Evening capital news. (Boise, Idaho) 1901-1927, 1916-03-26

After this the cars carry the ore straight to
the mills. There it is automatically dumped
and the machinery is such that it is hardly
touched by mans hands until the gold has
been won.
But suppose we take trip through the
mine, visiting some of the tunnels and going
into the slopes. We are accompanied by 9.
/. Jackson, the assistant manager Of the
company, and B. B. NEEDING, the mine SUI
perintendent We climb into the cars, and
ride through tunnel after tunnel, stopping
now and then in vain search for gold in
the rock overhead. Its color might Be
called battleship gray. 1t is drab slate
with little veins and stringers Of quartz run
ming through it. 1t is i'll the quartz that the
gold, lead and iron which form the minerals
of the ore body are found In some of the
rich places you can see specks Of yellow
The veins run in streaks through the slate
rock, and the diamond drills show that such
streaks are found everywhere in the great
body of ore not yet outlined by the tunnels
BY and by we leave our electric engine
and ride on one Of the shaft elevators to the
level above. Our elevator boy is a giant
over SIX feet in height and he wears long
oilskin coat which makes him look taller
AS we pass from level to level we can see
the cars moving by; and finally at 1000 feet
above where we started we step out and
tramp through tunnel TO visit stope
where the miners are working.
Here the darkness is almost Egyptian and
the path is as rough as that of the Hill of
Difficulty which SO wearied poor Christian
to climb. We had acetylene lamps to pick
our way over the beds of ore underfoot and
we crawled up and down over thousands of
tons of gold-bearing rock before we stood
under the roof of a low chamber covering
more than an acre.
We could now see the miners at work
Each had his own light, which shone dim in
the distance. They were operating drills
moved by compressed air, and were putting
in the dynamite for blasting the ore. AT
certain hours the blasts are shot off, and the
great masses of rock are thus taken out and
broken for the cars and the mills.
!. Each Slope or cavern is 400 feet long, 120
feet wide and 400 feet deep Its contents
are equal to a solid block of rock with the
@ase Of an acre extending to height of 400
feet. or more than two-thirds that of the
Washington monument Think of a block
Of that size streaked with gold. AS I lifted
my acetylene lamp to the roof | could see
the veins of white quartz running this way
a.,1 AZ I e.. III
pick out with my knife blade grain of gold
the size of the head Of pin,
AS l did SO the superintendent told me
they had Is other Slopes now being worked
After leaving the mines I went to the
mills. They are said to be the largest and
most modern OF any embarrassing plant in
the world. Within the past year the COM
pany has spent $5,000.000 upon them and
nothing has been spared TO make machinery
do every possible part of the work. Every
thing is moved by electricity Electric
cranes some of which will lift 80 tons, carry
great loads from place to place. The same
force raises the ore and there are automatic
skips of five tons each that load and empty
themselves, moving on day and night all the
year through.
The ore comes from the mines on trains
drawn by electric engines. It is dumped by
electricity upon screens the wires of which
are as thick as your thumb, and it passes
thence into immense crushers, which take
the largest pieces and break them into Jumps
about two inches thick.
From these screens the ore goes into stor-
age bins of 10000 tons each, and from them
it is carried by skips and wide belt convey