The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1897-01-28
THE MINERAL INDICATOR.
Used With Successful Results in
Montana

A few days ago The Herald repub-
lished an article from the Kansas City
/ Star relative to a mineral indica tor,
! the invention of a resident of that city.
hSlnce then the writer has been in
formed by one or two of Salt Lake
/ old mining operators that they knew
| the inventor of the Indicator, and that
they believed the instrument was all
right; and to add strength to their
| testimonial in the matter the Butte
Inter Mountain of recent date contains
! the following regarding the use of the
indicator in Butte; and, according to
! the description given, it is the same in
strument invented by the Kansas City
inventor The Inter Mountain says:
Joseph K. Clark, the well known and
popular mining man, has been out Of
town several weeks on some secret mis-
! sion and rumor has it that he is on the
trail of another Mayflower mine. He
was very lucky in his purchase of the
property near Gaylord and he believes
there are hundreds of mines scattered
about the hills of Montana equally as
rich as the Mayfower.
It is not generally known that Mr.
Clark possesses a divining rod for the
location OF minerals, but such is the
case. The rod is not one of the crude
and cheap affairs at which practical
mining men turn up their noses, but
remarkable instrument by means of
which Mr.. Clark demonstrated, buried
treasures can be traced with wonder
fuI accuracy from the earth's surface.
Mr.. Clark used the instrument to good
| advantage during his exploitation of
! the Mayfiower mine last summer and
was not surprised when the ledge
pinched out some weeks ago. He
traced the ore body TO the point where
the pay streak broke off short in the
/
that the ledge-like those in all lime
! formations-had slipped away from
there. From the formation of the
country he was inclined TO believe that
il had slipped east and it was on this
theory that he determined to sink 100
/ feet in an endeavor to relocate the ore
body
The divining rod used by Mr.. Clark
can be charged for either gold. silver,
copper or lead, but in operating it much
depends on the native magnetism of
the operators body. Mr. Clark found
Donald ellis to be even better opera
tor than himself. The instrument is
the invention of mining engineer who
worked % years to perfect an appliance
which would locate mineral and after
experimenting with the different COM
binations of chemicals came to the con-
clusion that the only force available
was the natural magnetism of the
body.
The apparatus, however. is connected
with a number of what appears to be
small batteries, none larger than a
dime. Its chief characteristics are two
long pieces of copper wire connected at
once end with a piece of copper which
is apparently very sensitive and which
acts as an Indicator The wires are
wrapped together for a foot or more
back of this copper tongue, at the end
of which is placed one of the little
batteries prepared for the mineral
sought.
To operate the rod the operator places
one end of the flexible wires in his
mouth and the other end with both
hands, holding the wires in front of
him. The indicator or copper tongue
before being DETECTED stands straight
out before the operator bat when
brought near a gold, silver or copper
ledge, acts in a very curious manner
The copper tongue oscillates and turns
double sOmersaults until the point is
reached, when the tongue turns to the
ground and remains stationary. So
delicately adjusted is this tongue that
a gold or silver coin placed 10 feet
distant Will make it oscillate like
snakes tongue.