, 1899-09-28

built on a sloping hillside, and the
lower portion of the houses are
on stills while the upper por-
ton is even with the ground.
Its main street is a hundred feet
wide, quite an avenue, and will
be, when it has the stumps clear
ed out of it, a really beautiful
street. But there are stumps,
many stumps, in it yet, and these
stumps are all the way from two
to fifteen feet in height. Their
height is determined by the time
in the winter when the trees were
! felled. The snow covered the
houses during the past winter and
the inhabitants dus step down
to their doorways. The liveryman
pointed to a mark on a tree near
his barn door, showing where the
snow was on the 9th day of May.
We estimated the distance to be
twelve feet.
We will have no more time
to devote to a description of Battle
this week, but will give it the at
tention it deserves in a later art
icle which will appear in The Sun
shortly, in which we propose to
give a detailed description of all
the mines in the Battle Lake dis
trict, after a careful persnoal ex-
animation.
From Battle we drove over to
the Rainier which is situated near
Battle Lake. Here we found
great activity, also, as have every
where else. There have been
several very substantial building
erected here and more are in pro-
cess of erection. At the mine
they we're doing development
work on an exteution of the drift
on one of the lower levels. The
Rambler has good machinery and
is prepared for continuous de-
velopment work.
From the Rambler we returned
to the crest of the mountain and
and paid the Portland Group a
visit. Here we found a new shaft
house in process of erection,
the machinery in place, and busy
hosting out rock from the new
shaft, which is being sunk to
strick the lead. Until the lead
is again found and c~rosscut work
OIL this group of mines will be
pushed steadily. The men in
charge were really to busy to talk
much or show us a round. They
were making the most of the fine
September weather to get every
thing under cover for the winter
and when that is accomplished
these people will be very snug.
From the Portland Group to
the claims of the Hercules Min
ing Company is but a short dis
tance-less than a quarter of a
mile. Here we found work a little
more advanced. The shaft house,
which is a very SUBSTANTIAL affair,
is about complicated and work is
progressing rapidly on the other
buildings.
The Hercules people are using a
gasoline hoist instead of steam,
and their hosting engine is a very
fine one Everything in and
around this property seems to be
in first class shape and the work
progressing finely.
When we returned to Battle the
Judge took some views of the
town, including the main street
and its buildings, after which we
we're about to start on vi Journey
when we were told that one more
object of great interest awaited
our attention. This proved to be
a black cub bear, about four orfve
months old, chained to a log,
and while his little seven-year old
companion and playmate, land the
only one he has yet made friends
WITH a daughter of Mr.. Cook, fed
him ginger snaps, for which he
stood up very straight and begged
very hard, the Judge got several
very fine views which will be ap-
propriately labeled.