The herald., 1898-11-27
COUNTRY FULL OF GOLD
THE METAL EXISTS IN EVERY
STATE IN THE UNION
The Cost Of Panning It the Principal
Drawback-The Expense Beirg
Rapidly Reduced
Gold, gold, gold!


shoulders like hidden fire in their yards,
kills the plants in their flower pots, glis-
tens in the very bricks of their houses.
Tons of gold, miles of gold, gold beyond
the dreams of avarice to covet or the abil-
ity of human understanding to comprehend;
gold to burn, to fling away, to pave streets,
to build walls: gold to erect heaven-pierc-
ing shaft higher than ten Babels; gold to
cast in the shade ten million Klondkes, and
make as common dirt the cleaning, yellow
stuff for which men have squabbled since
civilization began: gold as unlimited almost
as the depth of space or the speed of thought
is at hand, is at our doors, is under our feet.
When the Kondike fever broke out the
Inventors tch,' as the greatest inventor
of modern times calls the inventive mood,
broke out also.
Within six months one patent attorney
in San francisco put in Applications Tor no
less Titan $50 new appliances for the klon-
dixie
These were for mining facilities of all
kinds, and embraced everything from a fur
coat to an ore-crusher. But by far the great
est number were for cheap and effective MIN
ing tools to be used in panning the dirt and
in extracting ore from the great Jumps In
which it was found.
|
provcments in mining machinery were ac-
complished and simple devices were made
to take the place of expensive ones.
| Not the least important result OF these
inventions was the facility with which min
ers could obtain them. An amateur miner
with 500 could get complete mining outfit
for "panning' dirt at a cost OF SO, and
with the remaining s75 he could purchase
two simple machines for crushing and sepa-
rating Outfits such as this are now being
used daily on the Yukon.
Following closely upon the discovery and
invention Of cheaper facilities for separating
gold from its cloak of Mother Earth comes
the possibility of obtaining it near at home.
Gold does not exist in the KlondilSe alone.
Assayers long ago discovered it in the dirt
of Wall street, underneath the paving stones,
and in the dust of Broadway. When the
roads of Central Park were newly graded
the workmen removed masses of earth in
which gold was freely found.
No less an authority than Andrew Mason,
superintendent of the New York Assay Of
flee, speaking of this fact, said to q corre-
spondent of this newspaper at that time:
There is gold in every State in the
| Union, and in every county, every town and
every village You could go right out in
Wall street, take up few paving blocks,
dig out pan of dirt and get gold out of
it. The only trouble would be that it is in
1t is not pay dirt"
Now, however, with the cheap and easy
separators, it is pay dirt, and in pannng it
has been so simpliied that child could
be taught to do it.
Nor is it in the dirt alone that gold is
found, but in the very paving stones and
the clay, as WELL England has different
formation, but this country is literally un-
derlaid with gold.
Before the day of the cheap gold appli-
ances came in, the fact of expense was Bit
terly lamented. None bemoaned this more
than the late Jacob Eckfeldt, assayer Of the
Philadelphia Mint The clay of Philadel-
phia specially interested him. He finally
devoted a month to its analysis with the best
results. Gold was found in generous pro-
portions and in the poorest clay there was
found to be three cents of gold to every cubic
foot of clay.
Considering that the cost of clay was
nothing, this was a very good return. The
only difficulty lay in the cost of panring.
The clay, used in the bricks gave good re-
turn, and cost much less for labor. In other
words, the brick-making machinery had
been completed and perfected until it could
be run very cheaply, while the gold machin-
cry was crude and expensive.
Eckfeldt, in his report, added that if each
bricd of Philadelphia pressed brick" could
have the gold it contained plastcred upon it's
have patch two inches square. The beau
tiful Quaker City would shine like gold.
So with Chcago's paving material--the
patent substance so literally spread upon its
principal sidewalks. This contains large
percentage of richest clay from the lake soil,
which is equal in many sections to u foot
found in the gold regions Of the Klondke,
for which miners pay enormous amounts in
money, time and endurance. But again
there came, at the time OF assay, the ques-
tiOn Of cost. ...- --,
When pearls were first found in Kentucky
and many remember the sensation caused
by the alleged discovery of the gems in the
Ohio-there was an assay made Of the soil
of the State with a view to possible dis
the capitalists, not copper but gold was
found, and in considerable quantities. Five
cents per cubic foot was the percentage.
The cost of panning was great however,
and the hunt for gold was abandoned.
Chemists scarcely dare to predict the
amount of gold that could be obtained if the
earth could be mined cheaply; Wall street
makes no speculation upon it's result; capi-
talists dare not dream OF the effect.
Were gold to be mined cheaply, every mans
back yard would become a klondike: every
duck pond Yukon. The farmer, instead
OF taking potatoes out of his ground, would
extract gold, and the house-owner would
ulS HIS tdNeS out OF HIS cellar HOOf.
A government assayer, one OF the most
prominent men now employed upon Alaska
work, stood watching group OF laborers at
work excavating for State building in Ohio.
Picking up handful of the loose dirt he care
fully placed it in his pocket
Next day he called upon the contractor.
"Do you know" said he, that there is
enough gold in that pile of dirt to pay off
all your men on Saturday night?'
Eyes, know" said the contractor, ''but
if l should assay it there would be a terrible
hue and cry, and they would say had stolen
a gold mine"
What Klondiles would lie at our doors
if this gold could be cheaply gathered! What
Golcondas, what Perus, what MeXicos, what
Californas What millionaires, what pu-
tocrats would dwell among us! What all-
ances would be ours The nations of Eu-
rope would bow down to us, not as one pow
er, but as the power of the earth.
And now inventors say it is possible. AS
soon as the cheap mining apparatus of the
, KlondiIe can be manufactured it will be pos
sible to get gold out of every square foot Of
earth-Bufalo Times