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also all through 1860. But nothing was ever aone besides the making of a few assays and the shedding of great quantities of ink in their behalf. We have now approached the period of the great change in mining-when capitalists bought up the quartz mines and proceeded to try their hand. We shall endeavor to give a clear view of the affair and the results in the succeeding chapter.

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CHAPTER VI.

Condition of the Mines at the End of 1863-Transrerred to Eastern Capitalists-The April, (1864) Panic in Stocks-Temptation to Speculation in Gold Mining-Why the Miners were generally embarrassed at the End of 1863-Why the Eastern Mining Companies have been comparatively unsuccessful.

DURING the Summer of 1863 a mine or mining interest had occasionally passed from the hands of a Coloradan into those of Eastern capitalists. It was not hard, because Eastern bankers had been in constant receipt of the gold produced by certain mines; and when from a variety of causes the owners of those mines had become considerably involved, they were glad to have their property taken off their hands, indebtedness and all, leaving them a small or large consideration clear. As to the capitalists, they expected, by having the use of money and by working on a large scale so as to economize labor in every branch of the business, to throw all the profits of former mining completely in the shade. The pioneers were generally men of no capital but their muscle and their courage. The mines worked easy on the surface; windlasses and horse-whims answered for hoisting; there was but a slight accumulation of water to be drawn off; the gold was coarse and free in the quartz, from long exposure

to the elements; fuel was cheap; there were considerable placer mines, which made money plenty and times easy, and everything therefore went on swimmingly. But as the mines grew deeper and filled with water, increasing the labor of hoisting and compelling the use of steam for that purpose; as fuel and timber became scarce and dear, and the ores more difficult of treatment-in short, as the curtailing of facilities and the increase of expense incident to the necessary expansion of the business were beyond both the means and ability of mine operators as a class, they become badly involved and embarrassed. Observe how natural and unavoidable was all this.

Well, bankers who had shipped the gold produced by the mines, and who therefore knew their capacity, advanced money on them, and eventually came to own them. It was easy for them, through parties in the East who were also aware of the extent and richness of the veins from gold shipments, to organize stock companies for the purchase and working of them. The effect was to arrest mining generally, and set everybody to establishing title, procuring certificates of yield, and selling out. A small army corps of sharp fellows soon created quite an excitement on the subject in the East, which was the more easy that greenbacks were plentiful and terribly depreciated; and this raged five or six months ere it flattened out, which it did suddenly on the 18th of April, 1864.

In the bubble-burst, however, Colorado stocks fared no worse than others; and as soon as the panic

MINES SOLD IN THE EAST.

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had subsided a little, the business was re-commenced both in Colorado and the East. All the mines not sold were bonded, in which condition, of course, they could not be worked. The men who had discovered and steadily developed the country became the most inveterate speculators in the world. This evil still hangs over mining industry like an eclipse, crippling it perhaps more than all else combined. It would seem from past experience that gold mining derives as much of its fascination from the chances it offers for successful speculation, as from its delightfully painful uncertainties of all descriptions, or its honest advantages as a legitimate business. So long as there is a market for mining property, it is incontestable that people will sell rather than work it. It is only when the market is glutted or dull from paucity of returns that any real, earnest effort to make the mines pay is ever thought of. It is pleaded in defence of those who first sold. out the mines, and of those who are keeping up the same worthy practice, that quartz mining is impossible without capital. To a great extent it has been so in Colorado; but the time is coming when, if mining will not pay without drawing assessments from the pockets of stockholders continually, it will be abandoned.

The reasons why capital has been required in Colorado are, that the expense of living and of mining, and the loss in value from the inadequate treatment of the refractory ores, were so great as to exhaust the profits of surface mining, instead of leaving them to be used in furnishing the more

costly apparatus required for deeper mining. The great reason that the companies organized with ample capital in 1864, have made out so poorly, and now, ere they have had any dividends, are called on for more capital, is that the cost of living and of work advanced immediately upon the inauguration of their operations one hundred per cent., and nothing until very lately could in the least make it recede. But let us be a little more detailed in statement.

In California quartz mining has generally been conducted by individuals or partnerships instead of by incorporated companies. This is a great advantage to begin with, since people will be more careful in using their own than others' money. They first find out what had best be done, then do it themselves as economically as possible. When gold veins in California have been quartz to a great depth, not sulphurets, as those of Colorado universally are a short distance from the surface,—they have been worked with the most gratifying success. All improvements have been made with what was taken from the mines, leaving still very large profits, and all the time enhancing the value of the property, because gold veins grow richer and larger as they go down into the ground. But it must be borne in mind that labor, mining supplies, and provisions have been as cheap in California as in the Atlantic States. Neither, in these cases, had they refractory ores to contend with, of which the stamp mill cannot be made to save more than one-half, one-fourth, or one-tenth the value.

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