A SEA CAPTAIN AS A MINER.
The ways of the quartz miners—that is to say, of the owners of the mines—are something wonderful. Thousands of mines have been managed by men no more competent to superintend mining than to construct a new solar system. Some years ago I made the acquaintance of a sea captain who had retired from the service, and concluded to go into business. He had begun life as a cabin boy, having run away to sea. He next sailed before the mast, and had gone through all the grades, until he was qualified to be master of a ship. He had a brother-in-law who was a director in a mining company, and the directors, in their infinite wisdom, concluded that this retired sea captain, whose sands of life had not altogether run out, would make an excellent mining superintendent, as he was good for nothing else.
MINERS AROUND THEIR CAMP-FIRE.
On what reasoning they based their determination I do not know. He had never seen a mine in all his life, and could not tell the difference between a piece of granite and a fragment of gold-bearing quartz. I met him one day, and he told me he was to start on the following morning for the scene of operations, where he would take charge of a mine. I lost sight of him for several months, but one day met him on Broadway, looking as if he had just been sentenced to the penitentiary. I asked how his mining speculation was getting along, and he begged me not to talk about it.
“I told them,” said he, “that I did not know anything about mining; but they shipped me out there, and told me to manage the craft the best way I could, and they knew I would get along all right. When I got there, a shaft had been made twenty or thirty feet down, and the mill was nearly completed. I was determined not to let on to the men there that I did not know all about the business, and when the man in charge of the works came to me, I told him to go ahead,—that he was doing everything all right. I hurried the mill up, and, as it was approaching completion, I went to the mouth of the shaft, looked at several heaps of rocks, pointed out one, and told them to crush that first. I saw the fellows sticking their quids in their larboard jaws, and supposed that it indicated that I knew what I was about.
“We went to work, and run the mill for a week, and the foreman asked me if he had not better clean up. I told him I did not think the mill looked very dirty, and guessed I would not clean up for a while. Fact is, I did not know what cleaning up meant. I visited a neighboring mine, got acquainted with the superintendent, who knew just about as much of the business as I did, and precious little more; but from him I found out what it was to ‘clean up.’
“I thought I would let the mill run another week, and so I did. Then we cleaned up, and there was not a particle of gold to be found. I told the foreman he had not arranged things properly; that the quicksilver ought to be on the other side of the riffle, so as to catch the gold when it fell over. I bought blankets, and sheep-skins, and everything else, but could not accomplish anything.
“I used to go down in the mine occasionally, and somehow, every time I went there, there was always an accident—not a serious one, to be sure; but they would dump me out of the bucket, or run against me, or turn a hose on me by accident, or do something. I was getting into trouble every day, but it never happened in such a way that I could accuse anybody. The country was not fit for a dog to live in, and I soon got tired of it.