Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 December 1879 — How Silver Ore is Sold at Leadville [ARTICLE]

How Silver Ore is Sold at Leadville

Laadville Times. The business of buying and selling ore in a camp like this, when the oat put of Che mines is so immense and the value of dollars so great has been reduced to a science, and is by no means, as many have supposed, dependent upon the fsir dealing and honesty of tiie mill men, who generally are the purchasers. The large mining corporations and wealthy individual owners of productive properties have their own assayers as well as their own scales at the mines. So far as practicable, similar ores from the different pay streaks are piled together for shipment, under the distinguished titles of hard carbonates, iron, dark sand, gray sand, and many other varieties of ore. Hie assayer makes frequent assays for the purpose of keeping a general -knowledge of these separate kinds of ore, yet each assays are not the basis upon which sales are made, owing to the fact that such samples may be either too high or too low for the balk of such lots, and the correct sampling must be arrived at by the process customary at the sampling works of reserving so many pounds, at regular' intervals, out of a given weight ot ore as it is being crushed. This system gves approximately the true value of >e bulk of ore to ascertain whioh is equally to the interest of toe buyer and seller. Samples from these bulk samples are assayed by the mill men and by the owners, mid if the ounces dose* ly tally, the price to be paid is arrived at ; - To dean zinc use alum and vinegar . dissolved by heat and rub well while warm.