Blackfoot news. (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1891-1902, 1898-12-17
REPORTING ON MINES.
Some Mistakes of Experts Shown up
Proper Care Not Taken

Proper Care Not Taken.
Reading mining reports OF number
sess graduates of mining schools has |
raised query whether there ought not
be established in those schools a pro-
IessOrship on mine examinations.
knowing, too, OF graduate who has !
given more than one false certificate
or assay or analysis, naturally raises
another query whether a professor of
ethics might not also be adva utageous-
ly added TO the faculty. Probabl, the
reason both are not already estab-
lished is because it is impossible for a
school to usurp the powers of the Al
mighty and furnish brains or integrity
where he has been miserly in bestow-
ing them.
Report after report reads "the ore as
says" so much per ton. They assume
that their dictum will be accepted
without question. We begin to doubt
whether any man of experience would
give two cents q carload for such re-
ports, made by men with whom he is
unacquainted AS reports, sooner or
later, get into the hands of men who
are not acquainted with the one who
made them, and are consequently
judged from what they say and omit
to say, common prudence would sug-
gest that they omit nothing essential TO
establish their accuracy.
To illustrate to what we refer may
be quoted one personal experience An
engineer, who ought TO know how to
make mine examination, gave us a
report on a mine, in which he stated
the ore contained an average value of
enough TO make it a desirable PROPOSE
ton. To know whether it was worth
while looking at it we questioned him
with the following results:
How do you know the ore averages
- per tonr'
81 sampled it,
How did you sample it?'
Took hand samples all over the
mine"
What do you mean by all over:
Were they at stated distances apartY"
mo. / took sixteen samples. all
from the drifts
did any one help you in taking the
samplesg"
Yes, the owner"
The conversation drew out what the
report should have shown. as well as
the fact that the examination and tn,
Judgment based upon it We're worth
less
Samples should be taken from or,
bodies at regular distances. in al
, openings, and the nearer together til,
, better. A mine sampled every fifty feet
or hit and miss at any catch distance
Is mis-sampled. 1t is so convenient {,
sample only where the vein can ID,
easily reached: it is so much easier {,
accept the word of a mine owner o
foreman or workman about some fac
than to determine the fact for one
self, that il is often done. 1t is $
much more convenient to accept the as
sistance of the owner or some man II
his employ than to have one who is il
your own employ and can he trusted
that Ii is often done. In fact. it is $
very easy to slight the work, and YER
laborious, costly and sometimes dan
serous TO do it thoroughly as it shoul
3 be done. that it is sighted. II is call
: ing things by pretty hard name bu
2 just one, when we say that the grea
) majority of mine examinations are dis
, honest. because not thoroughly an
carefully done. The report. too. usr
ally bears on its face the evidence @
the fact. Ii does not tell how the san
pies Were taken. whether an intereste
, party aided in taking them. or the siz
: of the samples, and all of these are in
portant' facts. There are men who d
g such careful and conscientious wor
q that we know when they say an or
:, body will average a certain value tina
>. they base the statement on such worl
l But these men are not so abundant a
p mining experts, who are as thick /
r this country as iiddlers in HE'LL a,
e cording to Bob Ingersoll, whose exper
: ence with them was disastrous.
4 An intelligent, honest report, mad
4, for general consumption, should te
? how every fact was determined. so tn;
men may judge for themselves wheth,
5 it was well done and relable.-Minin
Reporter.