Rival Labor Unions

1916

Copperhill, Tenn., Sept. 23. — Citizens and members of trade unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor today drove out of Copper Hill the principal leaders of a movement for strengthening organization of the Western Federation of Miners among employees of the Tennessee Copper Company and the Ducktown Sulphur, Copper and Iron Company. At the same time the companies discharged a number of employees said to be members of the Western federation.

Guy Miller of Denver, organizer for the Western federation was seized by a mob of about 200 men, taken to the outskirts of the town, whipped and ordered to leave. J. A. Jones, Miller's local assistant, was taken from his room in a hotel, marched through the streets and forced to swear he would leave town on the next train, which he did.

The western federation, it is claimed has been trying for several months to gain control of the local labor situation but is opposed by the United Mine Workers of America, who have been supported by what is said to be a majority of business men of the Tennessee Copper Field.

The True Poker Flat

1901

In 1852 Poker Flat produced $700,000 in gold bullion in a single month and celebrated the event with a triple hanging. Then came the public spasm of virtue which caused the John Oakhursts and the "outcasts of Poker Flat" to depart from thence and die of cold and starvation on the snow bound road to Sandy Bar. There are no "Oakhursts" nor "Uncle Billys" in Poker Flat today, and when the stranger makes the slow descent and suddenly by a sharp turn in the trail comes upon the famous camp he finds in that huddle of cabins little to remind him of the Poker Flat of 1852.

The famous slope presents almost a picture of utter ruin. There are but eight persons living in the old town, while a hundred dead ones sleep in the cemetery. Some of the graves are marked with wooden headboards, some with stakes, but many have nothing above them. Nearly all of them were laid to rest without religious rites save a Bible reading by old Charlie Pond, who, though a professional gambler, was selected for the religious office owing to his excellent voice and oratorical ability.

In 1853 and 1854 there were 2,000 souls in Poker Flat and 15 stores, 5 hotels. 3 dance halls and 7 gambling houses. There is but one man left today of that original company. He is an old and grizzled veteran, who delights to tell how in 1856 a circus came to town and sold 1,500 tickets of admission at $20 each. — W. M. Clemens in Bookman.

Crippled By Fall on Ice

1919

Fractured Bone Can Never Heal, Say Physicians.

DENVER, Colorado — Joe H. Ruffner, widely known mining man, secretary of the Sons of Colorado, will be crippled for life as a result of falling off a patch of ice, according to the report of a physician who made an X-ray examination.

Ruffner is 49 years old. The fall resulted in a fracture of the femur bone of the hip, of such character that it can never heal, according to the examining surgeon.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 12.

Plunges Into Dark Shaft

Missouri, 1915

Mrs. Fred C. Pettis and her 13-year-old daughter, Gladys, were passing thru a patch of weeds near a persimmon grove at Chitwood, Mo. Suddenly a reptile writhed in front of them. Frightened, Gladys ran. The mother ran to where the girl had disappeared and found the mouth of an old deserted shaft. "Gladys! Gladys!" cried Mrs. Pettis, frantic with fear. No answer. The mother fled to a nearby mining plant for help. Soon several men with ropes were at the mouth of the shaft. They got busy at once to find the body of the child.

A rope was fastened around one of the men and his companions were in the act of lowering him into the dark hole when the frantic mother screamed and then fainted. Gladys had stepped out of the shaft and coolly remarked: "Gee, but its cold and wet down there."

Altho the shaft is said to have been 200 feet deep, it was filled to within twenty feet of the top with water. The child had doubtless hit the water head first, and when her mother called she didn't hear her, of course. When the girl had come to the top of the water her hand had grasped a piece of the cribbing which is placed two inches apart all the way up the shaft and, using this makeshift ladder as a hand and foot hold she had climbed to the top. She was none the worse for her plunge into the cold water.


Get Letter From Roosevelt

BONNER SPRINGS, Kan., Dec. 16. — Ex-President Theodore Roosevelt has just sent a letter from Oyster Bay to Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Smith, congratulating them on the event of their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary.

Must Face His "Gold Brick"

1915

Also Victims Who Claim to Have Been Fleeced

PITTSBURGH, Pa., Dec. 16. — E. A. Starkloff, an alleged "gold brick" king, recently arrested in Altoona, is accused of defrauding wealthy French and English persons of considerable cash. Starkloff's alleged scheme was uncovered in 1910, when he was arrested, placed under a cash bond of $22,000 and, after securing his release, jumped the bond. He has now been returned to Philadelphia, where a big brick, apparently of gold, which figured in the indictment, has reposed in the safe in the postoffice building since 1910.

According to Inspector Calvert of Altoona, who made the arrest, Starkloff would address letters to English and French people who had visited this country, but who had since died. The letters, written as tho the writer was ignorant of the person's death, would fall into the hands of the heirs. The letters always referred to "Frank Thomas," a prospector who had staked out a claim in Wyoming gold fields, had struck it rich and advised the purchasing of an adjoining claim.

Mine Fire Burns 25 Years

1915

Blaze Thought Conquered, Rages in Remote Gangways

HAZELTON, Pa., Dec. 16. — The Lehigh & Wilkes-Barre Coal Company is fighting a mine fire at Honey Brook No. 1, that was believed to have been extinguished twenty-five years ago. Stripping operations at the west end of the basin of anthracite fuel uncovered the flames, which were eating up measures which were flooded in the eighties.

In 1906, when the water was tapped from Honey Brook, nine men were choked to death by white damp found in the workings of a residue from the mine fire twenty years ago. No further trace of the blaze was encountered, but it is now believed that it continued to rage in remote gangways cut off by falls of rock from the body of coal that was being worked.



"Didn't Know It Was Loaded"

Pugilist Killed While Fooling With Man's Rifle

NEW BRUNSWICK. N. J., Dec. 16. — George Reed walked into a lunch room here and placed his rifle in a corner and sat down to eat breakfast. In a few minutes Severin J. Kucinsky, a pugilist, 25 years old, came in.

He greeted everybody cheerfully. Then he walked over to the rifle, picked it up and placed the muzzle against his heart.

"Now," he said to Reed, "pull the trigger!"

Reed did so. Kucinsky died two hours later in St. Peter's Hospital. Reed was arrested. He said he thought the gun was empty.

Saying He Never Felt Better, Died

1905

The death of W. H. Rockhill, ex-clerk of the courts of this county, here verifies in a way the thesis of Goethe that no man can survive a happy moment.

He had been feeling ill and went to the office of his physician to tell the doctor that he was improving in health and that he never felt better for many days.

The words had no more than escaped his lips than he keeled over and died of heart disease. — Lebanon correspondence, Cincinnati Enquirer.


Effects of Prosperity

In the six years of the country's greatest prosperity, from 1897 to 1903, average prices of breadstuffs advanced 65 per cent, meats 23.1 per cent, dairy and garden products 50.1 per cent, and clothing 24.1. All these were products of the farmer and stockman who profited more than any other class of the community by these advances. The miner benefited 42.1 per cent by that advance in the average price of metals. The only decrease in the average prices of commodities in that period was in railway freight rates which decreased from .798 per ton-mile in 1897 to .763 in 1903, a loss of 4.4 per cent. The report of the Interstate Commerce Commission shows that the average increase in the pay of railroad employees in the period was trifle above 8.5 per cent.

This Swindler Outdoes Fiction

1908

Pittsburg Society Folk Are Victims of Alleged Remarkable Crook

Pittsburg. — A career more extraordinary than half the villains of fiction is charged against Reginald Spauldlng, or Oscar F. Spate, or George Frederick Spate, the man who proposed to introduce Pittsburg people of wealth at the court of St. James in exchange for Pittsburg money.

Pittsburgers who wined and dined Spaulding a few days ago will be horrified when they learn that he is said to have been a convict in South Africa, but they can take some consolation out of another report that he is a son-in-law of Lady Suffield, the woman who, he asserted, would bring about the introductions at the court of St. James. It is charged against the prisoner that he sold his noble wife a "salted" mine and then abandoned her in the interior of South Africa.

The Pittsburg police received a letter from Inspector McCafferty of the New York police department containing a report which one of the New York detectives made on Spaulding. The report follows:

"Spate is the same man whom I met in Cape Town, South Africa, at the Mount Nelson hotel. He advertised there for men to act as agents for the American Trading company. They were to go into the interior of South Africa and collect hides and ivory from the natives, which they were to ship to various points. These agents were required to deposit £100 in money to secure the position.

"He collected the amount from many young men. This was in March, 1903. He was arrested while boarding the steamer Walmer Castle for England. He was convicted and served for two years in the government prison. He was also at Johannesburg, South Africa, and tried to secure a franchise from the park commissioners to put benches in Joubert park, but was refused."

Simultaneously with this report, a communication reached the Pittsburg police from a source which they will not divulge to the effect that Spaulding under the name of George Fredrick Spate in 1902, was married to Muriel, daughter of Lord and Lady Suffield, who left her home in London because of a difference with her parents, and went to South Africa during the Boer war as a Red Cross nurse, in consequence her parents disowned her, and her name was removed from the records of the British nobility.

It is claimed Spate is a younger son of a noble English family.

He secured a subaltern berth in the English army and fought in South Africa during the Boer war.

It was while he was wandering about South Africa that he is alleged to have married the daughter of Lord and Lady Suffield. Spate is alleged to have interested his wife in a diamond mine which he had "salted" and finally sold the mine to her and some others for a large sum.

Before the discovery was made that the mine was "salted," Spate is said to have taken his wife into the interior of Africa, where he deserted her in the land of the Zulu chief, Mosilikaps.

He returned to Johannesburg, where he circulated a story to the effect that his wife had been killed by the natives. Spate then started to organize a new Zulu kingdom, with himself as chief, with the purported object of going into the land of Mosilikaps and avenging the death of his wife. Just about this time, however, the woman appeared at Johannesburg.

Burma — Home of the Ruby

1910

Practically All the Valuable Stones Are the Product of That Country's Mines

All the world's great rubies come from the mines of the Mogok valley, India. There are four principal mines in the valley, in each of which modern tools and machinery are used, which facilitate the proper examination of a large amount of byon or ruby-bearing clay each day.

In the nearby valleys the Burmans still prosecute their searches in the old way, digging and washing by hand labor, but often with astonishing results. In the large workings the system has been reduced to a science with corresponding results. The work goes on day and night. The ruby-bearing clay is extracted by the open quarry method of removing all the surface down to the valuable clay, which is then dug up, carried on trolleys to the steam cleansing mill, washed, passed through the sieves, and then examined for rubies and spinels.

The byon stretches almost everywhere along the Mogok valley, and wherever this clay exists rubies are to be found. Besides the pure ruby, spinel or balas rubies are found in large quantities in the same neighborhood. Wherever the ruby is found the spinel is sure to crop up close beside it. They are both crystals of alumina, but of different shapes. Except in a few rare cases the expert can easily distinguish between the two stones, although they are very much alike to the naked eye.

The Burman is inclined to invent his savings in rubies and diamonds, which may be readily realized upon in times of financial stress. Rubies are more precious than diamonds, and are practically indestructible except by fire. During the season as many as 2,000 Burmans are employed in the mines.

Keeping Men Out of Mischief

1915

To keep its men out of mischief a big coal company inaugurated the garden habit among its miners. Result!

Pay day sees far fewer fights, much less money spent for liquor and a larger sum carried home to the wife and children. I learn from the manager that besides these immediate effects many of the miners are now able to raise a considerable part of the vegetables their families eat.

Some of the large iron and steel companies divert their men with music. C. M. Schwab is patron saint of a great band at Bethlehem.

There are four bands or drum corps at the Cornwall Ore banks, and the Frick company goes the limit in mixing music with coke, having 14 bands at its various works.

Give men something pleasant to do, and they will spend less money and time for things that are unpleasant. — Philadelphia Ledger.


Asbestos

The first use of asbestos was in the manufacture of crematory robes for the ancient Romans.


Trade Secret

"Now the first thing to learn about the shoe trade is this. As soon as a customer comes in take off his shoes and hide 'em."
"What's that for?"
"Then you can wait on 'em at your convenience, my boy. They can't walk out!" — Louisville Courier-Journal.

Ancient Gold Mining in Tubal-Cain

1915

From Their Method Originated the Legend of the Golden Fleece

Country Still Rich in Most Valuable Ores

In the legend of the Golden Fleece lies hidden the record of an ancient method of the Tibareni, the sons of Tubal, for the collection of gold.

The north coast of Asia Minor produced large quantities of the precious metals, as well as copper and iron. Gold was found in the gravel, as often happens still in streams draining from copper regions. The gold in copper ores, originally containing insignificant amounts of the precious metals, accumulates in the course of ages, and sometimes forms placers of astonishing richness.

The ancient Tibareni washed the gold-bearing gravel, first by booming, which concentrated the gold into relatively small amounts of sand. This was then collected and washed through sluices having the bottoms lined with sheepskins. The gold would sink into the wool, while the sand would be washed away in the swift current, writes Courtenay de Kalk in the Mining Age. The skins were removed from the sluices, the coarser gold shaken out, and the fleeces, still glittering with the yellow metal, were hung upon boughs to dry so that the rest of the gold might be beaten from them and saved.

The early Greek mariners, witnessing this process, carried home tales of the wonderful riches of a land where a warlike race of miners hung golden fleeces upon the trees in the grove of Ares. After so many millenniums the metalliferous country of Tubal-Cain is once more coming into prominence. The natives still cull the high-grade copper ore, and break it into smalls, which they cover with wood and roast to matte; they still work the matte in forge-like furnaces to black copper, which they ship to Alexandretta and to Euxine ports. They still make the famous carbonized iron that was celebrated as Damascus steel because it was distributed through this mart to the rest of the world after receiving a finish by local Damascene workmen.

These decadent methods, that give a hint of the approved practice of the father of metallurgy, will soon became wholly extinct, for the modern miner is studying the disseminated copper ores of the Black sea coast, and threatening to rekindle on a magnificent scale the smoldering fires of Tubal-Cain.

Wife of Mexican Millionaire's Curious Hiding Place for Money

1915

Really Odd "Savings Bank"

With the coming of the pay envelope for women has developed the evolution of the broken-nosed teapot as a savings bank. Many and varied are the methods women have worked out to save money, although it is only within the last fifty years that the average woman has had to consider the problem individually. With their "going to business," however, questions of finance and investment have come to them.

Many amusing incidents of the broken-nosed teapot as a savings bank have come to light. There is a story of Pedro Alvaredo, the peon millionaire of Parral, Mexico, whose mines yielded silver so fast that he could not spend it, though he bought pianos and ponies by the carload, and all the metal work in the palace that stood where his old adobe hut had once been built was of silver.

Alvaredo had no faith in banks and kept great quantities of cash in his house. Naturally, much of this came into the hands of Senora Alvaredo. The senora had a special bed quilt which always covered her at night and was never far away in the day time. When the senora died her maid went to Alvaredo and asked for the quilt. But Alvaredo was superstitious and disliked to give away anything to which his wife had been so much attached. He offered the woman money instead and, though dollars were no longer flowing in at the rate of 30,000 a day, he was generous in the matter. But the girl insisted that she would have no memorial of her mistress but the quilt.

Finally Alvaredo's suspicions were thoroughly aroused and he ripped the quilt to pieces. It contained $30,000 in $1,000 pieces. Among them was a letter from the senora saying that she had saved the money for her two sons and directed that it be put in the bank to their credit. And now the young men are being educated in an American college upon the interest of their mother's savings. — From the Business Woman's Magazine.

The Uses of Asbestos — A Wonderful Substance

1896

Being Incombustible, It Is a Valuable Compound in Many Industries

Asbestos is a wonderful substance. The name comes from a Greek word meaning inconsumable. Fire will not burn it, acids will not gnaw it, weather will not corrode it.

It is the paradox of minerals, for it is quarried just like marble. The fibers of which it is composed are soft as silk and fine and feathery enough to float on water. Yet in the mines they are so compressed that they are hard and crystalline like stone.

Although the substance has been known for ages in the form of mountain cork or mountain leather, comparatively little has been learned as to its geological history and formation. A legend tells how the Emperor Charlemagne, being possessed of a tablecloth woven of asbestos, was accustomed to astonish his guests by gathering it up after the meal, casting it into the fire, and withdrawing it later, cleansed, but unconsumed.

Yet, although the marvelous attributes of asbestos have been known for so long, they were turned to little practical use until about twenty years ago. Since that time the manufacture of the material has grown until it can take its place with any of the industries of this country. Indeed, so rapid has been its progress and development that there is almost no literature of any kind on the subject, and, to the popular mind, it is still one of those inexplicable things.

Up to the late '70's nearly all the asbestos used to come from the Italian Alps and from Syria, but one day explorers discovered a rich deposit in the eastern township of Quebec. Companies were formed, and, in 1879, the mines were opened. Remarkable as it may seem, however, although the Canadians started factories, in the operation of which they were substantially backed by English capital, it was an American concern, with headquarters in New York, that developed the industry most rapidly. The company has now grown so large that it has branches in nearly all of the large cities of the country and the machinery used is specially made and peculiarly adapted to the manufacture of asbestos articles. There are also a large number of factories in England.

The veins of chrysotile, as the Canadian asbestos is called, are from two to four inches in thickness, and are separated by thin layers of hornblende crystals. The nearer to the surface the vein runs, the coarser are the fibers and the less valuable. The mining is done by the most improved machinery. Holes are drilled in long rows into the sides of the cliffs by means of steam drills. They are then loaded with dynamite and exploded simultaneously in such a way that a whole ledge of the rock falls at once. Then the workmen break out as much the pure asbestos as possible, load it into tubs or trucks, which are hoisted out and run along to the "cobhouse." Here scores of boys are kept busily employed crumbling or "cobbling" the pieces of rock away from the asbestos and throwing the good fiber to one side, where it is placed in sacks for shipment to the factory.

The greatest work in connection with the mining of asbestos is in disposing of the waste rock and the refuse of the quarry. Only about one-twenty-fifth of the material quarried is real asbestos, and the rocky parts have to be carried to the dumps at great expense.

As the asbestos comes from the mine it is of a greenish hue, and the edges are furred with loose fibers. The more nearly white asbestos the better its grade. The length of fiber is also of great importance, the longest being the most valuable. From the mines the asbestos is taken to the manufactories in the United States. — Engineer.

Eccentric Tramp Character Dead

1914

"Johnny" Wire Wealthy, But Dressed and Lived as a Tramp

York, Pa., Jan. 24. — "Johnny" Wire, one of the most familiar figures of York county, died here.

He was known over the county as "the rich tramp." Wire was possessed of a fortune, but dressed as an ordinary tramp, wandering from place to place over the country and walking many miles to get a free meal from some of the farmers.

His brother died some time ago leaving an estate of several hundred thousand dollars. Wire was about seventy years old.


Superstitions of Miners

As a man of perilous occupation, the miner has many superstitions. One widespread belief is that to introduce a rabbit into a mine is to court disaster, and many stories are current of catastrophes heralded by the appearance of a white rabbit to the men who were doomed to die. He would be a bold miner, too, who would whistle at work for whistling is a direct invitation to disaster, and though miners are cleanly folk, very few ever wash the small of their back, lest the roof should fall on them.

Physician Raps "Radium Hysteria"

1914

Says Element Alone Will Not Cure Cancer

Washington, Jan. 24. — "The radium hysteria is a disease that is likely to set back the proper treatment of cancer; and the inevitable failure of radium, as at present exploited as a cure, will add acute mental suffering to the physical tortures resulting from the disease."

This, was the declaration of Dr. Francis D. Donoghue, of Massachusetts, in a brief filed with the house committee on mines and mining endorsing Secretary of the Interior Lane's proposal to withdraw the radium bearing lands of the west from public entry.

Dr. Donoghue said further:

"Radium is not a cure and probably never will be a cure alone for cancer. Rather than develop the unknown and uncertain value of radium it would be better to establish institutes for the treatment of cancer by the combined methods of known values; first, thermotherapy, second, surgery, third, ray treatment by radium and X-ray; fourth, by the use of various forms of radio-energy."

The committee had under consideration a statement of Joseph M. Flannery, of Pittsburgh, owner of Colorado lands containing radium-bearing ores and opponent of Lane's plan, to the effect that the conservation policy not only would retard the proper development of the cancer cure, but would postpone cheaper radium.

Flannery told the committee that radium has a by-product, unnamed and undeveloped, which will revolutionize the yield of the soil and greatly lower the high cost of living. He asserts that the mixing of this by-product with fertilizer improves both the size and the quality of growing plants.

A cabbage, according to the witness, will improve 300 per cent in quality and size if grown with this fertilizer. Corn has been improved in experimental work 100 per cent; wheat, 65 per cent, beans, 33 per cent, and other vegetables have shown gratifying results, according to Flannery.

Marvelous Find of Gold

1906

Rock So Rich in Ore That It is Guarded Day and Night by Sentries

Manhattan, Nev. — Gold bearing rock, so rich that it is guarded day and night by two sentries and is mined under the watchful eye of the owners, has been opened up at the 86-foot level in the main working shaft of the Jumping Jack claim.

Six inches of this marvelous find is so rich that no assay has been made, as it is more than half gold. From eight o'clock at night, when a row of shots revealed the richest of the many sensational discoveries of the new camp, until ten o'clock the next morning $10,000 worth of ore was sacked.

When the miners below hoisted samples of a six inch vein which was uncovered as it dipped into the shaft, the superintendent immediately ordered the men to the surface and suspended operations until the superintendent of the Jumping Jack could be notified. Upon his arrival two trusted men were put to work stoping out the ore and two others guarding the entrance to the workings.

The news fairly electrified the camp, despite the fact that sensational finds are becoming everyday occurrences. Several samples were exhibited by officers of the company, who were besieged by a crowd which gathered soon after the news of the strike became public property.

These samples for size and richness surpass anything that the ground at Manhattan has yielded up to date, and will rank among the largest specimens of gold ever mined in this country. One specimen weighing 23 ounces, six inches long, representing the width of the vein, is almost solid gold. The many seasoned miners and mining experts who examined this specimen today unite in saying that it is the handsomest and consequently the richest deposit from the mother lode they have ever seen. It is streaked with a fine grained marble-like quartz, which hugs close to the crevices of its irregular outlines. The entire specimen is a bright yellow mass, except where it is relieved by the impregnated quartz. One side is worn smooth, as if by the force of a slide in the contact, and the other side is molded just in the shape it was deposited by the molten mass.

A Big Refusal — So the Gold Sunk to the Bottom of the Sea

1895

A Case in Which a Good Bargain Might Have Been a Burden

James Clark, of Old Town, Wash., knows a good story in connection with the sinking of the steamship Pacific in the Straits of Juan de Fuca, in 1875, of which the only survivor was Neil Henley, now of Tacoma.

Mr. Henley floated around for hours on a raft after the Pacific was struck by the bark Orpheus. With him on the raft was a man named William Sampson, who became exhausted and sank, Mr. Clark says, with between $10,000 and $12,000 in a belt around his body. The fact that Sampson had the gold on his person was known to Mr. Clark and a few others only, and it has never been published.

Clark and Sampson were miners together on the Yukon river, in Alaska. The mining claim was a rich one, and was known in the Yukon district as the "Three-to-One." It was so called because the party that mined and owned it, was composed of three white men and a Chinese. They returned to Victoria to spend the first winter, after taking out about $5,000 apiece in gold, and the next spring when they went to back to open up the mine again, they found that the flood had swept away all their machinery and they would have to spend a considerable part of the season in making and putting in new machinery to handle the placer deposits. Sampson became discouraged and he sold his share in the diggings to his partners for about $5,000 and returned to Victoria. The "Three-to-One" made money that season the same as the season before.

Shortly after Sampson returned to Victoria he shipped on the steamer Pacific, intending to go to San Francisco He put the gold in a belt around his body, as was the custom in those days. The raft on which he and Henley floated was in reality a chicken coop. Sampson felt he could not last much longer in the heavy sea, which rolled the coop fearfully, and he begged Henley to take the gold. The latter, feeling that he would never set foot on shore again, refused to take the belt, and it went down with poor Sampson to the bottom of the sea. Henley was soon picked up. The next day, though, he regretted the loss of his companion on the chicken coop, he also deplored that he had not taken the proffered belt with its burden of gold.

Pity the Gold Miner!

1920

One might imagine that if he could discover a gold mine he would have a fortune. But time has brought changes. Among them has come a depreciation in the purchasing value of gold, due largely to the cheap American dollar and to the large flow of gold from abroad during the war.

When prospectors first rushed to Alaska, says the Cleveland Plain Dealer, little trouble or expense was entailed in procuring the yellow metal. Nuggets could be found on or near the surface, and the dust was easily washed out of sand taken from the beds of mountain streams. Now expensive machinery must be employed and "pay dirt" is usually found only after much labor. The results are indicated by the unprofitable business reported by one Alaska gold mining company for 1919.

During the year it cost this company $1,744,869 to produce $1,467,389 worth of gold, leaving a deficit of $277,480, as against a loss from operations the previous year of $96,945.

Those who find cause to complain because of their hard lot since the war, would do well to consider the unfortunate position of the gold miners. They comprise one group which cannot profiteer.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, March 20, 1920, p. 6.

Riches From The Skies — Giant Mass, Precious Metals Fell From Sky

1877

Riches From The Skies

THE GIGANTIC MASS THAT FELL IN DIAMOND VALLEY, NEV. — A QUEER STORY

[Eureka, (Nev.) Sentinel.]

About four o'clock on the morning of the 7th of January, an immense body, glowing with intense brilliancy, came rushing across the face of heaven illuminating the earth with the light of day. It traveled in an oblique direction, from the southwest to the northwest, and instantaneously a shock was felt that almost threw the few spectators at that early hour from their feet.

About ten days ago Mr. Wheeler, who cultivates a ranch in Diamond Valley, and who is also in the stock business, came into town and left a most remarkable substance with an assayer. Mr. Wheeler had a smattering of metallurgical knowledge and, it seems, had tested the compound with a blow-pipe and other means within his reach, and detected the presence of the precious metals, but was unable to determine the value.

The piece submitted to the assayer was about as large as a hen's egg, and immediately attracted his attention by its unusual weight and peculiar color, it being of a purplish-black shade, and where it had been broken off the main body presenting a luminated stratification that he failed to recognize. Mr. Wacke expended the whole night in a series of experiments, applying every known test to the article, and detecting the presence of iron, nickel, cadmium, lead, silver, gold, zinc, cobalt, silica and phosphorus. There was also a residuum to each assay, of which Prof. Wacke was unable to determine the properties, but he hopes by the use of the spectroscope to classify it.

A surprising feature of the ore is excessive malleability aud ductility, a small portion of it being reduced by hammering to a fllm not exceeding one-hundredth of an inch in thickness. He has sent a portion of it to the San Francisco Academy of Science, and also to Prof. Silliman of New Haven, and in the meantime is prosecuting his researches. Prof. Wacke has found that the substance will reach $887 in silver and $42 in sold per ton.

The strangest part of the story remains to be told; and, now that Mr. Wheeler has duly recorded his claim and perfected the title, we feel at liberty to disclose the facts. On the morning of the 7th of January, Mr. Wheeler was almost thrown from his bed by a violent shock. Getting up and looking out of the window, he observed at the foot of the mountain an immense mass glowing at a white heat and of intense brightness. Hastily dressing he approached as near as possible, and found that the object lay just at the foot of the Diamond mountain range, but the heat was so great that he could not go within 1,000 yards of the spot.

He kept his own council, and made repeated attempts to reach it, but did not succeed until the 14th instant, when it had cooled sufficiently to allow him to break off the portion brought to town. The main body will measure about sixty feet in height, eighty-seven feet in width, and is 313 feet in length. These are the proportions of the body visible, and it is probable that as much more is imbedded in the earth. Mr. Wheeler calculates that there are at least 2,000,000 tons in sight, and if it will work anywhere near the assay he will extract an immense sum from the mass.

A Terrific Explosion – The Destruction of 2½ Tons Nitro Going Off

1878

Fearful Destruction by Two and a Half Tons of Nitroglycerine — Men Torn to Pieces — Machinery and Windows Demolished

Particulars of the recent nitroglycerine explosion, near Negaunee, Lake Superior, have been received. Nearly two tons and a half of nitroglycerine had been hauled to the Chicago and Northwestern railroad track, half a mile west of Negannee, and was being loaded into a freight car preparatory to its shipment to the Republic iron mine, some fifteen miles distant. In some unaccountable manner the nitroglycerine exploded just before ten o'clock in the morning.

The people of Negaunee thought at first an earthquake was about to overwhelm them. The entire city was shaken up, and a dense cloud of smoke and dust arose. The shock was terrible beyond imagination. Where the freight car had stood the railroad track for about fifty feet was torn from its bed and the rails twisted, broken and hurled away, and a hole twenty-five feet in diameter and five feet deep excavated and the earth thrown for rods around in every direction.

Not the slightest trace of the car was visible. The locomotive and tender, which stood behind the car, were thrown back over one hundred feet. Wheels, blues, cab, tubes, bell and everything about it were wrenched, twisted and torn asunder. Long lines of ore cars, standing upon a side track nearby, were stove in and demolished, and shreds and scrape of iron, wood, tin, etc., covered the snow in all directions.

Lying on the bottom of the cab were four of the seven men who were engaged in loading the car — the engineer, fireman and two brakemen — mangled and burned beyond recognition, with their heads hanging over the edge. As soon as the horror-stricken crowd which hastened to the scene could recover their senses, they took the charred and mangled remains of these unfortunates from the cab and, laid them on the ground until a team was procured, when they were taken to the depot for recognition. Of the other three men who were engaged in handling the cars nothing could be seen, but after diligent search a few fragments of charred flesh and bones were picked up and put together. Not more than enough fragments to fill an ordinary bucket were found.

About one hundred feet from the place of the explosion is the north pit of the Jackson mine. Down into this pit were hurled a horse, cart and driver. At the engine house adjoining this pit the force of the explosion rent the roof, stove in the sides and splintered every loose board, besides shattering and breaking the engine machinery inside. The engineer in this building luckily escaped with a few bruises. At the upper Jackson location, the windows, doors, ceilings, furniture and dishes at all the houses were broken and strewn about in great confusion, and women and children were lifted from their feet and hurled among the rubbish. The location was in fact a general wreck. At the Jackson school, where the children had just been called together, when the shock came every window in the west aide of the building was crushed in with the sashes, throwing a shower of shattered glass and fragments of sash over the heads of the children, and injuring four of them.

The Marquette Mining Journal says Captain Merry, of the Jackson mine, stood near the fatal car when the men commenced loading it, but fearing an accident started to leave the spot. He had walked about one hundred feet when the explosion took place, just as he happened to stand behind a small mound, which sheltered him from the full force of the shock. As it was he was thrown upon the ground violently, but sustained no serious injuries.

C. M. Wheeler, manager of the nitroglycerine works, was standing in front of the northwestern depot when the explosion took place and fainted when he heard the report. The horse attached to the cart that was thrown by the explosion into a pit fifty feet from the fatal car, when hauled out walked off as though nothing had happened. The driver escaped with slight injuries. The shock of the explosion was felt at Ishpening Cascade, the Saulsbury mine, the Carp Hill section house and Sand Switch, fully ten miles from Negaunee.

The losses by the explosion will reach nearly $20,000. Very little work was done at any of the Negaunee mines after the explosion, as most of the miners were kept busy boarding up the windows of their houses.