Page 4 The JACKSONVILLE MINER be mistaken for anything but just found anything worth while, his I the high slopes and cliffs of the exactly what it is. backers were to furnish a stamp­ rough mountainsides. in California, I found a quarts *nill. or any machinery needed for I used to have my best luck lead once in just that way. A handling the ore And at the end selling claims to club members in ; of the aeaaon, or termination of quartz lead was known to cross a the cities Prosperous merchants certain mountainside, but the top­ the grub-stake, all the camp outfit, ami other city dwellers have their soil was deep and though 60 pros­ I guns, pack animala. etc., were to clubs at which they get together pect holes of from six to 20 feet be the property of the prospector. and discuss affairs of all kinds deep had been sunk on the ground Of course many grub-stakes were Those days they all had the mining through which it was supposed to made in different ways. I am only fever T^tke a mining claim that run .it had never been encountered. outlining the method mostly used would assay an ounce of gold, or Poet Reynolds Proses Pio­ For two weeks I crossed this For myself I generally had a first- better, per ton on the surface, in outfit of my own. animals, a not too remote locality, if they neering of Rock-Knocker mountain daily to get to a place class higher up where I was prospecting guns and everything needed and could purchase such a property Who Dug Up Original at the time One afternoon as 1 only used the grub-stake as a mat­ for say »1200 or »1500 cash, they ter of policy and convenience. I would be* only too glad to take ad­ Worth of the Great West was returning to camp I happened didn't always have good partners, vantage of such a bargain They to stop for a look around and at once noticed a tree like I speak though, and in time became op­ would put four or five men to By J. C. REYNOLDS of whose ixxits had been poisoned posed to having any {»artners at all work developing the ground and It is owing almost altogether by the copper and iron and arsenic and became convinced I would do at their dubs they could saunter to the prospector that the vast in the mineral deposit below it. far better to go it alone. That way around with their thumbs in their to suit myself, had no vest holes and an expensive cigar territory west of, and including About 200 yards beyond it I saw I could work to make to anybody, and between their teeth and discuss the Rocky mountains, was settled another, and following along in the apologies no one to contrary me in regard their mining property out in the in such short order. The prospector same direction I discovered others as with his burros would adventure all in a line, while the rest of the how. to where I should prospect, or hills and the progress that was being made on It. They got a great far ahead of the settlements, find forest on each side wits just the With partners I generally kick out of that And though none gold or some other valuable min- plain, ordinary stand of various worked too hard in my efforts to erals, spill the information and kinds of trees like one sees any­ make a suitable showing to them of the claims I sold ever made a great mine, some indeed paid for then would come the rush of per- where. So I knew well enough that In early days it was no trick at a while before being worked out haps thousands of hardy men who a mineralized ledge ran in that wished to share in quickly gotten direction as indicated by the half­ all to sell a hole in the ground and if I had had more claims to riches. Not all were lucky and not dead. green-topped firs. Next that showed any amount of min­ sell in that vicinity. I could have all could prospect or mine, but morning I brought my tools and eral value The country was full of sold them to the same parties once on the ground they soon be­ started digging right at the base people who wanted to take a easily enough. came aware of the possibilities of of the tree I had noticed first, and chance on mining, enthused by You may think that in selling the country, and while some es­ two feet under the surface I found the numbers of really fine mines all these claims I took a chance of tablished a mining camp and the ledge that proved to be three being discovered and the immense started in business of one sort or feet wide and which brought us fortunes many of them produced. parting with some rich bonanza another, others found openings for »6000 three months afterward. I Pretty near all of the prospectors that might have made me rich I their various trades and still oth­ neglected to say that there were had claims around in the hills to will not only say that If I bail a ers settled on the surrounding three of us, which made »2000 sell and any time they were in claim that I was certain, after town they would have no trouble thorough examination of the for­ lands and took to ranching or cat­ apiece. A prospector should never get m meeting someone who wanted mation surrounding it. would turn tle raising. Then the average pros­ to be a big mine, 1 wouldn't pector, feeling that the country to believing he knows it all. as to get into the mining game if out have sold It. I knew my stuff too was too full of people and his toes every mining district has its own they could buy in reasonably. A well anything like that. I never were in danger of being tramped peculiar characteristics. which great many of the prospectors sold for but one claim in my lif<* that on. would pack his burros and may be altogether different from held their claims far too high, but amounts anything an