Arizona republican., 1898-03-31
MOTHER LODES AND PLACERS
The Klondyke Mother Lode Has
 Never Been Found

The announcement that the klon- dyke mother lode,' which gave the gold to the Klondyke placers, has been discovered, may not only be re ceived with some doubt, but may even be rated as 'popycock and nonsense, says the San Francisco Examiner. The idea of IA or 18-inch lode showing leaf gold furnishing the gold supply for so extensive a region as the creeks Of the Klondyke, is absurd in the first place, nor is it explained to any ration al man how gold has been found above the crossing of the lode as well as below it. The fact is the slate bed rock of the Klondyke creeks is filled with small narrow seams of quartz, most of which are barren, and some very wide lodges of low grade quartz are found in the hills near by. Now there would be nothing at all strange for one or more of the quartz string CTS or seams being found to be very rich in free gold, and people finding it., and not being familiar with mining, might get excited. About one-half of the people who got into that country have some hay idea about finding the mother lode which produced the gold, and the wonder is that such discov- cry has not been announced before this. Of course it never will be made, but it may be announced, for all that. They never found the mother lode which produced the placer of Califor- mia, Montana. Australia, British Col umbia or South Africa. Take Califor- mia, for instance There have been just as rich spots mined here as are now being mined on Ell Dorado or Bo- nanza creeks near Dawson They got over a million on one spot including a S42,000 nugget on Carson Hill. Gala veras county, and over s2OO.0O0 in one place in the Bonanza mine in Ton lumme county, but there were To ex- tensive placers alongside these quartz claims. As to placers, no ore ever formed the original lodes which fur nshed the hundreds of millions which came out of the Feather, Tuba. Amer lcan and other gold bearing streams ot california. Tn 1851 California pro- duced s75,93S,00O, and in 1S5s SSl ,294, 700, and in 1853, S67, 7,631,4S7. all out of placers. Nobody found the iedges that the gold came from. The buried rivers of the Forest and Iowf Hills Divides in Placer county. ir which was ground which has paid 7 thousand dollars a running foot ant which are being worked at a prof stll! hold the secret of the source O. their gold. The rich plarers in earl, days in many counties of this stat, came originally from quartz, tn
 mother of gold" but nobody eve found the so-called mother lode. Aide gulch in Montana yielded a hundret millions of dollars in gold. but it mother lode is still unfound. Ther are no lodes in Butte, Ell Dorado, Pla cer, Nevada, Plumas, Sierra Siskiyou trinity or Tuba counties which coul, have possibly produced the great pla cers, on the theory of one or two dis tr1cts lodes producing them. In Sis kiyou ana In Trinity counties, two dis tlnctiy placer mining counties, ther are lew lodes. In each there is bu one quartz mine of noted production It may take. and probably does talk thousands of millions of tons of gol bearing quartz to make extensive pIa cers. and it takes time and the concen trat1on of nature as we'll. But the ide that any one lode is the mother Tod Of any placer section has been expIod ed long years ago. The men who g into the Klondyke region looking fo quartz will find plenty of it of Io1 grade. If they are looking for tn mother lode of the placers they vii get fooled. They have not found in fifty years experience in Californi and one seasons search in the Yuko region will scarcely suffice Rich pla cers have been found in that regio a thousand miles separated which fae alone should explode the "mothe lode" theory.
 M'CABE CAMP LIVELY.