People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1894 — A PREMIUM ON GOLD. [ARTICLE]

A PREMIUM ON GOLD.

It Comes in a Different Shape Than It Did Over Thirty Years Ago. The “oldest inhabitant” in the gold districts of the state calls to mind the exciting years from 1861 to 1865, when, it is estimated by good judges, more than thyee hundred separate mining companies were organized here and in the states to work the rich gold mines of Colorado. It is believed that at least §12,090,000 of war money—greenbacks —was dumped into Gilpin, Clear Creek, Summit and Park counties in those years, to provide for the purchase of mines and for means thought necessary to work them. That much of the money was wasted goes without saying. The investigations it led to, however, founded the states of Colorado, Montana and Idaho, and led to the development of mines in Utah, New Mexico and Wyoming. Silver mines were not thought of then, and there was no discussion I •bout parity or ratio. It was gold that drew crowds and capital, and as no | smelters existed in the earlier years the crudest applications were used for gathering the gold. From the Spaniards the arastra was borrowed, and , from the veterans of ’49 on the Pacific coast the -gravel pan. hydraulic and , crude stamp mill, a contrivance which I saved on the plates about 40 per cent. ! of the issay value and sometimes not even that. . Since that early but earnest crusade, in which the much discussed George M. Pullman took part—great advances have been made in the treatment of gold ores. Thia advance would be even

more marked were it not for the silver era that set in here about 1872, when rich silver mines were located and worked in Clear Creek, Boulder and Summit counties, to be followed by the Leadville excitement in 1879 and the Aspen and San Juan developments of a few years later. These events transferred both capital and interest from gold to silver ores, and •were it not for the gold which the silver ores carried in many of our mines, and which is yet a strong characteristic of Colorado mineral, the yellow metal product of the state would have almost disappeared. But the gold era has returned, and with it a widened knowledge of mining, and a vastly improved system for the treatment of ores, taking in all the appliances from a gravel machine of two hundred pounds in weight to the smelters or chemical plant at a cost of half a million. Transportation, the value of supplies, and the paying price of labor, have all been reduced since the early days, thus more than making up for the heavy premium on gold which existed at that time, and to which, more than to any other one agency, the mining states and territories owa their subsequent development. Hence the premium on gold is with us once more, after an absence of thirty years, but in a form different from that which prevailed at the close of the war.— Rocky Mountain News.