Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-06-02
Ghost Towns Reviving

AS it happens. there Is a great short
age of gold, and gold. Of course, Is the
money Of ultimate redemption. The
whole world production Is considerably
under what it was in 1915. and Europe
alone needs twice as much as she did
before the war. Gold and silver, there
fore, must be mined in increasing guam
titles. The United States Geological
Survey points out that there Is plenty
to be found-there are 1000 100000 In
gold reserves alone beneath our SOIL
and that within the next 20 years, III
economic conditions continue" $780,
900 600 of this amount may be pro-
duced Much OF this gold will be taken
from new territory, for less than half
of the mineral fields of the Nation have
been proSpected
There are high hopes of al 3IcTl
greater activity i'll silver. zinc and lead
mining. Efforts are being made to get
a protective tariff on silver to keep out
Mexicos silver, mined by cheap labor.
/ Since we do not now produce half OF
the silver we use, it. is felt that
nominal tariff would bring to life again
all the rest of the Ghost Towns OF the
West.
! An industrial metal which has given
| the west-Colorado in particulars
share of the mining impetus Is n1olyb-
/ denum. used to harden steel. Eighty
five per cent Of the molybdenum supply
used in the United States comes from
the Climax mine at the top OF the
| world, while business Is so brisk at the
Royal Tiger. near Breckenridge, that
the next census will show the popula-
ton Of that town to be 1.500-larger
than the present population Of the en-
tie county. Thirty million tons Of the
ore have been blocked out here. Tung-
stem and vanadiunl, blood cousins to
molybdenum, are also increasingly
necessary.
The fact that we are an almost ex-
cessively prosperous nation contributes
| to the revival. Feldspar, used as fiux,
| Is needed more and more for tiles, por-
celains and the so-called marbles used
in hotels. restaurants, drug stores,
kitchens and so forth.
Mining Has Changed.
If science has changed mining from
rushes to steady development, 50 has
science changed prospecting from guess
work to q near certainty. In former
| days the prospectors went by intuition
rather than sense. They Just jumped
out. They had what they thought was
a nose" for metals. Sometimes they
| did, sometimes they didn't. Some would
| gopher near a strike. Others would go
of by themselves looking for fioat-a
broken-oh piece Of the desired metal.
| If they found float they would begin
| to trace deposits here and there, like Q
hound on scent, going up and up,
sometimes for miles. The float prob
ably was brought down by glacial &C
| ton or torrentials. More often than
! not they failed to find the mother vein.
/ Others looked for groupings, going along
| with their eyes glued to the ground. It
I was mostly guess work
! Today, If the prospector is intelligent,
/ he will go to q Government office and
| find out likely places to prospect. Not
only Is metallurgy well aware Of fields,
but it has developed sensitive instru-
| ments far more accurate and just as
divining rod. Claims are staked out
now just as they were in other times.
Plenty Of Thrills Left.
It's plain to be seen from all this
that there are plenty of thrills in the
old hills yet-plenty OF prospecting to
be done. It's as easy or as hard as
ones sense of adventure chooses to
make it. A commissioner of mines in
any mining State will quote such
figures upon the thousands Of square
miles of mineraAzed territory still I'M
| prospected as will make mans head
| swim. He will say that barely one
| quarter of the mineralized territory in
his State has been prospected. He will
! say that this territory contains in
Vulnerable veins running in every di-
rection, crossing and cutting each
other, carrying all the precious and
industrial metals
Just a year or so back. in a certain
! California placer district. 25,00o.o00
cubic yards of gravel we're sluiced and
dredged. Gold!-gold !-valued at S12
cents cubic yard. was recovered. The
| profits ran well over a million dollars.
The Colorado mining commissioner
says he can go that record one better.
Recently he tested 500 acres Of placer
/ ground in which SIS drill holes have II
cents average to the cubic yard. That
makes one itch to get out and shovel
and pan.
President Coolidge himself might
have prospected for gold in his back
| yard that Summer he spent in the
! Black Hills. He was in the richest 10
square miles in the world. Since placer
mining started so years ago, $780,
100000 in gold alone has been
recovered.
Fabulous Lost Mines.
Thrills? These same Government
Offices know Of fabulous lost mines and
will tell where they are guessed to be.
1Here are actually nunOre0S OF them,
not counting those that are the dreams
OF men in delirium. I recall one case
where man went out every year from
Massachusetts,. AS soon as Summer
melted the ice on the passes he went
in with three jacks. Each Autumn he
came out with $4,000 or $40, 900 worth
of dust-gold. He covered the mine
well. No one knew where 1t was He
died suddenly. His son has made re-
peated expeditions to the approximate
territory, but he has given up now.
That mine Is somewhere in Colorado.
along with dozens more
Yes, there are plenty of thrills In the
old hills yet, thrills Of that greatest lure
Of all, "Goldl" But 1t isn't the thrills
that are bringing the Ghost Towns back
to life. that are bringing romance and
glamour back to the mining West. It L.
the steady rhythm of persistent work,
the application Of scientific methods,
the selective hotation process that the
miners wife brought to light in her
soapsuds-that and the industrial age,
with its tremendous demand for
metals.
Air Lines to Cover Europe.
Almost every city in Europe will be
aaahad bSy adv Ijma fai~