Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-12-02
NOTED COBALT MINES
The Worlds Richest Silver
Deposits.
IN CANADIAN FORESTS
PURE WHITE METAL CROPS OUT
OF THE ROCKS.
How the Mines Were Discovered and
How Fortunes Are Being
Made in Them.
Copyright. 1905, by Frank C. carpenter)

Copyright. 1865, by Frank C. Carpenter)
COBALT, New Ontario.
Three years ago the land about Cobalt
would not have sold for ten cents an acre.
Today some OF it would bring 800 a square
inch. There is one tract of forty acres
within a stones throw of where I am writ
ing that you could not buy for 81 10000 in
cash, and all about here are other forty
acre tracts which their owners estimate at
from hundreds of thousands to millions of
dollars. Nevertheless the land lies in the
heart of the widest woods on this continent
II Is rocky and SWampy, and it would take
a quarter section of il to feed a goat.
Its value lies in the enormous silver de-
posts which have been recently discovered
The rock Is streaked with great veins of al
most pure silver ore. Three or four million
dollars worth of this ore has already been
shipped, and carloads of it are now on the
way to New York, which are worth S25. coo
or $4,000 car. carload of the best
picked specimens from a certain mine is
said to have sold for 100000 another car
load for $4,000 and another for 100000
In the meantime the people here deem
themselves rich beyond the dreams of
avarice. The land has been staked out
for miles in every direction and hundreds
of prospectors with hammers in their hands
and great packs on their backs held there
by straps around the forehead are tramp
ing through the woods looking for new ore
fields
Cobalt, the Mining Town.
But first let me tell you where Cobalt is.
Take your map of North America and
mark a line from the lowest part of Hud-
sons Bay to Buffalo. Divide it in half
and the middle point will just about strike
the Cobalt mines. They are reached by
the Grand Trunk to North Bay, and thence
over the new railroad just built by the
qHn -
miles above that point. They are about Il
night and a day from Montreal over tine
Canadian Pacific and this railroad and
they are. | Judge just about three hundred
miles from Toronto
l came here from Ottawa via North Bay
through woods as wild as any on the North
American continent The road skirts many
lakes swamps and what is known as
mUskeg which Is a kind of a cross between
quicksand and an Irish bog Now one
passes a lumber camp now an Indian viii
lage. and now a station where the tourists
go off to hunt IN the wild woods We
reached Cobalt at in the afternoon and
had to rely on the miners for our accom-
mediation. The town had only two or three
houses last spring. Now 1t has a hundred
OF more frame buildings. Log cabins are
going up In every direction. a three story
hotel will be completed before this letter
Is published, and by next year Cobalt will
be double its present size
Just now many of the population live IN
and the Imperial Bank. two of the strong
est in Canada. do their business in tents
the bankers sleeping at night beside the
sales with guns near their hands.
COBALT has as yet streets. The build
lhgs stand along corduroy roads which
WIND this way and that through the
stumpS. Most of the houses are OF nine
boards with roofs Of tar felt nut on with
big-headed lacks. Some of the walls are
covered with this black roofing material,
so that the place looks like a collection of
shacks of black and white.
The settlement runs around a beautiful
lake so narrow that you can cross. it in a
canoe In a few minutes. The mining prop
critics are all around the lake. and they ex-
tend back into the woods A large part or
the population still lives i'm tents. Some OF
the tents are not more than four feet wide
and five feet high. They are merely for
sleeping. Cobalt has perhaps a dozen
stores, and, strange TO say, IL has no sl-
looms IL is a dry town No liquor is al
lowed to be sold, and no gambling or other
wicked houses permitted l have seen one
or two drunken men, but altogether the
wild rowdyism of the new mining camp of
our west is absent.
The Silver Streets of Cobalt
1 have visited the chief silver regions of
the world. but nowhere have / seen silver
which crops out on the top of the ground
as Ii does here at Cobalt. The whole re-