The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1907-08-08
DRY Washing
IN THE DESERT
Gold Hunting in the South
west After the Old
Mexican Plan.
SOME LUCKY STRIKES
Quantities of Gold-The
Mexican's Steady Source
of Income.

washer is not a laundry utensil de-
signed for use where water is too
scarce to be used other than intern
ally. 1t is the sole mechanical in
vention with which the native MeXl-
can is credited, means of taking
placer gold from the sand in which
wind supplies the place Of water.
Given good head of water and
the man with the hydraulic giant will
wash a fortune from auriferous gray
ell that carries a few cents worth of
gold to the square yard. The fellow
with the pan must find so cents worth
or better in the same area to make
wages, but the dry washer regards
the ground as barren II he does not
find dollars worth of the yellow me-
tai on his rifles after screening the
same amount Of sand.
There was old man Cushenberry,
whose haunt was south of Casa Donna
that curious volcanic plateau which
is visible for hundred miles around
Yuma. He was in his chronic condi-
ton Of hard luck when q shovelfal Of
left the rifles OF his primitive
dry washer clogged to overlooking
with dust and nuggets.
In half an hour he had taken out
$4,000, and In the following six
months he had spent every cent of 1t
in an Intellectual effort to raise water
from the Colorado for more extern
sive operations. He never found an
other pocket.
Down around Yuma, when you talk
Of dry washing they will also tell you
of the ditched hobo, A Southern Paci-
fic brakeman elected him from side
door Pullman, and he sought the wa
terfront, which was an institution then,
celegrated from the Dalles to the
Yaqui country.
THE Front was a narrow strip of
shore just below the old Government
corral, where by ancient usage was
established the commonwealth of the
dead broke. Everything was owned
in common, They had a Mayor and
an unwritten code, enforced by a
kangaroo court In earlier days no
loss of caste attached to residence on
THE Front; to-day's insolvent was
frequently to-morrow's magnate.
Gradually, however, the hobo element
came to be predominant and the city
marshal ahdted the sanctuary as a
nuisance
But to return to the ditched hobo.
He told the Frontiers a hard luck story
that would d few years ago have In
sured aid, comfort and Incidence. The
tanning Of the Apache and the extern
sion of the Santa Fe and the South
ern, Pacific had, however, made them
familiar with his kind, and his case
was promptly disposed Of, A grub
stake was made up and he was adyis-
ed to accompany a couple Of men who
were just starting on a dry washing
expedition UP the river
That same day the outfit uncovered
a ledge that was shot and speckled
with free gold, and the hobo's share
brought him $4,000. All hoboland
preserves traditions of the period OF
plenty that followed, incidentally not
one of the trio that struck the lode
was alive year later.
But as to the dry washer and the
man who operates It. The tourist
who crosses the sand and alkal
wastes in a Pullman, or n whirled ir
an automobile to the bonzana to lool
at the good thing the superintendent
has framed up for him sees neither.
The desert prospector is the brother
nF ef1anna ct CO nrDfptIpd
pervastve that when vagrant vino
raises a level jet of sand and moves
lit a yard or two the sllken swish Of
its transit is audible for furlongs.
The seamper of the horned toad fills
the void corridor of the ear, the foot.
| fall Of the sad eyed huro is percus-
Isive Only at night, when the coyote
lifts a lean muzzle to the bland @oor
lis the stiffness shattered as infinite de-
ISOLATION finds a voice.
Another sound there is that speaks
Of mans presence. In the heart oil
the waste, miles from the railway and
equally remote from wood and water
there may be heard a recurrent pop
ping that is not to be COMPOUNDED
with the Earring rataplan of the STAMP
mill.
1t is like the pop-pop-popping of g
gasoline launch and the tenderfoot
might fancy that the ship of the de.
sert had been brought up to date and
equipped with those mysterious appli-
ances of which the motor enthusiasts
loves to discourse.
Approach the sound and you will
come upon the man and his machine
"a sun Drowned and solitary man
the corners of his eyes wrinkled like
an apple that has been frozen anC
thawed by the instructive contraction
of the lids against the glare of re
fracted rays,
He is the last of the placer miners
the survival of a type displaced by
the hydraulic giant that levels hills
and fills valleys by a magic tina
would disturb the rest Of the mighty
wizard, Michael Scott.
The water ways, from the frozel
tundra of the north to cienegas of thu
n, have long since given up thei
store of yellow metal The pan, tn
| longtom and the flume exploited them
after which the hydraulic recovered
fortunes from tailings or from grave
too poor to work by the more eXpen
sive method.
But the desert is rich In auriferou
gravel There are thousands o
square miles in the Mojaye and TIL
Colorado that yield placer gold Il
such quantities that, given water tn
output of Cripple Creek and Tonopal
would be made to look like a grul
stake proposition.
Water is not, but there is wind