Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1901-01-26
Refractory Ore.

| Heye mas Deen the testimony OF every
expert mining man who has visited this
country, and has taken the time to make
himself familiar with the resources ol
the country. This fact will, I have nc
doubt. iu years to come be of great bene'
fit to the country at large, but thus far
in our history it has in my opinion
proved a curse rather than a blessing
know this is a broad statement and q
strong one, but considering the many
pull backs it has caused, and ia causing,
I believe I am stating a plain. simple
fact. Nature has been very prodigal IN
her gifts TO us, for which hope We are
duly thankful, but if she had shown the
good taste to Disseminate a little and
separated her stores, she would not so
often have given that which mars the
gift, and rendered il many times almost
valueless. Our Hills for the entire
width and length is stripped with min
eral veins and gold is found in all of
them.
Now. if this gold was all of free
milling character what a great convent
ence that would be. Or If it were all
amenable to treatment by the smeltet,
it would be still contamination devout-
ly to be wished, and the same may be
said Of the processes chlorination and
cyanide. They arc all good, some on
one kind Of ore, and some on another,
but none Of them are calculated 10 save
all the talties in the rock. Yes, even
worse than this, they each and all some
times on account Of the base ores with
which the gold is combined fail to ex-
tract the precious metal. The smelters
do not like to acknowledge this fact, al
though some of them in Colorado have
acknowledged it and are honest enough
TO say "thefe are some ores we cannot
save the gold"
But they say we can save the gold,
silver and copper from any ore where it
can be successfully caught by the FIRE
assay This may be true but it is not
much Of boast when all is said
have proved land it has cost me some
thing to do it, that there are many
kinds of ore u-on which the common
fire assay is totally unreliable and is a
very rude and crude test at best. This
is not meant as blow at our assayers.
they do the best they can, and because
they are successful on certain kinds OF
ore they think they can succeed with
all. 1t is vain thought, they can not
do it. And the very fact that they haye
SO often failed to do it, has hindered me
out OF more than sixty thousand dollars
and left me today poor man.
"How is that?" Well l will tell you
how it is.
l have been knocked out in so many
scleS whereby l was so receive this
amount of money by the assayers mis-.
takes. "But how do you know that the
assayers made mistaken" answer by
chemical analysis. What do you say,
"niay be the chemist made the mistakes"
No, / cannot suppose that, because they
substantially agree, and know enough,
just enough, about chemistry to know
that it is a true science. Assayirg is a
trick, and very convenient trick. 1t
has the advantage of being cheap and
quick and answers very we'll IN many
cases and with many ores, but no one
familiar with both methods will ever
say that fire test is as good and reli-
able as chemical analysis.
I have in my mind at this moment n
mine in witch l am interested. 1
think more of it than any other interest
which possess, (and possess many
and yet upon reflection almost wish l
had not seen it. 1t is large vein fully
10 feet across, and true fssure. 1t is
well developed by 300 foot tunnel and
a sixty foot shaft (the tunnel cute the
vein). The chemists. five of them, agree
that the average sample cut across the
vein runs from $1,000 to s84 90 in gold
and from % per cent to 81 per cent in
copper, with about $500 in silver to the
ton of ore. Say about $500 per ton in
gold, silver and copper. This I am
aware is good value. and could it be
treated at any place in the United States
it would bear shipment to any point. l
have therefore used my best endeavors
to find where l could get this ore treat
ed and have recently sent samples to
FIVE different smelters. and their an
swers have been returned and all of
them without exception say in substan nee,
II find no value in your ore."
This makes rather an interesting prob
lem and the question arises, what shall
we do with it? Kind reader what do
you advise. Would you abandon the
mine? Many would, we have no doubt,
but our outfit are made Of sterner stuff.
We are not running away from $500
ore. When We make up our mind to
do that. you may know that we have
abandoned the prospecting business, and
having been in it for about 40 years we
are not prepared to give 1t up yet. We
know of no other way but to keep OH
trying to find some one in the United
States with rtetallurgical genius enough
to treat the ore. And when we have
exhausted the talent of America We will
test accumulated knowledge of Germany
and England. These tests are expen-
sive, it has cost us $4,000 even in the
last three months, and have found out
nothing that we did not know before,
except that the chemists all agree that
we have a valuable mine and the assay
ers and smelters say to the contrary. 4
do not think that there are any that are