All sorts of methods of salting mines, even to the injection,
with a hypodermic needle, of strong solutions of mineral salts
into a mining engineer's carefully sealed sample bags, have been
worked. The most honest, careful, and expert mining engineers
have been deceived time and again, and salted right under their
own eyes. Even a bland Chinee may be fooled. Take the instance of
the Mulatos Mine: The bunch of Chinamen who proposed to buy it
insisted on a mill-run test on fresh-mined ore, taken out BY
THEMSELVES, for a five-days' run. They were not taking any
chances, in their own belief. The owners of the mine, however--so
runs the story--had a platform of plank arranged above the
timbers at the top of the drift where the Chinamen brought out
their ore cars. On this planking a man lay face downward where he
could see each ore car that passed. He had a rather hard life for
five days on the sandwiches and water which he took up there with
him, but he managed to drop a pinch or so of nice gold dust into
every car of ore that came trundling under him. The mill-run was
an entire success from the viewpoint of the sellers, although not
from that of the buyers.
There is no working law, let us repeat, which actually protects
the investor against this sort of thing, nor which always
protects even the promoter, though he be honest. The game is
risky all the way along the line, in spite of state laws against
the heinous crime of salting, which latter hath as yet by no
means lost its savor.