Of the world, and who was here not long
ago as the agent for the Rothschilds to
look up their American Investments esti-
mates that the Rand gold district of Africa
will produce a billion and quarter dollars
worth of gold. He says that gold has been
found there as far down in the earth a.
$500 feet, and that it exists in all proba-
bility to depth Of 1900 feet Much Of
mining WI tn ho