The San Francisco call., 1909-03-07


taste, were not warmly welcomed. Mrs.
Heller of Wardner was the only one
who had faith, and she backed II up
with money. She has cleared more
than 100000 so far; and Pat" Is now
Mr.. McGovern," with aspirations look
ing toward the state house.
''Nigger Tobe" used to be a familiar
figure In the Douglas district OF Ari-
zona. He never prospected, and never
worked, but managed to pick up a
few dimes and many drinks by playing
his old banjo In the barrooms. One
day he was walking from Douglas to
another town. when he met a rarty Of
Mexicans collecting mescal These
were so enchanted with his instrument
that they wanted to buy It. He was
not anxious to sell, and refused their
offers of silver. burros and mesca1 with
withering scorn. Then they offered
to show him a rich outcropping of cop
per ore. AT that he capitulated, and
turned over the banjo. True TO their
promise, the "Greasers" conducted him
to the spot on which he located the
great Santa Rosa copper mine.
Found by Horse
These little romances OF the mines
might be paralleled by similar tales told
of mineral discoveries the world over.
For example, horse named Ramnel
paved up the dirt in the Hartz noun
tains, and led to the discovery OF the
famous Rammelsberg silver mines. A
little girl playing in a Georgia brook
picked up some bright pebbles. One of
them happened to be a gold nugget,
and the mines of the Cracker state
were opened as a result A COW drank
the water of certain spring in Vir-
ginia, and died from the effects. That
led to the opening Of the Brinton ar
senic mines, and the building Of the
great reduction plant. A little girl of
Ontario went out with her father to
pick blackberries. Soon she went run
ming to him crying, Look, papa, at
the cruet stopper L have found" Her
"cruet stopper" was a corundum crys-
tai and the opening OF the Craig
Mountain corundum mines resulted.
The richest silver mines the world
has ever known are those Of Cerro de
Potosi. Bolivia. Their discovery came
to pass in this way: One day in 1545
an Aymara Indian named Diego Hualco
was pasturing his drove of llamas on
the bleak mountain side. when he acci-
dehtally uprooted a small bush. Ming
led with the root filaments were threads
and Slobules of silver. From that
trivial accident resulted the opening Of
mines that have added two thousand
million dollars to the worlds stock
ing of the city of Potosi, that ranked for
a hundred years as the largest city in
the New World, with a population
of 10000.
Second in Importance only to the
mines of Cerro de PotOsi were those
of Cerro de Pasco, in Peru. They were
discovered in 1880 by an Indian shep-
herd who made a fire to warm his
hands and cook his frugal meal When
he prepared to leave. he noticed that
the rocks beneath the ashes were COW
cred with a film of silver, melted from
the virgin ores.
Very similar was the manner Of the
finding of the mines of the Real del
Rosario. in Mexico One evening I'm
1865 Leon Rojas was chasing an un-
ruly steer. when his rosary broke. He
dismounted from his horse and tried to
gather up the scattered beads. but found
the darkness too far advanced So he
built a fire on the spot, and camped for
the night. In the morning, he found
heat of the fire had caused a tiny riv-
ulet of silver to flow from the rock.
So it seems that the cabalistic signs
that point the path of fortune are very
likely to be read Alright by natures
"simples'-by men unskilled in the
lore OF the mines, and unschooled In
the ways OF the world These signs
may consist in the vagaries Of a mule
or jackass, the stubborn antics Of q
COW, the malevolent poising OF a snake
or any other trivial accident. II there
Is moral. no one has yet discovered 1t