Fergus County Democrat. [volume] (Lewistown, Mont.) 1904-1919, 1905-04-25
John A. Drake Gives Interview to
Democrat Regarding Intentions
in the North MOCCaSinS.
THE GOLD REEF IS LOOKING fine
Mr.. Drake More Than Satisfied
With the Outlook of His Gilt
Edge Properties.

Mr.. John A. Drake and party re-
turned Saturday evening from Gilt
Edge, having during their trip out,
paid visit to Kendall and inspected
the property in which he is interested
in that camp.
Mr.. Drake was seen by the Demo-
crat representative Sunday morning
and gave statement as to his in
tentions with reference to the North
Moccasin property and also gave an
encouraging report of the present con-
dition of his Gilt Edge mine and mill
Il was well satisfied with the out
look at the Santiago in the Kendall
district said the big mine owner.
"For over year past we have been
prospecting the Santiago by means
of diamond drill and although l am
result of these operations, can say
that a splendid body of ore has been
encountered
Il have no intentions of beginning
at once on the construction of a mill
In my opinion, the country has been
greatly harmed by the precipitate ac-
tions of property owners in putting
up mills before they had in sight suffi-
cient ore to justify a mill. In such
cases, the ore is invariably soon ex-
hausted and just as people begin to
h11i16 hnn0c tho yornnOcit tinn tho
mill has to shut down because of
scarcity of ore. This places the coun-
try in bad light and prevents the
exploitation of what might develop
into really meritorious properties.
For that very reason, we are going
slow in the erection of mill on the
Santiago. We will continue the ,1ia-
mond drill operations and just as soon
as we can open up sufficient ore to
make mill pay beyond a question of
a doubt then the mill will go up. I
believe that a mill will some day be
built on the Santiago, but will not
give the pubic any assurances on the
matter until l am positively assured
myself.
From Kendall we went to Gilt
Edge and made an examination of
the Gold Reef. This was the most
satisfactory trip that I ever took to
that camp. The mine is showing up
excellently, better, in fact, than it e1,
er has since l have owned it. De-
velopment work is being actively
prosecuted and some fine ore bodies
are being opened up. Not only are
we finding some fine bodies Of black
ore but good bodies OF oxidized ore
are also being found. The roasters
by which means the black ore is pre-
pared for reduction by the cyanide
process, are working well. 1t required
a great deal of time to ascertain the
best regulations of the roasters in Or
der that the highest values from the
black ore could be secured, but the
problem has now been about worked
out and we expect no further trouble
on that score.
we Will SOOu U6Slu uldlAOllu VI LII
operations on the Gold Reef property
and hope, by this means, to open up
still larger bodies of good ore for
treatment by that MILL"
Mr.. Drake and his nephew, Henry
Rea, left yesterday morning for Po-
catella, Idaho, near which place they
have some gold mining property to in
spect, after which they intend to re-
turn to Lewistown. Mr.. Drake will
be here for several days at that time,
which will be within two weeks, and
Mr.. Rea will remain here indefinitely,
experimenting the development work
which is to be done on Mr.. brakes
properties in the North Moccasins and
the Judiths.