THE LUSTRE OF GOLD.
[Sidenote: 1858]
In the incident of nearly sixty centuries ago, when Joseph's brothers
came down two hundred miles from Canaan to Egypt with their sacks to
be filled with corn, and of the money being put back with the grain,
we have the first record in the civilized world of the ownership of
gold. "How then should we steal out of thy Lord's house silver and
gold." So its value was then known, though no doubt for decorative
purposes only, from which it in time grew into use as money. Cortez
found the Aztecs using domestic utensils made of copper, silver and
gold.
What made Gold? What deposited it in some parts of the earth's surface
and not in others? Why is there not more of it? We do not know. We
know it was one of the primitive elements; that it is held in solution
in the waters of the ocean; that men have tried to make it and have
always failed. It derives its name from its lustre. Though gold and
yellow are in a measure synonymous, their difference is best seen in
the glory of the sunset which is always golden, never yellow. It is
the lustre that makes the lure of gold. Its value arises from the
permanency of its lustre; from its imperishable properties; from the
fact that so much can be done with it; because it is so limited in
quantity; and because it requires so much time and money to find and
refine it. If it would corrode it would be valueless for many of the
uses to which it is put. Its soft beauty never tires the eye, nor
becomes monotonous. It is the only metal that can be welded cold, as
we can all testify from our experiences in painless dentistry. It can
be spun out like a spider's web, or beaten so that a single grain of
it can be spread over a space of seventy-five square inches. If it
were as plentiful as earth or sand, it would still have great value
because it is so permanent and malleable. The sawing and chiselling of
the great blocks of marble and granite that are lifted by derricks
into our public buildings, cost much more in their preparation than
would the shaping of gold into similar blocks. If it were plentiful,
our houses would all be built of gold; they would never burn; never
rust; never decay; never need paint; they would endure forever; for
even earthquakes that would destroy every other material, would not
affect them; the mass of gold would not be destroyed and could be
re-shaped and refitted together. However, if it were so plentiful that
we could all live in it, it would be so common that its beautiful
lustre would probably be debased by ordinary paint.
Mining comes down to us through the centuries. The Romans were
operating mines in England before the organization of that country
into the British Empire. Africa produces the most gold of any country,
and the United States next. Colorado produces the most gold of any
state in the union. There is but little gold found in the eastern part
of the United States and that mostly in Tennessee and North Carolina.
It exists in paying quantities in the Black Hills of South Dakota, in
the Rocky Mountains, and in California. Gold is found under two
conditions: in veins and in placer formations. As the veins in our
bodies are almost endless in their ramifications, so imbedded in the
rocky fastnesses deep down in the earth, are the veins of gold which
are mined and hoisted to the surface through shafts, or brought out
through tunnels; the process of smelting sends the gold to the Mint
for its refinement. Deep mining is expensive and requires costly
machinery. Shafts are sunk down thousands of feet, sometimes through
solid rock, and powerful pumping plants are often necessary. Sometimes
hundreds of men are at work in one mine.
[Illustration: Miners Making a "Clean-up" from Their "Jig-box."]
Then there is placer mining, so-called because it is a place on the
bank of a river where the gold is found. "Placer" is Spanish and means
"pleasure." A prospector's outfit for finding gold by the latter
process is very crude. He goes into the mountains with two pack
ponies. These pack animals learn to climb over the rocks and along the
precipitous mountain sides like Rocky Mountain sheep. On their backs
are strapped his tent and simple belongings, among which is a wash
basin. The prospector seldom uses it for the purpose for which it was
made. He bathes in nature's basin--golden basin; that which a King
might envy him--the stream, the rushing, tumbling stream, clear, cold
and pure; fortunate man! he bathes in liquid gold. The pan he fills
two-thirds full of dirt, then with water, rocks it gently with his
hands, letting the water run over the sides, carrying the dirt away
and leaving the particles of gold, which are heavy, at the bottom of
the pan. When the miner finds it there, he does not call it gold, he
calls it "color." This rude device that is simply motion, water, and a
receptacle for the particles of gold, is the same process elaborated
upon by expensive machinery, that tears up and runs through the mill
thousands of tons of material found along streams, and in gulches,
where streams ran ages ago, and which, changing their channels, have
left their deposits of gold containing the wash from the lump or
quartz gold, found in the veins of ore.
A sluice is where water is made to run through a ditch into a trough
that has cleats nailed across the bottom to check the water and form
ripples. Into this the pay-dirt is shoveled, and the water flowing
through it leaves the gold at the bottom and carries the dirt away.
Gold dust is not fine like flour. A piece weighing less than a fourth
of an ounce is called "dust." Above that it becomes a "nugget." Small
counter-scales were kept in the early days by all business men, who
weighed the money in, and weighed the flour and bacon out. An ounce of
gold was taken over the counter from the miners at sixteen dollars,
but when it left the Mint refined, which meant the elimination of all
impurities, it brought twenty dollars. It is never entirely pure until
refined.
The nearest approach we now have to the hunter, trapper and scout, is
the prospector hunting for gold. We find him wandering alone through
the mountains, a silent figure, the pack pony, his only companion,
sometimes driven ahead, sometimes following on behind. This quiet
spoken, unobtrusive, hermit-like man is usually tall, gaunt, bearded,
hopeful, always believing in the lucky find that is sure to be
his--soon. Mining laws vary with different states and mining
communities. But ordinarily they are the same in effect, that a miner
must show good faith, do the work required to establish his claim, and
must post a notice on the ground claimed by him; the spelling in the
notice does not seem to matter. We do not hear that the following were
rejected on account of errors or threats:
"Notis--to all and everybody. This is my claim, 50 feet on the
gulch. Cordin to Clear Creek District law backed up by shot gun
amendments,
(Sgd.) "THOMAS HALL."
"To the Gunnison District:
"The undersigned claims this lede with all its driffs, spurs,
angels, sinosities, etc., etc., from this staik. a 100 feet in
each direcshun, the same being a silver bearing load, and warning
is hereby given to awl persons to keepe away at their peril, any
person found trespassing on this claim will be persecuted to the
full extent of the law. This is no monkey tale butt I will assert
my rites at the pint of the sicks shuter if legally Necessary so
taik head and good warnin accordin to law I post This Notiss,
(Sgd.) " JOHN SEARLE."
Singular it is that the laws governing mining claims originated with
the miners themselves, and found their way through the Courts and
Congress for ratification, which was done with hardly any changes,
while the laws covering all other forms of ownership of Government
lands originated in Congress. The author of much of our early land
legislation, to whom our country can never be grateful enough, was
that eminent statesman Alexander Hamilton.
Gold started Colorado's growth; gold kept it growing; but gold is only
one of many factors that will forever keep it growing. What busy
scenes were enacted here in those memorable years when the attention
of the entire country was centered on this region! Pike's Peak was the
objective point of the gold seekers--not Denver which was then
unknown. When James Purseley, Colorado's earliest white inhabitant,
first found gold in 1805, at the foot of Lincoln Mountain, it did not
assume the importance of a discovery. He had no use for the gold
nuggets he picked up; the Indians did not know or appreciate the value
of gold, and there was no one with whom he could utilize it, as he
could in the exchange of ponies and furs. It is said that he finally
threw the nuggets away because of the uncomfortable weight in his
pockets. No doubt he thought he would live his life among the Indians,
the wild, free life that was so fascinating, and would never return to
the East, and perhaps never see a white man again. He was content with
his lot, had no use for gold and why should he hoard it, when the
Indian blanket he was now wearing had no convenient place in which to
carry it.
Green Russell is said to have found gold on Cherry Creek in August or
September, 1858, just ten years after its discovery in California. It
was also found by a party of six men on January 15, 1859, on a branch
of Boulder Creek, which occasioned the location of the present City of
Boulder. George Jackson went into the mountains on January 7, 1859,
and discovered gold at the mouth of a branch of Clear Creek, and on
April 17th organized at that point the first mining district; later,
on May 1st, he found gold at Idaho Springs. But it remained for John
H. Gregory to fan into a never dying glow the flame that had been
gathering volume by these desultory discoveries. He found gold on
Clear Creek, near the sites of Black Hawk and Central City, in
February, 1859. Lacking provisions, he went to Golden for supplies,
returned May 6th, and started a sluice on May 16th, from which he took
as much as nine hundred dollars a day. He sold his discovery for
twenty-one thousand dollars and set the country afire with excitement.
From nearly every eastern community, the people came, and from many
parts of the world. It is estimated that fifty thousand people poured
into this mountain region the first year after the discovery of gold.
Many of those who remained, and many who came later, made fortunes,
some to keep them, some to lose them. Those who hurried out of the
country did not witness the growth of Cripple Creek, of Leadville, of
Camp Bird or of the San Juan and Clear Creek Districts.
There are two smelters in Denver and one each in Golden, Leadville,
Canon City, Pueblo and Salida. None but zinc ores are sent out of this
State. The annual output of gold in Colorado is about twenty-two
million dollars, or about six million dollars a year greater than
California. There are three operated Mints in the United States:
Denver, Philadelphia and San Francisco. At Denver there are six
hundred million dollars of gold deposited in the vaults beneath the
foundations of the Mint, and upon this reserve the paper currency of
the Government has been issued. No such amount of gold is stored in
any other building in the world. The Denver Mint will always remain
the storage depository for the gold reserve of the nation, because of
its inland location, where it is remote from attack by sea. Colorado
has already produced in gold four hundred and eighty-eight million
five hundred thousand dollars, and there is no indication of a
diminution in the supply. Of the seven billions of the world's gold,
nearly one-fourth, or approximately one billion six hundred million is
held by the United States.
When Columbus first started on his voyage of discovery there was less
than two hundred million dollars of gold in the world; now, more than
double that amount is produced in a single year. In 1500 the annual
gold production was four million dollars, and it took two hundred
years before the yearly output was doubled. Now, nearly five hundred
million dollars in gold is taken out of the earth each year. Only in
the past few years has the production of gold assumed such gigantic
proportions as to be alarming. In 1800 it was but twelve million
dollars annually. In 1900 it was two hundred and sixty-two million
dollars yearly, and in the past ten years it reached the enormous
output of more than four hundred and fifty-seven million dollars every
year. The Transvaal country alone turns out over one hundred and fifty
million yearly. This great increase is due to improved methods of
mining. Machinery unknown ten years ago, has done away with the
primitive methods that kept the production of gold constant and within
bounds. In the Transvaal, the hills and valleys are being ground up by
powerful machines that separate the gold from the earth and rock.
Then, too, a giant stream of water is now turned against the base of a
mountain that melts away like mist before the sun, and sends a stream
of gold to the mint.
Gold has always been the standard of values among all civilized
nations. But its quantity is increasing so fast that its purchasing
power is diminishing, and prices of all commodities are increasing
correspondingly. When we will be producing one billion dollars of gold
annually, which will be in about ten years at the present rate of
increase, there must be a new standard of values agreed upon among the
nations of the earth to fit the purchasing power of gold, or there
will be an upheaval in the financial affairs of the world that will
shake it to the very foundations, and affect the lives of every one of
its inhabitants.
The over-production of gold is relieved in a measure by the utter
disappearance of a part of it. What becomes of all the gold? Nearly
one million five hundred thousand dollars a day is taken from the
mines of the world. Only a portion of this output is consumed by the
arts and in jewelry, and in the natural legal reserve of Governments.
From the best information obtainable, much of the surplus goes into
the hoarding places of all classes. The people in poor and medium
circumstances hide it away, and it is treasured in the vaults of the
rich princes of India, and the dynasties of China and Egypt, who for
centuries have been building vast burglar proof receptacles
underground, where it is stored, and its hiding places are never
allowed to become known. It is wrested from out of its hidden recesses
in mountain fastnesses, by pick, drill, dynamite and arduous toil,
flows through the arteries of trade, and again goes into its burial
places to remain hidden for ages.