Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 January 1904 — GOLD IN BLACK HILLS. [ARTICLE]

GOLD IN BLACK HILLS.

Flnctuatians of Stock Market Are Not Heeded There. Depreciation In the market value of industrial securities does not affect tbe chief business of the Black Hills, for In bringing gold out of the earth the miners nre producing the standard of value Itself, says the New York Tribune. The Black Hills ars no Klondike, with miles of auriferona beach, and to work the low grade ore bodies properly large investments of capital nre required; but the veins are big and a paying body once well developed gives steady and fairly sure returns. The Introduction of the cyanide and chlorination processes, with their capacities for treating refractory ore and for saving the small percentage of the precious metal formerly wasted by free milling, has meant much to the mining regions of South Dakota. lacidentally, it has robbed the miner out of a Job of a sure source of for the tailings, the waste from ths big stamp mills, are now being sent by pipe lines to the cyanide plants, instead of being turned Into the creek bottoms for the miners to waßb out for placer gold.

The Black Hills, though only ft stretch of country some 120 miles long by sixty wide, is the third largest producer of the gold fields of the world. And yet the ore runs from $4 to |ls ft ton, with the average much nearer ths lower figure. Of course, this means that the mines must be run on a large scale and the large sums of Eastern capital invested in and near Lead show that there is abundant faith in the low-grade proposition. Rich ore is rare. Now and then there Is some lucky prospector, like Otto P. Th. Gantz, the German miner, who. after nearly fifty years of prospecting in the West, took out ore from a claim near Lead that assayed as high as $05,000 to the ton. But such cases are not frequent Mining in tbe Black Hills shows more plainly than usual the importance of modern methods. Tbe pioneers found placer mining profitable in the creek beds; then the quartz seemed a good-paying proposition and yielded about S3O a ton when crushed In the dry-stamp mill. But this lasted only a little while; then the ore became refractory and of a lower grade and only the Introduction of modern methods has meant prosperity to the South Dakota mines. Since 1870 the output of the region haa been more than $130,000,000, out of which one has paid some $10,000,000 in dividends.