Mohave County miner., 1899-09-02
Wildcat Mines.

There are mining men, and mining
men. There are mines, and mines
There are prospects which do not de.
ceive, and there are wildcats which dis.
gust men with mines and mining. A
mining camp with but a single paying
lode running through it offers good
field for the wildcat mining broker or
speculator. Virginia City, Nevada,
is a. place in point. The Comstock was
a paying proposition wherever it was
struck. 1t made Virginia City famous.
Men made fortunes in mining upon
the Comstock and in dealing in its
shares. But the Comstock didn't
make wildcats pay, but it made them
sell, and many men lost their all in
trying to make something out of them.
Esmeralda, Austin, Phoebe and other
points in Nevada had their rich mines;
they also had their wildcats. The lat
ter "queered" the former.
Wildcat propositions are curse to
any mining center. They breed doubt
and distrust of really good lodes for
the same confident, apparently honest,
business-like representations are en-
ploy ed to dispose of wildcat that are
used to sell the former. But, happily,
the day Of the wildcat has long since
passed away in old mining centers.
Every tub must stand upon its own
bottom, and about every mining man
in established camps knows the bot
tom Of every prospect hole and mining
shaft in the district. The mining
fakir has long ago lost his appetite
for them, and gives them wide berth.
He has been and is still hunting for
newer and greener pastures.
Butte has been singularly free from
mining fakirs, not perhaps because all
mining brokers and dealers in mining
stocks are sprouting angelic wings. but
because the Butte mining field is com
paratively barren of wildcats. The man
who strikes favorable looking rock will
stay by it, fearing he may lose a bo-
nanZa in its sale. He will take the
chances and revel in anticipations of
wealth as long as the prospect lasts,
not being disheartened and ready to
throw up the next location because
the previous one failed him. The true
miner stays by his pick, pan and
shovel all the time. He doesn't know
what the words "give up" mean. Butte
has men who are miners from the
ground up, it has no wildcats to specu-
late upon.
But wildcat propositions can find
their way in Butte as well as they can
among the most credulous country
Jakes in the middle states, for the
field of the mining fakir IL boundless,
though the field of suckers" may be
limited. Butte suckers are as scarce
as contribution boxes in the dives:
imported ones may now and then be
seen AZ ready to buy few feet of wild !
cat, if they have the money, as they
are to purchase buffalo" horns furn-
ished by our slaughter houses and
by "native" Indians and Can
ada. These wildcats are presented as
being next to or near the discovery"
claim, which discovery has crazed the
mining centers in the west so long.
They are good cats to let run wild.
California and Nevada, Utah and Col
orado have each in turn had them.
Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Brit
lsh Columbia may let loose a few, but
each of them has too many really val
lable mining properties to be injured
by the bite of the wildcat. In fact. the
teeth of the animal are about all ex-
,racted- The west has been half cen.
.ury looking after and worrying the
festive animal. There are only few
'f them left, but they are camping on
,he trail.-W Western Mining World.
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