The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-03-19

CONGRESSMAN sHAFROTH.
virtually no Populist party. Radical sill
yer men may be counted with the Pop
ulists, as the two classes are getting to-
gether so fast here that common man
cannot discern the difference. Everybody
knows, of course, that in it's white pop
ulation Colorado is the most intelligent
commonwealth in the world, the B. L.
B. Busted Lung brigade), as they call
it, containing many thousand scholars,
but south of the great divide are the
Mexican counties, which lower the a7-
erage frightfully.
New Mining Theories.
Hon. John F. Shafroth, who defeated
LATE Pence and represents in all proba
bility more we'll educated people than
any other member of congress, is a very
young looking man for AZ, sanguine,
blond and exceedingly pleasant gentle
man, and in the course of a long talk
with me he said: lyon old fellows just
ought to come out now and study some
of our new camps, for they falsify all
your prophecies and knock the bottom
out of your old science. Cripple Creek
is the great camp at present, and it's
curiosity from every point of view.
Formation? All, there you are on the
old theories Of 20 years agol Why, there
is no formation. The gold is where you
find it, as Job said, or as the miners
now translate Job. If you want to M
derstand that camp, take a big mud
puddle and see how it dries up and how
the mud cracks irregu1arly under a hot
sun. Well, that's about the way the
seams run in Cripple Creek district,
winding about and breaking off sud
denly to right or left without order or
regard to science. have seen ore from
there that looked just like mud. A great
deal of it looks like silver ore, and some
like iron rust, and SO on. Much is said
there about new ore called sylvanite,
but am not versed in the science of it.
sit is one of the Oldest camps in the
country, too, and has been abandoned
three times, believe. You must know
at the start that it is right in the old
Pixies peak district, and, among the
many theories, one is that this gold is
merely what is left in deposit of an orig
inal and big lode. AS the veins have
no order, and the dip varies a good deal
from the perpendicular, the miners
prospect at random and strike ore below
in such unexpected places that they feel
justified in boring through barren rock
most anywhere in the field. In 1881
there was some furry about it, but
scientific men were so unanimous and
emphatic that there couldn't be any gold
there that people wouldn't believe it.
Long after the last opening, and when
the case was clearly proved, it was gen
orally thought in Denver to be the trick
of a mortgage company which had fore
closed on a big lot of land there. So
many other goldields present equally
II 81 \
tific theories are upset, and you may
elaborate Jobs poem on wisdom little
and make it read this way: Surely sill
yer is found in veins and is therefore of
regular supply and of stable value, and
in places there is gold where they find
it. -
No Gold Imitation.
''And is the world entering on a great
gold imitation, as SO many promise us?''
''Surely not It is nonsense on its face.
You know how such things run by tenn
porary excitements. So long as the fever
is on hundreds of companies spend mil
lions of dollars in getting out So rock at
cost of $40, hoping that the lode will
soon develop into paying rock. The COM
pany loses money, but it adds to the
gold yield while it lasts, but by and by
the fever abates, and they all quit, and
only a few mines are permanent.
Again, while the fever is on all interests
combine to assist it, and the reports are
all favorable. Just read the mining
news which appears in the summaries
of the New York Sun and see how long
you must look to find a statement that
is not favorable. And this South Afri-
can foolishness, the Kaffir circus-it's
as bad as the John Law business. And,
oh, my, what a smash there will be
when it breaks down But suppose that
Laveleye is right, and that South Africa
will soon yield $500, 900, 900 per year
and all the rest of the world 500, OoO,-
600 more. That would not be an inf1a-
tion. The money part Of it would not
keep even with the increase of popula-
tion and production, for at least two
thirds of it gees in the arts. Indeed Mr..
Gifen went fur to prove in London the