Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1920-01-03
MUST THE PRosPECToR GO?

Must the prOSpectOr go! we ask TINS question WITH
concern which will believe be shared by countless read
ers lest the picturesque character aeconately if
not first American fiction by Bret Harte
should become memory only He is genuine character
much atteed exaggerated he has been pictured
first introduced into American fiction by Bret Iarte
London
If no other sufficient reason has advanced why the
Phistne hand of conservation should be withheld from this
kindly romantic figure, given when Senator Pitt
arguing against ownership development
and control said:
Il believe that you would have development of the min
erals in sight and you would never find any more OF
the minerals that hidden under the ground think
that you would drive away from the West the propecto
splendid individual that circumstances have developed i'll
that country and without whom mines would have been
found You will drive him to South America; you will
drive him Siberia, to China, to Africa everywhere
else where there reward for individual suffering and
initiative
Your prospector is lover of nature, dreamer poet
Harte writing OF the the Luck of Roaring Camp but
he might have written thus Of the propector Nature
his and payfcow. For him she would let slip
between the golden shafts of sunlight she would send
send wandering breezes visit him with the balm of bay
and resinous gum him the tall whispered heart
heart the humble bees buzzed and the rocks cawed
slumberous accompaniment
The prospectors who discovered all nearly all the great
mines of the Serras and the Rockies had knowledge
geology of the chemistry OF minerals they aside all
SuCf as useless mental scrap with the
further into the rocks than the pick goes Even in
this day of improved tools the prospectors working outfit
consists of little than pick shovel, and pan for
washing gravel-lte else for their burro has other
burdens carry.
There hurry in the prospectors day, unwaitng
tsains itinerary factory whistles CALL no ordered
time of labor In pleasant, watered little valleys be
found high up the TANKS agreeable
tervals will be pitched the pospecors the
ed and fattened rich plentiful grazing deer bear shot,
its meat dried in the moistueless sir thumbed copy of
Dickens, or maybe Lonefeow resd agan and again by
the campfire
Yet they find much The prospee.s~ lazy followed
canyon whose grudgngy 1led MS canvas sack
with gold dust bothered by the black heavy that it
reluctantly separated from the heavier gold his pan
was dipped and shaken in the stream came at last as he
knew he would to the quartz cropping from which, through
ages wearing waters had dragged particles of free gold
But he pofted nothing from the Cosock lode which gave
to the world eight hundred million in gold and silver Prob
ably he did not much lament his lost wealth He would
nave been troubled to have given his vagrant joys
concern IN the monster enginery which, with pneumatic or
electric drills blasts OF dynamite roaring hoist works. the
laundering stamp mills whrling grinding steel loosened
broke down. hoised crushed ground mountain of ORE
concentrating the bothersome black sand from which the
chemists took gold silver
Inc prospectors who located a cropping of a Rocky
Mountain ledge carrying gold sold it GLADLY for r;e
and were curious probably rather regretfu when they
learned that the ledge turned into OF the greatest conner
mines IN the world They remained free from the tangle Of
high finance, from political turmoil and disappoointmep
from olied or fulled-social ambt Their burro vet
carried or them ample OF i.to coffee sugar and
cornmeal they tramped little or as much as they ;led
anu they mad no master. If they located mine they
would 1t suited their fancy bond It to an DersonaI cor
PoFaon whose experts would report Oh its probable val
ue they received tcn-thousandh part Of that &c
thsr reward It was enough for them 1t gave them =
month at some grand hotel in Denver or San Francisco ev
saw plays heard opera impaired digestion with cit food
wired under city air Then they gladly answered the lire
" @ MOUNTAINS the better companonship OF friends
trees mighty rocks, wild streams whose falls sing s,veetr
at nlght-Nature's own music to those who love her
nope the good oldasloned prospector need NOT 90
New York Sun %