The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1902-04-04
SAYING The GOLD
Interesting Story Comes Out Of Big
Hole Basin.
WEALTH FAsTENs TO THE PLoWs
antisTake Place of Plates
in Stamp Mill.

Special to The Journal.
Tacoma, Wash, April Ali the reports
which come from the Big Hole basin can
be believed, one of the most wonderful
discoveries of modern times has acct
dentally been made. If the project meets
with the success which is expected, it will
mean that millions of dollars in fine
placer gold will be recovered by process
which may revolutionize modern placer
methods.
This is the story of the remarkable dis
covery as it has been told. On the high
bench which lies in the Big Hole basin, a
few miles from Wisdom, there is an i'm
mense glacier moran. It covers an area
of several thousand acres, and tests which
have been made show that this immense
deposit carries value of about 81 In gold
to the ton.
The gold Is as fine as flour, and in this
respect it much resembles the gold found
on the Snake river, as it will float on
water Time and again have prospectors
and miners attempted to save this gold
by ground sluicing, panning, washing it
over blankets and every other means
known to the placer miner, but all Of
them met with failure, and it was the
conclusion that the gold could not be
saved and that it would lie forever just
without the reach of man.
A few years ago the highland Land and
Water company acquired possession Of
several thousand acres of this land and
began breaking it up and seeding it down
to timothy. 1t was good land, too, and
readily yielded three and four tons of
timothy to the acre.
Among the blows in use on the ranch
was an old one which had been bolted to-
gether with copper bolts. A part of the
ranch which was Dlowed up was an old
placer dump at the mouth of Moose creek,
which lad been washed over by Jack
Wright and Charles Shultz years ago.
| They had made an earnest effort to save
values in the old morain and had used up
| great many pounds of quicksilver to
| amalgamate the gold -.
| The gold would not amalgamate, how
ever, and the "cuick" escaped from the
| sluice boxes and diffused itself through
the gravel of the dump.
| 1t fell to the lot of this old copper
bolted olow to turn over the old dump,
One day Al ]. Noyes, the manager Of the
| Highland farm. noticed something pecu-
| liar about the appearance Of the bolt
heads on the pillow. He investigated and
! found that on each of the bolt heads a
chunk of amalgam had formed. He took
his knife and oried them OFF, and after it
! had been retorted it was found that il
| yielded about so cents to each bolt head
! Several nuggets of like character were
| taken from the bolt heads before the
blowing was done, and the old dump was
plowed I'D again and again.
Now the men who own the ranch think
they have settled on the best method Of
saving the placer gold in the glacier mo-
rain. They have had all of their plcws
copperplated on the under side of the
mould board The fine dust dropping
over the share deposits the -four gold or
the prepared mould boards and they act
In the same manner as the plates in 9
free gold stamp mill. If the scheme
works, as it is thought it will, all thai
remains to be done is to plate the1l
boards with a thin coating Of "quick'
and at the end of each day scrape off the
amalgam which gathers and retort it.