The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-05-08
BACK FROM SOUTH AMERICA.
Colonel Ellsworth Daggett's Expert
ences In Ecuador.

| The Deadwood Pioneer-Times of last
Thursday prints a long article on the
trip of Ellsworth Daggett, the we'll
| known mining man, who left here a
| year or so ago to inspect the mines of
| Ecuador in the interests OF large
company of American and English cap
| itaiists. Mr.. Daggett was in Deadwood
on mining business for a few days and
| left again for the east last Saturday.
The following extracts from the Pho
neer-TimeS' article will be interesting
| reading TO mining men here:
Mr.. Daggett spent the time entirely
in Ecuador and was in a gold field that
has been worked more or less since be-
fore the middle part of the sixteenth
century. He was within two degrees
of the equator and the climate, he says,
had very depressing effect upon MIN,
Notwithstanding that the altitude was
SO high as to partly offset this, and the
weather was very comfortable. In the
region where he made his observations
the early Spaniards and natives had
practically worked all of the gold out
that could be obtained in the primitive
way, and it is only by the use of the
improved appliances for saving gold
that it can be worked to any advantage
now. In some of the old workings the
early miners had been driven out by
water; in others, they had simply fol-
lowed the Lodges almost to their eN-
tremity, or until they were unable to
hoist the ore any more owing to depth,
and they had then abandoned the work
ings Until the last few years there has
not been any mining carried on in the
region for almost a century. the natives
having given up that pursuit for agri-
culture and stock-raising. Mr.. Daggett
saw numerous traces of the rude meth
DDS of treating gold ores by the natives
and early Spaniards along the streams
and Lodges. and a meaner system it
would be difficult to devise.
MIR. Daggett found that by cleaning
out many of the old workings and
clearing them of water it would be pos
sible to operate them at the present
time with a fair measure of profit, and
some of them are being worked now by
large companies. Improved machinery
has been taken into the region and
number of mills are running there, al
though, owing to the roughness of the
country and the difficulty of transport
tation, these mills are necessarily small.
The only machinery available is that
which can be transported on mules, as
wagons and other vehicles are unknown.
In order to save the greatest amount of
the values possible cyanide is neces-
sary. The gold of the region is about
60 per cent free milling, and the rest
can only be saved by concentration. BY
this method it can nearly all be saved
Even then the profit is small, and it is
only by taking advantage of the cheap
labor and the extensive ore lodges that
any money is TO be made out of it.
Mr.. Daggett returned from the re-
gion about four or five months ago, and
submitted some lengthy reports TO the
syndicate he represented, setting forth
what would be necessary to make gold
inn irsatn 10 inn
eli cumstances, and he stated while in
Deadwood that he expected to see eX-
tersive operations begun there as re-
suit of his Investigations