Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1896-01-17
THE FREE PRESS
GRANGEVILLE. IDAHO.
RIDAY. : JANUARY IL, 1896.
FROM NEW FLORENCE.
A quarts Expert Explains the
Mineral Properties Of
Sour Dough.
Florence, Idaho, Jan. 3, '96.

Sour Dough.
Florence, Idaho, Jan. 3, '96.
FRIEND PARKER.-The advent of
the new year finds us in Florence
full of vigor and energy. The
prospectOrs and miners, as a rule,
are pushing work in shaft and
tunnel with the utmost speed in
the hope of making good show
ing against the anticipated COM
ing of the investor when the roses
bloom again; and the year 1896
will beyond a doubt demonstrate
the existence of vast gold deposits
hidden in the hills of New Florence,
the Eldorado of the Northwest.
Our star is in the ascendant, and
day by day it shines in greater
luster, promising that our fOndest
hopes will be realized before the
close of the year. Famous as our
camp has been in the past for her
rich placer deposits, it seems that
she is destined to achieve still
greater fame by the richness of
her free milling ore that is now
being stacked up at the portals of
30 or more claims each waiting its
turn to he put through the mill.
Columns of space are not needed
to describe the magnitude we at
tanned in 1895; a personal inspec-
ton alone will convince the most
skeptical that our lodes are large
and well defined, with every in
dication that the veins are lasting
and permanent, and likely to grow
larger and richer with depth.
These are the indications for the
camp, as demonstrated by the
work done on the Banner, Gold
bug, Hi-u, Poorman, Pet, Waverly
and the Spokane. The practical
prospector and mining man can
discern these facts.
l read in q recent issue of the
old reliable FREE Press an article
copied from the "Pomeroy indie
pendent" written by G. ii. S.
The whole mining career of this
gentlemen is limited to an ex-
perience of 60 days spent in Flor
cnce the past season. He was a
regular tenderfoot who did not
know a Long Tom from Blast
Furnace, and could not tell cheese
from chalk without tasting. Yet,
after 60 days experience in Flor
ence this gentlemen now poses as
a quartz expert, and appropriately
enough airs his newly acquired
knowledge in a rutabaga paper for
a rutabaga constituency. Says he:
~ think the best mines will yet
be found in the low ground; either
this has to be the case or the veins
must pinch out as you go down.
Further on he says: "The mines
must fail as you go down." Here
we find n fair sample of much OF
the expert business upon which
too many people rely-assertion
without argument, a simple state
ment without proof, and incapa-
BILE Of proof until it has been
demonstrated to be true OF
false by the pick and the shovel Of
the miner. These "knOw-it-all
experts" who come around oul
mining camps with leather coats
and tan boots and claim to know
more about the geological ant
neurological properties of cam!
than the men who have beer
working in it for years; and who
by looking down shaft pretend
to tell you what the ore is going
to be at greater depth, are in
variably frauds and bilks of thu
highest grade. The creates
quartz expert who ever lived cal
see no further into grindstone d
into the bowels of the earth thar
the rankest greenhOrn in the state
and when anyone predicts wha
grade or character of ore exist
under ground or will be found i!
such and such a direction o
depth, he is a fakir and a frau,
who is trying to impose upon tn
credulity of the unwary and is jus
as likely to pick your pocket a
not.
Is it possible that our brillian
future as a camp is to be assaile'
by this class of experts, who can
not distinguish the difference be
tween white quartz and sou
dough? One of these gentlemel
visited my cabin the past fall an
his eye caught sight of a chunk
sour dough bread laying ON tn
ground outside the door. H
darted for it like the goldbugs il
Uncle Sans treasury and though
he had struck it rich for sure
Said he: "This is a fine specimen