Gilpin observer., 1910-01-20
THE PRosPEcToR
AND HIS sURRo.
(salt Lake Mining Reyiew.l


meaning of mining. What l want. :"
said he, is ore. Ore and the money
1t brings, and l do not care at all
whether my name gets into the paper
led in the same breath with that of
Clark, Heinze or the Guggenheims.
What want is ore.'
"And this man is getting the ore.
For years he has been Nmost a her
NIT in the hills. He located in a dis
triot that looked good to him, and
here he stuck like leach. When
others became discouraged he clung
to his beliefs regarding the camp. For
months he was as near the starvation
stage as the faro player is to making
stake. He dug when others stood
on the dump and laughed at him. AT
last he struck it big. Some Of the ore
was Of high grade, and this he sack
ed, all by his lonesome, and shipped
to the smelters. More recently he
has managed to get a little mill on
the ground, and with this he is treat
ing about thirty tons of good milling
ore daily. His bank account is in
more and more ore in his mine, he
will soon be able to Increase his mill
capacity, put on more men and in due
time, his mine will be classed as one
of the bonanza mining propositions
in this intermountain region.
"And, continued the prospector,
"he has never tried to sell share
of stock; he has not made an appeal
to the outside world for financial aid,
he has had no gold bricks for sale,
and he has not tried to milk the
public. He was mining for ore; and
he got it. This man was pusher,
thoroughbred miner. and he has no
hookworms in his feet.
"You want to know something
about hookworms? Well, l will tell
you about them. According to the
new translation of the Rockefeller
Bible, a man, if he feels lazy, has
feeling of lassitude, an inclination to
shirk work. If he has a hungry feel
ing of emptiness, he is afflicted with
hookworms. The hookworms gener-
ally get into the system through the
feet, probably because the victim
generally moves them so, slowly much
as a Finn miner mopes along when
going on shift. Then it works up to
the vital parts and attaches itself to
an elementary canal near the solar
plexus and proceeds to rob the body
of the nourishment necessary to the
well-being of its victim, who slowly,
but surely begins to pine away until
he is hardly more than skeleton.
This man, Rockefeller would say, has
a bad case of hookworms.'
"Of course continued the pros
pector. this really has nothing to
do with my story. And yet it is
fact that many miners and prospec-
tors l know of seem to have a bad
attack of hookworm. They may not
be aware of the fact, but they show
the presence of this dread disease in
their daily walk, in their daily work.
They are so weak that when they
have a pick poised in the air ready
for stroke they barely have
strength to let it down. And SO it
remains in the air, as If held there
by an invisible hand, for a period
during which vigorous and interest
hundred pounds of ore. The attack
is so bad that ten-year-old boy
could beat him in mucking out after
shift, and then have an hour to
spare in which to run down a jack
rabbit or coyote; and. l regret to say,
the hookworm disease is becoming
quite prevalent in some Of the min
ing camps Of the West.
81 want to tell you. Old Long
Ears" concluded the prospector, "the
successful mining man / referred to
in the beginning of our conversation,
sought success and found it. He
was working along strictly mining
principles, and a hookworm had no
kind Of show around his camp. He
made business of mining instead Of
a pretense, and it will not be long be
fore he will be wearing diamonds,
while the hookworm fellows will be
warming chair in some hotel lobby
looking for gold-brick victim; and
there you are, and then some."