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About The Sumpter miner. (Sumpter, Or.) 1899-1905 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 11, 1905)
!'""""" VOL. V!. JOHN ARTHUR ON JUST HOW TO Whou a man makes a suoaess Id any Hold of hutuHt) endeavor, the world in ready to listeu to what he pays o4) tbe inbjeot of his outlines or profession; frequently when he desorves no oapecml 0 rod it, for tbe world at large is not endowed with the raro power of intelligent dls orluiinatiou. But In ordor to take a suooess of a mining propoaitlu; wbiob in this connection means to take the gold out of the ground and turn It to refined bullion at a profit, where others have failed; that requlrea a profound knowledge of tbe business technically, experience and above all things else, common sense. Tbe opinion of a man who has accom plished this, tberofore, are entitled te consideration, and fur these reasons Tbo Miner deems worthy of publication a few remarks which John Arthur made to its representa tive before leaving for the Imperial this foronoon. The all-absorbiug toplo of conversation, oogitatiou, "rag ubowiug, " lu this region was the subjeat beforo the hotiBe, when John Arthur, who has studied mln log oouditinus, especially with referenoe to soieutiflo and praotioal re treatment, In oastern Oregon for a decade, oblpped In with these ubser vatienv: "1 know of at Ieait forty prop erties In districts contigous to Sump ter, now unproductive, that can ba wroked at a profit or from 12,000 to !&,000 a month. Some of them are capitalized at a few million dollars awd at present they can't ba made to pa dividends on any such amount. Saaie of tbam have leduation plants that coat any here between 110,000 ad 140,000, that, as they stand today, are not worth two bits. Other have alnkiug plants that oost from 410,000 to $150,000, that do uot jastlfy auob expenditure. Most of theai have wasted many tbonsands of dollars in driving long oross cut tunnels, out of whloh'ho ore is sealing. "My theory Is that what la necei aary in this, as. In faot, all mining districts, Is to gat tba gold oat of the groand as quiokly aa post! bio and with tba least possible expenditure of asoaay. To bo more spool la. If I owaad odevoloped clalsj on wbleh there waa tba rarfaoe 4adi oatloa of a goad oca shoot, I would aia Hght there, never lettlag go SUMPTER, OREGON, JANUARY n, w E of the ore. A cheap whim with anyuae power would go down con veniently fifty or eventy-five feet, If too much water was not euuounter ed. Thon I would put in a steam linking plant with a capacity of throo or four hundred feet, which would not aost over 11,500. In this country a claim in either proven worthless or valuable at a depth of 400 feet, if tbe latter, it ran stand all tbe oxpeose necessary for mora perfect or powerful machinery. When I opened op a body of ore, I would pay aome man who under stands ore treatment IfiOO to tell me what tort of a plant 1 needed to extract tbe values instead of paying f 20,000 for a plant with which to experiment. 1 would then put in a small plant, at a cost of from 1.1,000 to 95,000, and bngm as quick as the Lord woud lot me to get the gold and silver transferred to my bank act uoutit. "Those, uf course, are the pre liminary stops toward making a mine. Whou you have acoouipliphed that, you can throw away this cheap machinery at a big profit, too and then oreot what tbe expert who sells tbe plant will call a 'model mill.' "Of course, what this enutry needs most at the present time is trans portation facilities, to bring ores and concentrates from the minea to tbe smelter. And In building that road, I would pursue the same policy as I have just outlined In opening op a mine; balld It aa cheaply aa possible, buy second band rails and eqaip ment, gat bold of ao old locomotive that a'oma other road baa throws away, that will make tea Bailee aw hour down grade and baol 00 to 7i ions. Of course, It wouldn't ba a rapid transit proposition; but I would Ilka to take tba contract to construct auob a road to Cablavllle for 930.000 and It would ba a dividend payor too. Even during those dull tinea, tba people of Sumpter oould do that thing themselves, if they would but tbey won't. "With this little railroad, haul lug ox to tba smelter . for ono to two and a half dollalra a ton, I oould leaeo and operate at a profit a dozen Idle properties along Ita llae; and force the matter bora to doable Ita oapaolty is alnaty days, In order to hand la ore froea Oraoker Croak and Oablo Cove districts aleae. MN &u.iu&:4$3i 5SwTMitiSri my- Witbiu teu 'lays after such rates were established I could myself add 40 tons a day to what the smelter is now receiving. We are paying 921.50 a ton for wagon haul. Twd dollars a ton profit on ore is itself worth while, and wo could then all got riob mining, concentrating and smelting fifteen dollar rock." Transportation Enterprise That failed. The old steam traation engine with which an attempt waa made about five years ago by l M. Chris man, of Silver Luke, to haul freight from the railroad to his storo in Lake county, has boon Hold to the lumber firm of Hood fc Stoild, who will use tho oiigino in hauling logs to thoir mill at Lytic Tbe maohiuo in ques tion will be remombored by many residents of this city, who aro famil iar with tho efforts made by Mr. Ohiianan in 1808 to revolutionize ontral Oregon transportation methods. He purchased the engine In Portlaud and took it to The Dalles, where It 'was onnplari onto several heavily loaded freight wagons aud started on Its journey uf over 200 miles to its destination. Hut a series of mishaps and breakdowns aud tbe fact that the road over which it traveled were In anything but orderly shape, mado the trip a disastrous ono from Btart to HnlBh, aud the tium occupied envornd a period of several mouths. Uesldos tho dolaya ensuing from various causoH, tho trip proved an expensive ono, and with tho en gine's arrival at Silver Lake with a portion of its original load uf mer chandise, It was plMRod lu dry dock, where It has sluoe remained. Tho angina was ateamod up last week for tbe first time In alx yeara aud run to Lytle, where It la eald it will displace about 30 horses In tbe work which It will bo required to do. Crook County Journal. LESLIE'S WEEKLY ON THE STANDARD Ernest C. Rowe, in a reoeut issue of Leslie's Weekly, gives an interest ing description of the cobalt property of tba Standard Consolidated Mines company in the Quarlzburfc district. Mr. Rowe aaya In part: Out in eastern Oregon, in what is kown as tba Quartzhurg district, la situated tbe moat remarkable mine In all America, and lu a quantitative way, in all tbe world. Rather than qualify It aa m mine, ono might ay it ia . mountain of ores oarrying blgb value lu gold, copper aud cobalt. Naturo accreted within America's rooky vaults all tba metals avai found by man, and moat of tho precious aaaatla aro woll spread, But op to tho present, cobalt baa been discovered nowhere oa this oontioeot n NO. 20 in quantities more than a trace horn and there, save lu just this ono spot on Dixie croek, a tributary of the great John Day river, and about w hundred miles south aud a hundred miles of east Oregon's northern aud eastern boundaries. Aud tho mystery of it h that where only suggestions of cobalt have bueu handed out o other states, there in undeniably onnugh cobalt lu this deposit, to control tho wurld'a market. The history of tho discovery of this VHHt cobalt deposit la exceedingly Interesting. About tho year 1H0'2 gold was discovered in eastern Oregon by ono Utitfiii, a hardy pioneer from MisHOtiri. A motley stream of adven turous human rlffralf hooii drifted thoitherward, magnetleu by tho stories of the (abiilouH guides riches awaiting tho placer miners. With this stream of arivetiturura eamo one Juneau Joe Juneau a I'rouoh Canadian voyager of no weau birth, and possessing more than an average education. It would seem that Jun eau, among hie varied accomplish merits, possessed a limited know ledge of quartz milling aud knew something of metallurgy, for ho dis covered this very body of cobalt, aa the history and folk lore of this region prove, and he Haboequontly mined aud shipped to France much of the ore. When 1 visittul thla section re cently I stood on the brink of Juneau shaft, 700 feet above the creek, whore ita first owner, with his crude instru ments aud cruder knowledge, mined this precious metal. The rock waa hard aud grub scarce, and as tho re moteuoHri of the region compelled iiiinous transportation cost, Juneau slowly sickened of hla task aud abandoned the mine, drifting by zigzag oonrra into tout hem Alaska, where he founded the city which now bears his uame. Jnueaw died Ih Dawtnu City three yeara ago, and last summer public spirited citizens of Juneau caused his remains to bo brought to the latter towN for burial, and on hla tombstone sefereuoe la made to bis discovery In Oregon. Tbe Standard Consolidated Mluoo company, tba present owaer of tba mine, has proceeded rapidly in open ing up the vast cobalt -gold-copper ore bodies, but with cautlou when it comes to putt lug eat Money for machinery. Knowing well tho difficulties In commercially saving cobalt from thla rich auriferous deposit, aud tbe peculiarities of 'oobaff being but little known outside the chemical laboratories of Kuropo, American brains were called on to solve tbe problem of commercially reducing these ores, and finally a famous metallurgist chemist, Pro fessor II, II, Nlebol'on, has demon strated a process wnleh reducea tba oree into tbolr constituent parte, aaving 00 par oent of tbe cobalt, gold and oopper valuoa a greater per contago that waa saved by Lie big, tbo woll known ohoalst of Paris.