The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1915-09-16

seihng marAet. AS "a placer goiu area
lhe iocaLity llas been a prooueer since
time inmelnorlal n ode mining has
long peen pursued ny The natives ..
the country, VINO sought out the rIcn
superficial VEINS IA pocket gold,
grInaing 1t in arrastres and panning
oar the product.
lnaian Miners.
40 lneonsIueraDle part of the ma
tlyes about Placeres IND their living,
lneager enough usually. in mining anu
mailing their W gold. In the rainy
season much gold is washed out by
the same people, and for three or four
months OF the year Plaeeres lives up
to It's name as a gold washing camp.
Fol a days ride in any direction from
Placeres the country has been comp-
ed for no II knows how many years
past by the gold washers and native
p~rospectors, many of whom are min
ers of considerable accurate knowl-
edge and skill.
From time to time new deposits of
placer gold are discovered, and 1t has
been only a few years since a find was
made in what Is known as Ell Puerto
del Orc, about five miles from Pla-
ceres, which was sufficiently good to
make many of the Indians temporarily
rich and to throw the locality into a
fever of gold excitement.
Gold in the Market.
On every market day, which is Sun.
day, the gold buyers are IN hand with
their scales and silver coin ready to
purchase gold at current prices, which
vary greatly according to the abund-
ance of gold offered. Clean placer
gold has the preference oyer the min
ed article. as the latter is prone to re-
tain some dirt. During the rainy sea-
son the price of the yellow metal in
the plaza falls as low as s to 6 'reales"
81 NJ to 75c per gram. At other times
when no placer gold is to be had, the
price of clean, mined gold goes as high
as SLIPS per gram. The gram is the
Mexican basis of computation of gold
values, there being about 31h grams
to the Troy unc
Buyers Are GoIdsmiths.
Very little of this gold goes out of
the state of Guerrero. 1t is said, as the
ore buyers are all goldsmiths who
work their purchases up into jewelry,
which finds a ready sale in the plazas
of adjacent towns.
In few parts Of the country is to be
seen a display of gold ornaments
equal to that shown by the inhabit-
ants of this region, Not only do the
women of the better class appear with
massive necklaces of gold beads, but
1t Is not an infrequent occurrence to
see scrawny old Indian women clad
in red Bingham wrappers-sans shoes,
sans lingerie and sans soap-bedeck-
ed with golden crucifixes and neck
laces of beads which set on fire the
~covetousness Of the curio hunter.
1t Is quite true that the goldsmiths
mix enough copper with gold to re-
duce 1t often below the standard fine
ness of the 1S-karat jewelry Of civili-
and insures them o better pro-
fit upon the output of their shops. For
the most part. the gold is hammered
or melted into massive effects. The
beads are lare, hollow affairs of round,
oval or octagonal shapes, strung usu-
ally upon stout cords Of braided thread
and very often the wearers Of this
have mined the gold them
giving perhaps forty pesos
worth of gold for a necklace or other
ornament which contains only one or
-wo-thirds that value Of gold and per-
laps a considerable quantity of alloy.