Mohave County miner., 1914-06-06
The Engineer and His Job.

Pick up any technical journal, open it at the page of classified ads. In the upper left hand corner note the busi- ness managers fond invitation in the form of "So many cents word for Help Wanted announcements" If one or two mine managers list a need hereunder, the page can be proud of itself.
 Now look under "Positions Wanted;" young men and old, from South America to Johannesburg and back to Nome; every variety of experience and nexperience offers itself until the page seems to be an exposition of something that must be wrong.
 Do you remember those easy.money days in 1905 and 1906 and 1907. There's vivid picture in the writer's mind of a young engineer who went out from Golden and pitched his tent in Buckskin, just over the Yerington divide in Nevada. He had IS in his pockets, but copper was arount "A cts. He painted hls own shingle and hung it out: "U. $. Deputy Mineral Sur veyor' and name.
 Two months later a prospector offer- ed him 40$ day for a weeks work in the hills, "There's a cheap surveyor up the street, Mr. Man," he replied.
 A l7-year-old boy wandered into another camp at about the same time. He had worried through year of trigonometry in high school, and had punched stakes with Western Pacific location crew for months. A good. sized concern was glad to obtain his servlces for l25S month and board.
 No dreams these; anyone who wants them can have the names
 Today in almost any of the western mining camps can be found dozen or more experienced mining engineers lying around town waiting for some thing to turn up.
 Where is the fault, and where is the remedy?
 To decry our colleges for turning out trained men during slack times is surely an error. No profession, DO business can ever be over supplied with capable workers. The fault lies in the man who wants a ready made berth into which he can step as easily as the stenographer applying for a 6s week job.
 A mining engineer must first and foremost be d fighter, and second. he should be a business man. Made-to- order positions, two times out of three, go to some one near the controlling stock interest. Nor is this wrong There isn't reader who would not prefer his son to stranger in charge of operations which present responsi. bility and temptation. This is under the rational presumption that the son is at least fairly equal to the task
 Apart from the properties under the management of our very large cor. porations, visit one little mine and smslter after another. It is astonish. ing how almost uniformly the supern- tendent is the man who nas developed that hole in the ground from it's pros- pect sage.
 Make mine of your own. If you have years of good work to your credit, raise money. There is DO heaven-sent reason why man with a Columbia College degree and the summers of a Nevada desert behind him should not get the money to obtain control of some small property of promise and compel it to yield profits. while an East Side shoestring merchant after decade of peddling organizes a cor poration, builds Fifth Avenue em. porium and then devotes himself to the collectioc of old masters.
 Splendid opportunity awaits the fresh graduate. A hundred and fifty dollars is plenty. Get palr of burros and pick and shovel. Fill a couple of five. gallon oil cans with water and hike.
 A lot of good mining was done be- fore the transit was invented. Young man, you must become a miner before you can hope to be an engineer.
 You who have handled many a tough proposition underground. who have made money for others. vet who today