The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-07-18

the rotunda of the Planters AT my
office in New York have one room in
which / allow no one to enter but
trusted assayers An assayers' repu-
tation rests on making truthful reports
He can, therefore. afford to take no
chances of being imposed upon l have
learned by experience that il is not
SAFE TO allow any but trusted assayers
TO enter the room where they do their
work and I can tell you why. / have
known sample Of ore to yield heavy
percentage of gold when its owner was
present at the test. and none at all
when he wac absent. How can that
be2 Well. in one instance. 1 was con-
Quoting an assay in the presence OF the
owner of the samples. and noticed that
he WAS chewing tobacco very vigor
ously, and also going TO the assay fur
mace . expectorate into the fire.
Watching him narrowly, l saw him spit
into the crucible. and, Selling him by
the throat. 1 forced out Of his mouth
the tobacco, and along with it guam
tity Of gold dust. which he was at
tempting to get into the crucible in
order 10 make his assay run high. II
would require very little gold thus
added TO an ounce of ore to make a
difference of many hundreds of dollars
Der ton in the result.
My firm once sent an assayer to
Colorado to sample a silver mine. he
was entirely unmolested in the per-
Torrance of his duty, and felt sure that
he had a fair average sample. He took
the Drecaution, however. to divide his
sample into two lots, sending one lot
by express and bringing the other with
him in his trunk. Both samples ar
rived with their seals unbroken. and
the bags apparently intact; but when
f0nn0
nearly double the amount Of silver in
those which had come by express. IN
vestigation showed that somebody had
punctured the bags which came by ex-
press with the point of syringe and
had squirted in among the ore strong
solution of nitrate of silver, which,
drying upon the ore, of course added
greatly to the assay
The men to be most feared by as
sayers are the new process char
acters who profess to be able to find
gold or tin or other metal in the most
unlikely rocks by secert means or their
own. They come to us for certificates,
and always insist on being present
when their process is tried. Sometimes
they will salt the sample or put gold
into the crucible in spite of the great
est watchfulness. One of these men
made a contract with my partner to
man agreed TO give him the details OF
his process. ostensibly to read over, so
as to familiarize himself with them
The process was supposed to extract
gold from every variety of rock where
the ordinary methods of assay would
not show it. My partner selected
barren rock and tested it carefully, and
obtained no gold even by the special
process. He had everything cleaned
up and put away, and repeated the
test in the mans presence. Although
the man did not seem to so near the
crucible, and there was an assistant
present especially TO watch him, the
the result of the second test was
considerable quantity of gold. The man
paid his fee, leaving instructions to
have a certificate as to the efficiency
of his process sent to his hotel. The
certificate was duly made out, but
stated that Mr.. Blanks process was
tried twice, once in his absence and
once when he was present, and that in
the former case absolutely no gold was
obtained from the rock, but in the lat
ter such and such an amount was
yielded
THE man never turned up again. as
he evidently saw that he was caught.
To this day nobody knows how the
gold was got into the sample.
Hardly a week passes in our bust
ness without something new and inter-
esting or startling connected with
mines or swindlers. 1t is any wonder
that I allow none but trusted assayers
to enter the room where they are at
work."