The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1920-05-13

quartz assayed "as high as $4,000 per
ton"
This version of the discovery inter-
ested me greatly when l read it in
print. because it was not the story
that he had told me himself, in the
presence of Andy Richardson, as we
stood within sight of the old Gertrude
tunnel i'm July, 1900. l had taken
down the real story i'm my notebook
and therefore did not have to trust
that most dangerous recorder. the
memory You have listened to the or
! iginal version already and can make
Your own comparisons. The pink
spar that aroused his interest was not
fiuorite, but rhodonite. the silicate of
manganese. Thus his incentive to-
ward the Inspection of the vein was
founded upon an error; the analogy
with Cripple Creek was false but il
served lbs purpose. which was to
prompt the taking of a sample The
telluride of gold, calaverite. is not
black il is a bronze yellow mineral
like chalcopyrite but easily distiu-
guishabe from copper pyrite by its
hardness. streak and more brilliant
msire The description of the black
threads of glstening mineral lis based
upon information of a much later
date. when it was ascertained, thanks
to microscopic examination 10y C.. w.
Puuington and others that the black |
haments i'm the Camp Bird ore CON
sisted of free gold. galena, blende and /
occasional traces of telluride the /
identity Of which was never determin- |
ed with certainty. i'm any event If /
was not recognizable by the naked eye /
and bore no likeness either to the cal /
averite or the sylvanite found at .
Cripple Creek Walsh deserves credit |
for taking samples and having them
assayed. That was "a test more trust
worthy than any surmise based upon
a half baked mineralogy What is
more. he owed his luck to the failure
of predecessor to use the assay test
thoroughly. The romance of the Camp
Bird belongs to Walsh. the pathos to
William Weston. The Gertrude claim
was located by Mr. Weston and Geo
Barber in 1877 and formed part of the
property acquired by the Allied Mines
company in 1878. The workings found
by Walsh in 1896 We're made by II /.
w. Reed and Caleb Reed in 1884 Mr.
Weston was manager for the Allied /
Mines. a wild cat enterprise upon
which Rossiter w. Raymond reported
adversely in 1878 Andy Richardson
told me that on the window ledge of
the log cabin that served as an assay |,
office for the Allied Mines company {
he found a piece of ore Identical with
the rich samples that Walsh had bro
ken in the Gertrude tunnel and THAT
gave him a key to 'e fortune Of a
millionaire. lit is evident that his pre-
decessors had failed to assay the ore
for gold. Silver mining was then in
vogue in Colorado The ore was tried
for silver alone and the assayer had
failed to part the button. Others, pos
sibly Weston. possibly Reed held the
ore in their hands and had even as
certained that it was relatively poor
in silver For lack of a complete as
say they had missed the chance of
lifetime Perhaps they are luckier for
it, who can tell? Walsh crossed the
range many years ago; they live and
are honored citizens. the one at Den
yer and the other at Salt Lake city
Two carpenters who builded better
than they knew not ordinary houses,
but castles in Spain, have been men
toned. They dreamt they dwelt in
marble halls and found themselves
less comfortable than in the log cab
ms of their prospecting days. An
other adventurous carpenter was John
Treadwel who gave his name to the
A Alaska Treadwell mine which produc
ed $39.49S,215 in gold and paid $15,
7S5. 900 lin dividends before Con April
II 1910 the wtaers of the sea drowned
the workings and stopped further dig
ying. The locator was Pierre Erus-
sard, a French Canadian, known to