The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1896-09-19
One Mine In Utah Has Paid Over
Thirteen MiIlionssin
Dividends.
Pc ople Who Live nost. Of Thei
Lives Underground and
Are Happy.
Wonders of Quicksilver in Its
rlarriage With the Much
Abused rletal.

I have come to Parke City to tell you
how silver is gotten out of the earth writes
Frank G. Carpenter from a mining camp
in Utah. This is one of the worlds great
treasure vaults of the white metal. It is
the site Of the Ontario mine, wh!ch is the
= biggest silver mine in the United States.
and which is said to oe the biggest work
ing mine in the world today. The Ontorio
has already produced more than $50 200, 900
worth of silver, and it has paid it's owners
more than $13,000,000 in dividends. For
the past two years it has been putting In
very expensive improvements, and owing
to this and to the decentralization of silver,
the dividends have dropped, but L am told
that 1t will pay more than 10 per cent this
year. and its silver deposits are still Of In
calculable value. Connected with the On
tario is the great Daily mine, whose divi-
dends have amounted to between two and
three million dollars, and near 1t is the
DAILY West mine, now just about ready for
: working, and other mines which have large
deposits Of silver.
You reach Parke City by a branch of
the Union Pacific. It is situated in the
Wasatch mountains, just about a mile and
aehalf above the sea and within thirty-tWo
miles of Salt Lake City. The town has
about 1000 Inhabitants. It lies along both
sides of gulch, and its main street is filled
with dust in the summer and mud in the
winter. All around it are silver mines,and
the town lives upon silver. In it's palmiest
days its pay roll has amounted to millions
4 year, and the Ontario mine alone pays. out
now more than 100000 annually in wages.
Z N],o nn%o S
OF, the city. When the mine was discOy-
cred it's surroundings were those Of bleak
bare and desolate hills. Now immense
I frame buildings, with steam pipes and
smoke stacks, are seen scattered over the
mountains, and big four-horse wagons
travel from daylight until dark up and
dcwn the. valley with loads of silver ore.
In going up to the mine you pass.h and
there enormous bins or square buildings,
into which the ore, dragged from the bow
els OF the earth, Is emptied, preparatory to
loading it on the wagon. These buildings
have many mouths or holes at the bottom,
!, So arranged that, by the lifting Of q board,
they can be opened and the ore will fall
down into the wagons on the road below.
You pass boarding houses devoted to the
feeding of the army of men in the mines,
and 60 on until you reach the big, barn
like shaft houses. They seem to be rudely
built, and you would never imagine that
they represent product Of $4,000, 900.
They contain, however, little more than
the hoisting machinery. The real work
shops of any mine are underground.
But let me give you in simple words
some idea of this enormous silver mine.
When discovered, it was you know, mere
ly a mountain Of rock, through one part OF
which ran little streak which the pros
pectors thought carried ore values. They
looked not much different from any piece
of broken granite which you might pick up
on the roadside, but to their experienced
ewes it contained silver. They laid out
their claim and dug shaft orwell. They
found the prospects grow richer as they
went downward, and at last the hole was
sold to Senator Hearst, Lloyd Tevis, j.
B. Haggin and other millionaires, who
put in expensive machinery TO get the ore
out. This was almost twenty years ago,
and it has In that time produced the enor-
nous amount of silver above stated. These
men took the we'll or hole made by tne
prospectors and they have sunk it more
than 1900 feet down through. that noun
tain Of rock They have made of it what is
known as the shaft, which is little more
than a hole walled with boards five feet
wide and fourteen feet long, running for
\ more than a mile straight down into the
earth. This shaft was sunk beside the vein
Of silver rock, land at intervals of 100 feet on
the way downward they have run off tuE-
nels into the vein and have taken out the
ore Each Of these tunnels is from four to
six feet wide, and from six to nine feet
II high. 1t is walled and rooted with tim
bers. Logs as big around as your waist
are braced by the wallis against the roof to
keep the dirt and rock from coming down
upon you as you go through them. From
these tunnels the miners have worked up
ward along the vein, digging out great
caves and rooms in the mountain, all OF
which have to be walled and rooted with
lpgs and SO braced that there may be. no
danger Of their caving in. A good idea of
q silver mine might be gotten from big
New York apartment house. Take the On
tario, for instance. The mine has fifteen
i stores, each 100 feet in height, and the
shaft contains an elevator which an i'm
mer6e steam engine raises and lowers, car
rying the ore and the men from story to
story. At each story the tunnels run OFT
h, through the vein and connect with the
rooms or slopes, as they are called by the
niners The tunnels are the passage. ways
II Or halls of the fats and ti1e slopes or rooms
4 dug upward and outward in taking out the
ore. Each tunnel has little railroad Eun7
Mug through it and there are fifty fnilea OF
1 such tunnels in the Ontario and the DAILY
Il The cars Of the railroads are Of iron. They
+ are always loaded by gravity. IN order
that the miners may not have the trouble
8sof lifting the ore from the tunnel OF each. of
j these stories to the tunnel below IT, Isl cut