Arizona republican., 1911-06-11

example, has been more than scratch ed" in a prospecting way.
 old timers who have grown too old themselves to follow the lure of for tune in the rough hills have an vx- planation of their own. They snort with contempt when the modern prospector is mentioned. and stoutly willing to undergo hardships-the men whose fortitude and bravery brought about the marvellous mineral development of the Rocky mountain regions in the last generation--is d race that is almost passed away. The faith of these old-timers ia the mineral richness of Arizona IS not in the least diminished. They speak glowingly of the days when pros pectors had the nerve to punch their burros through the desert wastes and were rewarded by the discov- cry of such bOnanzas as the Tomb
 stone mines, which produced their thirty millions; the Silver King, which produced its sixteen millions; the Vulture. which produced its fif- teen millions; the Fortuna, the Pearce, the King of Arizona, each of which produced their millions, and the Tom Reed and the Gold Road. which are still turning out millions of gold annually, and they say with emphasis that the wealth of Arizona in gold and silver has been hardly touched-that the only thing needed is intelligent and industrious pros pecting to bring to light rewards equal to any that came to the pros pectors of earlier times.
 But there is too much of a ten dency to think only of the discoveries of phenomenal production. Hundreds of men in Arizona have made small fortunes out of mines of moderate size The very existence of such prop critics has not been known beyond the confines of their immediate dis trict And it is this fact which does so much to remove the industry of mining from the domain of the lot tery," to which it is so often igno- rantly assigned by the thoughtless
 And in our judgment it is not to be denied that the present era of comfort and luxury in Arizona has its influence in discOuraging prospec- tors from undertaking stunts which would not have in the least dismayed the frontiersmen to whom we owe so much-the modern prospector does not like to leave the railroads and trek into the remote hills with only already has a prospect or group of prospects, he is too much inclined to neglect them except for a brief an- nual visit in which he goes through the motions of doing assessment work too much of his time goes to scheming in town to put through some kind of a stock deal" The ease with which this or that man among his acquaintances has made a good living while peddling stock while wearing good clothes and taking it easy in town has a tendency to make him believe that this is the better way to mine"
 Of course it is understood that we are speaking of a certain class of prospectors only. Contrary to the assertions of the old timers we still have courageous men who are willing to make hard hikes through the hills and are willing to live hard and dig hard to investigate an inviting prospect-but many men of this sort are under the handicap of lack of means. Men of this class encounter an apathy among men of other pur- suits who in former years would have been more than ready to take a flyer by providing a grubstake It is the belief of MT. Ezra Thayer of Phoenix, a business man who is making a success of mining ventures as a side line to other affairs, that business and professional men gen erally-the class of men from whom reliable prospectors in former years could obtain a grubstake-are largely responsible for the dormant condi- tion of prospecting in Arizona. With sound reasoning MT. Thayer points out that business and professional men. finding it easy to make money in real estate and other lines of com mercial speculation. have gradually withdrawn their interest from the industry-they forgetting that in no other line of business is the reward so great as in mining: for getting that as yet there has been no wide development of Arizona's mineral resources: forgetting that, although the wealth of the territory