The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1908-02-27
4 still more simple and primitive

A still more simple and primitive
| method of dry washing is Indicated
by innumerable basinlike depressions
along the sides of these gulches. From
each has been taken about bucketful
of sand, which is placed, a handful at
a time, in an ordinary gold pan, rus
STA iron basin a little larger than the
ordinary tin wash basin.
This, by a dexterouS turn OF the
wrist, the Mexican throws into the air,
at the same time blowing through it,
AS it falls he tits the pan, allowing it
to run in a thin stream over the edge.
His beadlike eye is caught and sent
back to the foxtail of black sand and
concentrates on the opposite edge of
the pan, In half an hour he is solvent,
and the placer ground will know him
no more until a run of hard luck at
cock fighting or monte sends him back
to the bank nature has provided tor
him.
1t is confidently asserted throughout
the Southwest that the Mexican pos
sesses sixth sense which enables him
to locate infallibly the pockets which
, white men either miss altogether or
only stumble upon by accident.
Men have carefully studied the nat
ural features of these spots, but are
unable to discover the indications
which point them out to the native.
1t is maddening to work ten days
under a blazing sun for a few dollars
worth of dust and nuggets, and then to
see a law Mexican walk directly to d
spot few rods away, pan Il bucket full
of dirt and soucn off after half an
hours work with $50 worth of the vel
low metal knotted up in his gaudy
handkerchief.
But if the Mexican possesses TINS
sense. he is careful not to abuse it,
He takes only enough for his lmmedl-
ate necessities, and has a lofty con-
tempt for the Americans ambition to
! acquire riches. Nor will he locate Il
quartz vein if he happens to uncover
one.
By an unwritten law these dry pla-
GERS above Yuma are free to all. No
one stakes claim other than those
located by dredging companies, who
after years of disaster have not yet
given over the attempt to eat away the
banks of the Colorado until they have
opened passage into the desert.
Many rich discoveries of quartz lodes
! have been made by dry washers and
! some have been worked by the same
primitive method.
Now and then rich stringer, vein
an inch or two wide, is found, which is
not of sufficient volume to pay for the
erection of an arraStra, which is a
crude quartz crusher operated by mule
power, or even by hand. The arrastra,
by the way, is precisely the sort OF mill
to which the Philistines harnessed Sam
SOP, according to the familiar picture
by Dore. The discoverer then rigs a
spring beetle with which he pulverlzes
the rotten quartz, running the powder
through the dry washer.
Early in the '9Os two young fellows
found such a stringer near the deserted
camp of Ehrenberg. With peStle and
dry washer they managed 10 get out
several Thousand dollars worth of dust,
/ but a good deal of the rock was too
refractory to be worked in that way,
and this was sacked in the form OF
specimens and concentrates, the whole
amounting to over $4,000.
They came down the river III boat,
which was tipped over in three feet OF
water within few miles OF Yuma by
big dog that accompanied the party
and tried to climb aboard after being
pitched out for swim. Not cents
worth of the cargo was saved. Inc
bottom of the Colorado is a vast de-
post of silt and quicksand. Dredgers
have sunk seventy feet in it above
Laguna without touching bedrock.
The placer miners say the gold OF the
desert which the dry washer RECEIVERS
in such minute quantities was deposl-
ted by the river, the bed Of which is
liable to change materially in few
weeks. In the mile deep canon that IS
one of the worlds wonders, a ditch
from five to fifteen miles wide and
hundred of miles long, cut through a
highly mineralized region, there must
have been many rich lOdes, richer per-
haps than any of which the world holds
record These the action of the. water
through countless ages has disintegra-
TED and carried far down toward the
delta of the great river in the form OF
dust and nuggets.
The Colorado is a natural flume. Its
bottom, deep under the silt where riffs
and ridges of bedrock form mile wide
; rifles, is a treasure house whose rlches
no man may estimate. But even the
opaque water is said to carry an aver
age of 25 cents worth of gold to the
ton, held in solution or floating on the
surface.
Every miner knows that gold will
float, the -four gold whose particles are
so minute that only the avid grip OF
quicksilver may clutch and hold IT.
Perhaps some day some Jernigan Will
make good and Wrest from the broad
and shallow Colorado a treasure that
will complicate anew the relation OF
the precious metals.
Meanwhile the chief source OF pro-
duction, so far as these placer deposits
are concerned, will continue to be that
legacy of the Aztecs, the dry washer.
Mistake Corrected.
Correct the mistake of risking pneumonia
by neglecting a cough or cold when Foley's
Honey and Tar will not only stop your
cough but expel the cold from your system
Foley's Honey and Tar contains no opiates
and is the best and safest throat and lung
remedy. R. II. Moody.
A summer resident of Bar Harbor,
Mrs. Edward Coles of Philadelphia,
has offered an award of 800 in cash to
that graduate member of the Bar Har-
Dor High school who on graduation sis
in the opinion of his scho0lmates, the
most honorable and upright, the clean
est living, the most successful and con-
siderate toward Others, without regard
to scholarship or athletics"