The Idaho Springs siftings-news., 1910-04-02

Henry B. Clifford
On The Tunnols OF Clear
Oreok County
Extract from the address Of Henry
B. Clifford. author of the world-famed
Work on Mining, entitled "Roeks in
The Road To Fortune and Presi dent
of the United States Milling Company,
delivered At the Ponchatrain Hotel,
Detroit, Thursday Evening. Febru-
ary oath, 1910.
"For years before the completion OF
the Suez Canal there were seeptics
Who. predicted great financial and prac-
teal failure. All these undertakings
require time The planting of the seed
the slow growth of the tree and the
soft kiss Of the Summer sun, are ne
csssary before the gold en- fruit can
pass to man.
The great benefits of the Nswhouse
and Big Five tunnels, rs well as other
bores to Clear Creek and Gilpin coun-
ties will net be realized for few years
yet. Their ultimate success is, how
ever. positive. The benefits Of these
remarkable pieces of architecture, the
emancipation Of the miner, who in past
was slave to water SO costly and re-
tardful, will not be apparent unit! the
owners of the old properties, awake to
the fact that the changes in metallur-
gieal conditions, the reducing of rail-
road rates, the installation of the
telephone, the application of electricity
the improvement of drift cutting ma
chine, have all been units of q great
whole, that has created a value for
that which was valueless in the
past.
When the miner realizes that the
age Of ''blind luck" in mining has
passed; that the opening of ore shoots
and the discovery of new ones ~ the
old are exhausted is now . business
science, that the saving Of each one
percent in treatment makes distinct
line between proht and failure; that,
~ they have allowed their property
sleep in industrial inactivity, while
the golden wealth Of the mine was
drowned by that dilute sulphuric acid
water. 30 destructive to pumps, there
were industrial Lineolns at work to
free them from the incubus Of costly
pumping. and these great and costly
tunnels have been driven day by day
and will continue to be driven, tapping
each ore-laden vein at great depth,
draining the water, bringing the ore by
direct line to the mill site Of Idaho
Springs, where, in another year, the
most modern of all mills will be COR
structed, wherein even a $5 sulphide
ore will be made profitable. Then,
the benefits of these two principal
underground transportation and drain
age systems will be realized by the
the mine owner still asleep to the new
conditions that each day make his prop
erty more valuable. Then capital will
also awake and the sinews of war, SO
necessary in the creation Of the new
golden wealth will be forced upon the
laggard, and he, in spite of himself
will be urged to win from nature, the
treasure that natur. has placed at his
hand simply at the cost of little Ia
Dor and capital.
Nature has 80 arranged those lofty
hills in the great sulphide gold belt Of
Colorado, that it was necessary for
two tunnels to be driven, and these
two great underground bores have
been in progress for years, the New
house, now in $1,000 feet from Clear
Creek, and the Big Five $500 feet.
The first will benefit and receive tri-
butte from the eastern part of this great
network Of veins, the last will con-
troll the western end.
Whatever the great future Of Clear
Creek and Gilipin Counties. that future
will be attributable to the dogged per-
sistsncy Of the far-seeing men who
have driven these under ground rail-
ways into the golden heart of golden
kingdom"
A literary feast is in store for the