The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1906-08-12
THE SEARCH FOR -.
THE "MOTHER" LODE"

gold, don It fail to get: inocu-
- lated for the mother lode
fever, - says a man who has been dig
ging for precious metals for fortty-odd
years. Gin my time, in California,
in South Africa and in the Klondike,
perienced miners fall i'll Of that dis
ease, and more pitiable and certainly
fatal malady is yet to be revealed
to me. :.
men, where everybody is. struggling to
unearth treasures in district where
the glittering yellow sand or nuggets
are brought in by your neighbor and
piled in his tent or dugout, and you get
in that frenzy that makes you work
with superhuman strength and endur..
ance. But if you have heard or read
somewhere that these deposits Of
precious metals in streams, and all
others that are located similarly, have
been washed down from up there in the
hills or mountains where the main sup
ply is stored, that story would echo in
your ears while you worked with pick
ALT would be the subject Of your
dreams. Then you d have the mother
lode fever
"That is, you d have it unless you
were an uncommonly well-educated
miner, or one endowed with a rare
quantity of good sense, or one OF those
lazy beggars that think it IS true that
everything comes to him'who III wait.
The Theory's Feasibility. =,
"In many ways the theory Of the
mother lode seems plausible. Even the
scientists haven't decided for sure that
there's nothing in it. It is known
that the gold discovered in streams,
as so much Of it was in California and
the Klondike, comes from the mount
aims and was lodged there by conT W
theory of the mother lode is that in
those convulsions great quantities OF
gold were deposited in the mountain
ranges, and that what the average
miner finds is that part that has beer
washed down by the water: Sounds
plausible enough, doesn't its Anec
there 8 more argument to the same end
fever. That is founded on, the facts
that in the Klondike there have beer
finds of ancient coins that. seemed tx
belong to prehistoric civilization. anC
that many stories are in circulation
about great cities and civilizations tha7
fourished in the long ago in centra
Africa, tending to prove that the region
in richness Of mineral deposits tn
Transvaal. Now sober minded party
not infected 18Th the fever, nigh
laugh at these statements and declar
that they prove nothing.
"But one who has set his mine
on reaching the great fount head o
the stream Of gold that has trickle'
down to the common herd, think
otherwise. He is thoroly convince,
that somewhere hack in the mountains
where the mining explorations have no
yet been made, lies the great deposit
To be sure he might pick and was
here in the stream and gather togethe
enough of the precious metal to CIV
him a fair com petence for life. Blu
why potter about with the small thing
when there, Just above, lies wealth tina
would n.as. him a modern Midas
That's the thought that sticks in tn
lode fever. 1t becomes a great gam
with him. It makes his sporting bloc
Jingle. He's like the man who waste
his money playing the one black spc
& on the wheel. He sees his companio
playing the yellow, of which there al
a score, and drawing out now and agai
L his small reward. But wait until tt
needle stops on the black. What
killing! ...-- ....
/ eff the. needle stops on the blac
once in a hundred thousand whirls, it
better game to play than searchin
for the mother lode. Nobody ever VIC
in the latter. tho hundreds have trie
and tried. In the end it's alwa,
failure; often death.
One Of It's Victims.
HEver hear of Lem HOLSTERS, !.
reckon not. but Just thought I ID as