El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1901-01-16
And How 1t Can be Utilized and
Made Productive.

discovery of the Bassick mine. The
renowned prospector, after having
made two wonderful fortunes. one in
California and the other in Australia.
came to the little town of RiSita. Col
orado, in the year 1878, absolutely pen
niless. He climbed the top of Mount
Tyndall. and there found a little shaft
only a few feet deep. which various
prospectors before that time had sunk
and abandoned. Mr.. Bassick was
struck with the thought at once that
he did not know the kind of mineral
contained in the shaft The prior
owners made up their minds that it
was iron. Mr.. Bassick suspected that
it was something else, but he did not
know, and at once proceeded to take
sample down to the assayer at Rosita.
who likewise did not know what the
ore was Mr. Bassick offered the as
saver one-third interest in the mine
to make the assay. The assayer de-
clined Then Mr.. Bassett came to the
front and offered the assayer to do his
washing for the desired assay. If |
remember correctly, the assayer
found in that sample seven thousand
ounces of gold, or nearly S15O.OOO to
the ton. OF course the assayer was
not believed, and all kinds of asper
sions were cast upon him. However.
be something in that ore, and was
successful enough to borrow an old
wagon from one of the farmers in the
valley, with which he took load of
the ore across three snowy ranges to
the little town of Alma The ore yiel-
ded several thousand dollars. and the
world was enriched once more by one
of the greatest mines. Only one man
knew what the ore was, Prof. Hill.
hax, Of of hl
works near Denver. who bought the
ore. 1t was telluride of gold.
There are many such instances
which plainly show how costly this
lack of knowledge among the prospec-
tors has been to the proSpectOr and to
the world. And one can hardly fail
to understand at once how useful it
would be to place before these pros
pectors the means by which they might
get an intimate knowledge of the ores
that afford the world so much traffic.
so much business.
One of the first steps toward teach
ing the prospector minerals and how to
find them is to demolish the wrong
ideas that he very often possesses. 1t
is not uncommon to hear the miner
pronounce a piece of galena very rich
simply because it is of fine grain or of
color. But Dana says there is no ex-
ternal character that serves 10 dlS-
tinguish argentiferous galena from
galena that is not argentiferous. and
John Percy, the famous lecturer on
metallurgy at the Royal English
School of Mines in Southampton. had
put in his Metallurgy of Lead table
showing that coarse grained galena
may be either rich or Door in silver.
and likewise that fine grained galena
may be neither rich or poor in silver.
thus sustaining Dana's statement that
by looking at a piece OF galena no one
can tell the tenor of the silver con-
tents.
Another thing that must be stricken
from the mind of the prospector is the
fallacious theory which many hold
that unless the vein runs from the
northwest to southeast the ore deposit
will not prove valuable; also the fall
acious theory that the fissure vein is
a better deposit than the de-
post that lies in buckets. The local
in every district against
certain formations and in favor of
others; the wrong supposition that
greater depths always produce higher
values: the false prejudice against
mines that produce very rich or very
beautiful specimens. the so-called
specimen Mines the antipathv for
bedded ore bodies or for slight dip
the demolishing of all superstitious
notions is no doubt of as great i'm
portance as the knowledge of ores
and of the valuable minerals and how
to find them.
There are a great many ore deposits