The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-05-13

Now. there is one thing I ought to ask you before l forget it. You have been in Silverland-here in Nevada-two or on the daily press has made it necessary for you to go down in the mines and ex- 1 anime them carefully in detail and there fore you must know all about the silver mining business. Now, what l want to get at isis well is the way the deposits of ore are made. you know For instance Now, as l understand it, the vein which contains the silver is sandwiched in be- tween castings of granite, and runs along the ground and sticks mp like a curb stone.
 Well, take a vein forty feet thick, for example, or eighty for that matter, or even 1O0-say you go down on it with a shaft, straight down, you know, or with what you call the 1nelines,' maybe you go down 300 feet or maybe you don't go down but 200, anyway you gos down, and all the time this vein grows narrower, when the castings come nearer or ap- proach each other, you may say, that is when they do approach, which of course they do not always do particularly in cases where the nature of the formation is such that they stand apart wider than
 they otherwise would, and which geology has failed to account for, although every thing in that science goes to prove that, all things being equal, 1t would if it did not, or would not certainly if it did, and then of course they are Do not you think 1t is?"
 I said to myself: Now, I just know how 1t would be-that whisky cocktail has done the business for me; I don't understand any more than a clam" And then l said aloud. "I-I-that is--if you mi nd s.ay U that over again? I ought"
 "Oh, certainly, certainly You see I am very unfamiliar with the subject and perhaps l don't present my case clearly, but T."
 No. no-no, no-you state it plain enough, but that vile cocktail has mud dled me d little. But will-no, I under stand for that matter; but I would get the hang of it all the better if you went over it again. and I'll pay better attention this time'
 He said: Why, what I was after, was this:-0Iere he became even more fear fully impressive than ever, and empha- sized each particular point by checking it off on his finger endsl. f1ihis. vein, Or lode, or ledge or ,whsHever Sou call it, runs along between two layerss of gran ite. just the same as if 1t were a sand wich. Very we'll Now, suppose you go down on that, say 1000 feet, or maybe 1900,
 
 and then you start drifts, some of them across the ledge. and others along the length of 1t, where the sulphurets-I be- 1leve they call them sulphurets, though why they should considering that, so far as I can see, the main dependence of a miner does not lie, some suppose, but in which 1t cannot be successfully main tained wherein the same should continue while part and parcel of the same ore not committed to either in the sense re- ferred to, whereas, under difference cir cumstances, the most inexperienced among us could not detect it if it were, or might overlook it if it did, or scorn the very idea of such thing, even | thought it were palpably demonstrated as such. Am I right?"
 I said sorrowfullq: q feel ashamed of | myself. MT. Ward. I know l ought to un- | derstand you perfectly well, but you see | that internal whisky cocktail has got into | my head, and I now cannot understand even the simplest proposition. I told you | how it would be-
 "Oh, don't mind 1t, don't mind; the 1 fault was my own, no doubt-though l 1 did think 1t was clear enough for" Don't say a ward. Clearl Why. you stated 1t as clear as the sun to anybody | but ah abject idiot, but it's that con- ] founded cocktail that has played the mis- chief"
 NO. now don't say that. I'll begin il l all over again.
 Don't now, for goodness sake, don't | do anything of the kind, because I tell | you my head is in such a condition that | l don't believe I could understand the l most trif1ing question man might ask | me-"
 Now, don't you be afraid I'll put il | so plain this time that you can't help but get the hang of it. We will begin at the 1 very beginning. Gle leaned far across | l wrought upon his every feature, and fin
 gers prepared to keep tally of each point I as enumerated; and l, leaning forward
 with painful interest. resolved to com prehend or perish.) You know the vein the ledge, the thing that contains the | metal. whereby it constitutes the medium , between all other forces. whether of pres- | ent or remote agencies so brought tc l bear in favor of the former against the latter. or the latter against the former | or all. or both, on compromising as possi-
 ble the relative differences existing with In the radius whence culmnate the sev-
 eral degrees of similarity to which, 1 I said "Oh blame my wooden head | It ain't any use, 1t aint any use to try l I can't understand anything. The plainer !, you get It the more I cant understand | the hang of it.
 | I heard a suspicious noise behind me 1 and turned in time to see Hingson dodg- | ing behind newspaper ana quaklng Wlth a gentle ecstacy of laughter. I looked at l Ward again. and he had thrown of his | dread solemnity and was laughing also l Then I saw that I had been sold. that | had been made the victim of swindle in the way of a string of plausibly worded sentences that didn't mean anything un- | der the sum-
 Artemus Ward was one of the best fell 1 lows in the world, and one of the most I companionable. It has been said that he l was not fluent in conversation, but. with | the above experience in my mind. I differ