Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1859 — THE PIKE’S PEAK GOLD HINES. [ARTICLE]

THE PIKE’S PEAK GOLD HINES.

MR. GREELY'# STATEMENT. In the St. Louis p 'pers of Thursday we find the statement in regard to the value of the Pike’s Peak mines, made by Greely and others which we coppy: “Gregory’s Diggings, near Clear Creek, Rocky Mountains June 9. 1859. “The undersigned, none of them miners, nor directly interested in mining, but now here for, the express purpose of ascertaining and setting fourth the truth with regard to a subject of deep and general interest, as to whichjtne widest diversity of assertion and opinion is known to exis’,unite in the following statement: “We have this day personly visited nearly all the mines or claims already opened in this valley (that of a little stream running into Clear Creek at this point,) have witnessed the operation of digging, transporting and washing the vein-stone, (a partially decomposed, or rotten quartz, running in regular veins from south-west to north-east, between shattered walls of an impure granite,) have seen the gold plainly visible in the rifles of nearly every sluice, and in nearly every pan of the rotten quartz washed in our presence; have seen gold (but rarely) visible to the naked eye, in pieces of the quartz not yet fully decomposed, and have obtained from the few who have already sluices in operation, accounts of their several products as follows: “Zeigler, Spain &. Co., from South Bend, Ind., have run a sluice, with some interruptions, for the last three weeks; they are four in company, one hired man. They have got a little over three thousand penney weights of gold, estimated by them as worth at least §3,000; their first day’s work produced §2l. their highest was §495. “S ipris, Henderson <fc Co., from Farmington, Indiana, have run their sluice six days in all, with four men—one to dig, one to carry, and two to wash; four days last week produced §607; Monday of this week §280; no further reported. They have just put in the second sluice, which only began to run this morning. “Foot & Simmons, from Chicago—one sluice run four days—two former davs produced §40 —two latter promised us, but not received. « Defrees &. Co., from South Bend, Ind., have rur. a small sluice eight days with the following results; first day, §66; second day, §80; third day, §95; fourth day.§3os; [the lour foliowind days were promised us, but, by accident, werejiot received.] Have just sold half their claim (a full claim is 50 ieeL by 100) for §2,500. Shears &. Co.,((rom Ft. Calhoun, Nebraska,) have run one sluice the first (part of a) day; produced §3O; second (first full) day, §343; third (to-day) §510; all taken from within three feet of the surface: vein a foot wide on the surface; widened to eighteen inche at a depth of three feet. Brown &. Co., from De Kalb county, Ind., have been one week on their claim; carrying their dirt half a mile; produced §250; have taken out quartz specimens containing from 50 cents to §l3 each in gold; vein from eight to ten feet wide. Casto, Kendall Co..(from Butler county, j Iowa) reached Denver, March 25th; drove 1 the first wagon to these diggings; have been

here five weeks; worked first on a claim, on which they run a sluice, but one day: produced §225; sold their claim for 2,500; are now working a claim on the Hunter lead; have only sluiced one (this) day; three men employed; produced §BS. Bates &, Co., one sluice, run half a day; produced §135. Colman, King &. Co., one sluice, run half a day; produced §75. f.hortsand Collier bought out claims seven days since, of Casto, Kendall &. Co., for §2,500; §SOO down, and the balance as fast as taken out; have not yet got out suices into operotion. Mr. Dean, from lowa, on the 6th inst., washed from a single pan of dirt taken from the claim §l7 80; have been offered 10,000 for the claim. S. G. Jones &. Co., from Eastern Kansas, have run out sluices two days, with three men; yield §225 per day; think the quartz generally' in this vicinity is gold bearing; have never seen a piece crushed that did not yield gold. A. P. Wright &. Co., From Elkhart coun-< ty, Ind.; sluice but just in operation; have not yet ascertained its products; the claim prospects from 25 cents to §1 25 to the pan. John 11. Gregory,- from Gordon county, Georgia; left h<.:ne last season en rout for Frazer river, was detained by succession of accidents at Ft. Laramie, and w intered there; meanwhile heard of the discovery of gold on the South Platte, and started on’a prospecting tour on the eastern slope of the Rock'- ’ Mountain-, early in J nuary; prospecting in almost every valley from ’Cache la Poudre j creek to Pike’s Peak, tracing many streams to their sources; early in May arrived on Clear Creek, at the toot of the mountains, thirty miles south-east of this p!acs; there fell in with the Defrees & Zigler Indiana Companies, and Wm. Fouts, of Missour ; we all started up Clear Creek, prospecting: arrived in this vicinity May 6; the ice and snow prevented us from prospecting fa • below the surface, but the first pan of surface diit on the original Gregory claim yielded four dol- | lars. Encouraged by this success, we all slaked out claims, found the ‘lead’ consist- : ing of burnt quartz, resembling the Guinia mines, in which I had previously worked. Snow and ice prevented the regular working of the lead till May 16; from then until the 23d, I worked it five days with two hands; result, §972; soon after I sold my two claims for §21,000, the parties buying to pay me jafter deducting their expenses, all they take tr.om the claims to the amount of §SOO per week until the whole is paid. Since that time I have been prospecting for other parties at about §2OO per day. Having struck another lead on the opposite side of the valley, from which I washed §l4 out of a single pan. Some forty or fifty sluices commenced arm, not yet in operation, but the owners inforni ! us that their ‘prospecting’ shows from 10 cents to §5 to the pan. As tht*. ‘leads’ are [ all found on the hills, many of the miners are constructing trenches to carry water to ! them, instead of building their sluices in the | ravines and carrying the dirt thither in wag- i onsor sacks. Many persons who have come here without/provisions or money, are compelled to work as common laborers at from §1 to §3 per day and board, until they can procure means of sustinence for the time necessary to prospecting, building sluices, &.c. (fibers, not finding gold the third day, or disliking the work necessary to obtaining it, leave the mines in disgust, after a very short trial, declaring there is no gold here in paying quantities. It should be remembered that the discoveries made thus far are the result of but five week’s labor. In nearly every instance. the gold is estimated by the miners as worth §2O per ounce, which for gold collected by quicksilver, is certainly a high valuation, tie ugh this is undoubtedly of very great purity. The reader can reduce the estimate if he sees fit. We have no data on which to act in the premises? The wall-rock is generally shat*ered, so that it is, like the vein-stone, probably not more than one-half so decomposed that the gold can be washed from it. The residue of the quartz is shoveled out of the sluices, and reserved to be crushed and washed hereafter. Tne miners estimate this as equally rich with that which has ‘rotted’ so that the gold may be washed from it; hence, that they realize, as yet, but half the gold dug by them. This seems probable, but its truth remains to be tested. We cannot conclude this statement without protesting most earnestly against a renewal of the infatuation which impelled thousands to r:;*h to this region a month or two since, onlj turn back before reaching it, or to hurry away immediately-after, more, hastily than they came. Gold mining is a business which emin ntly requires of its votaries capital, experience, energy, endurance, and in which the highest qualities do not always command success. There may be hundreds of ravines in these mountains as rich in gold as that in which we write, and there are probably many; but, up to this hour, we do not know that anyhave been discovered. There are said to be five thousand people already in this ravine, and hundreds more pouring into it daily. Tens of thousands ii.ore have been passed by us on our rapid journey to this place, or heard of as on their way hither by o her routes. For all these, nearly every pound of provisions and supplies of every kind must be hauled by teams from the Missouri river, s me 700 miles distant, over roads whicli are mere trails crossing countless unbridged watercourses, always steep banked and often mierry, and at times so swollen by rains as to be utterly impassible by wagons. “Part of this distance is a dese t,yielding grass, wood and water at intervals of several miles, and then very scantily. To attempt to cross this desert on foot is madness, suicide, murder. I’o cross it With teams in midsummer, when the water courses are mainly dry and the grass eaten up, is possible only to hose who know just where to look for grass and water, and where water must be carried along to preserve life. A few months hence, probably by the middle of October—this whole Alpine region will be snowed under and frozen up, so as to put a stop to the working of sluices if not to mining altogether. There then, for a period of at least six months, will be neither employment, food, nor shelter within five hundred miles for the thousands pressing hither under the delusion hut gold may be picked up here like pebbles on the sea shore, and that when they arrive here, even without provisions or monev, their fortunes are made. Great disappointment, great suffering are inevitable; few can

escape the latter who arrive at Denver city after September without ample means to support them in a very dear country, at least through a longwinter. We charge those who manage the telegraph not to diffuse a part of our statement, without giving substantially the whole; and we beg the press generally to unite with us in warning the whole people against another rush to these gold mines, as ill advised as that of last spring—a rush sure to be followed like that by a stampede, but one far more destructive of property and life. Respectfully,

HORACE GREELY, A. D. RICHARDSON, HENRY VILLARD.