CHAPTER V. UTAH. During the past year the mining resources of this Territory have been rapidly brought before the public, and the influx of prospectors, miners, and speculators has been very great. Capital, too, has, in many instances, found its way into mining and smelting works; but, on the whole, it may be asserted that few mining regions have in so short a time acquired an importance like that of Utah with the aid of so little capital. There is perhaps not so much excitement in Utah as there has been in many new mining districts on far less foundation; the cause being that there is little opportunity for persons without capital to engage in large and profitable enterprises. But the owners of claims hold them at enormous figures, a sure indication that the thing is overdone, whatever may be the actual basis. Many new districts have been organized and prospected within the past year, and some of them are regularly shipping ore. A few mines, and among these especially the celebrated "Emma," have, thus far, furnished the principal basis of actual business, as well as the stimulus for sanguine operations. The advantages of this Territory as a mining field, under existing circumstances, it is true, are inviting. First among the advantages of the situation must be reckoned the presence of a large agricultural population in the Territory. Utah will not have to import food to supply its mining population; and this secures reasonable prices of supplies and abundance of labor. The stories told about the cheapness of mining labor in Utah are, however, exag gerated. The Mormons take from one another very low wages. The standard is annually fixed, I am informed, by the church authorities; and I believe it was this year $1.50 per day. But they take all they can get from Gentile employers, and, moreover, few of them will work as miners; so the wages of this class of labor are $2.50 to $3.50 per day, even in the districts nearest to Salt Lake City. The prices paid for hauling ore, on the other hand, are very reasonable, considering the distances. Most of the teamsters are Mormons. Another advantage is the facility of railway transportation for ore and base bullion from Salt Lake to the East and West. In this respect it is true the miners and smelters are dependent upon the railway companies. During the summer all shipments of ore were paralyzed by a new and enhanced schedule of freights. Only the Emma Company, which had a contract with the railway, at low rates, (running till September, I believe,) was able to go on. The rates were subsequently reduced, though not to the former point. They were then $18 per ton for ore and $20 for bullion, from Salt Lake to Omaha. But aside from these fluctuations, it is evident that without the railroads the mines of Utah would not have been successfully developed. Even for those ores which are smelted in the Territory most of the charcoal is brought by rail from Truckee, in the Sierra Nevada, (though a considerable amount is burned in the Wasatch Mountains, and in piñon districts further south.) The Truckee charcoal can be had in large quantities at 25 cents per bushel; the Utah charcoal costs 22 to 30 cents, but is frequently inferior in quality, while the supply is precarious. This price is far higher than it should be; but the fact is that the charcoal-burners here will abandon the business unless they can make as much money as others. Again, the character of the ores in the Utah districts is such that they can be either shipped at once to foreign reduction-works, or smelted into argentiferous lead on the spot, and shipped in that form, or, finally, both reduced and separated in the Territory. Some of the mines in the western range furnish milling ores, which are treated by the Washoe system. The majority, however, contain galena, carbonate of lead, with gangue of ferruginous dolomite or quartz and admixtures of antimony and arsenic. If we inquire, however, how these favorable conditions are utilized, we find much to criticise and lament. The metallurgical industry here There are now is conducted in a sadly careless and ignorant manner. in the Territory some nineteen or twenty furnaces, mostly small shaftfurnaces. The aggregate production in July was, however, only about 15 tons of base bullion daily-a proof that the furnaces are run very irregularly, as an inspection of the works also sufficiently shows. Ignorance of the nature and proper treatment of the ores is one reason. The furnaces are run so badly that salamanders are of frequent occurrence. In fact, I do not believe the average campaign exceeds a week. The Messrs. Robbins, aided by their skillful metallurgist, Mr. Rüger, have erected excellent works for the treatment of galena-ores, compris ing a large reverberatory roasting-furnace, with a smelting-hearth underneath. These works are not yet fairly in operation; and there appears to be some difficulty in obtaining a regular supply of the kind of ore for which they are calculated, not so much because there is a lack of galena among the ores produced, as because the miners do not like to sort them out, and prefer to mix all their ores together, and ship them in that condition. The Robbins works are, moreover, interesting, as the only ones, so far as I am aware, employing the coal of the Green River field as fuel. Experience thus far has shown that the coal is not of uniform quality, even when coming, nominally at least, from the same mine. The best of it will probably be a moderately good fuel for the reverberatory processes. The shaft-furnaces employ charcoal. The loss of lead and silver in the shaft-furnaces is very great. It may almost be said that the bullion produced is not richer in silver than the ore. I feel sure that in many cases, moreover, half the lead is lost in the slag, or up the chimney. The astounding ignorance of the smelters may be illustrated by a circumstance which I personally noticed. At one of the principal works I saw heaps of hematite-iron ore and of limestone, which I found were brought there (the hematite at a cost of $17 per ton) to mix with the silver-ores and make a "slag." As the ores on the floor contained plenty of iron, and more than plenty of lime, it may easily be understood that what this addition really made was not a slag but a salamander. Yet in spite of these most evident losses, the smelting-works in general are reported as paying high prices for ore-prices, in many cases, which would exclude the possibility of profit, even under good management. The only explanation I can offer is, either that the proprietors of the furnaces are losing money without knowing it (a thing which may easily occur to persons inexperienced in the smelting business) or they are running the furnaces at a loss, with the intention of selling mines on the strength of alleged favorable results. I fear that in many instances the latter is the true explanation. Certain it is, if anything in metallurgy or mathematics is certain, that the smelting works now in operation cannot be legitimately making money, operated as they are, and paying what they do for ores. One great obstacle is too often in the way of the free development of the best mines in the Territory. The blighting curse of litigation rests upon almost every good mine in the older districts. The mining laws are vague and bad, and the Territory is infested with unscrupulous jumpers and black-mailers. There were, in the summer, at least three parties fighting over the Emma mine; and the Emma was by no means a solitary instance. Lawsuits were springing up all over the Territorya new crop of mischief from the indolence and neglect of the Federal Government with regard to the mining law. For my part I am more and more thoroughly convinced that the men to whom the United States is virtually giving away its mineral lands are not the proper persons to regulate the tenure of their titles. One would scarcely say to his best friend, "Here, take my property on your own terms!" and the peuniless speculators in mining claims can least of all be trusted to make the laws defining their own rights. In my opinion the United States law, which declares all citizens entitled to mine upon the public domain, gives them no right to any dog-in-the-manger titles. The object of the law is to develop the mines, not to help a few individuals lock them up and demand high prices for them. A discoverer has the right to occupy and improve; this is properly his only right; it is all he can sell; and until the mine is purchased of the United States nobody can have any rights in the premises which abandonment or neglect to improve does not defeat. In Utah there were many mines discovered some years ago and abandoned. Now a second crop of discoverers has come, and the old ones have returned in swarms to claim their "rights." The product of 1871 in gold and silver may be estimated as follows: Express shipments of gold.. Express shipments of silver. Ore shipped by railroad, 10,806 tons, at $150. To which may be added for the value of the lead contained in ore and bullion Giving a total of. The shipments of ore and bullion from Salt Lake City in the different months were as follows: Mr. E. P. Vining, general freight-agent of the Union Pacific Railroad, informs me that 8,880 tons of ore and 2,185 tons of bullion were shipped from Utah eastward over that road during the year. This would leave for shipments over the Central Pacific Railroad westward 926 tons of ore and 193 tons of bullion. The material for the following pages has been furnished by notes from Professor Blake, Mr. Fabian, Captain Stover, O. Hahn, Mr. Heffernan, and by those made by my deputy, Mr. Eilers, and myself during our visits to the different districts in the Territory. The mining districts of Utah which have attracted most attention during the year are in the region east and south of Great Salt Lake. They are laid out in the two principal ranges of the Wasatch Mountains, and thus lie in two longitudinal belts, one on the east of the valley of the Jordan, the other on the west. Commencing near Corinne, at the northern and eastern end of the lake, the districts succeed from north to south in nearly the following order: Cache County.-Dry Lake, Logan, Millville, Mineral Point. Box Elder County.-Willow Creek. Morgan County.-Weber, traversed by the Weber River and by the Union Pacific Railroad. Davis County.-Farmington, Centreville. Salt Lake County.-Hot Spring, New El Dorado, Big Cottonwood, Little Cottonwood, American Fork, Snake Creek, Uintah, Silver Fork. Utah County.-East Tintic, Mount Nebo or Timmins, Spanish Fork. Tooele County.-Tooele, Stockton, Ophir, Lower district, Camp Floyd, Osceola, West Tintic. In the same, or Oquirrh, range, but on the eastern slope, are the West Mountains, or Bingham district, facing the Big Cottonwood, and the Little Cottonwood on the opposite side of the valley. Lake Side district is directly west of Great Salt Lake. The island in the lake is known as Church Island district. The geological structure of the Wasatch Mountains is intricate and interesting. The principal range east of Salt Lake has a broad exposure of gray granite rising into peaks generally whitened by snow. This rock is flanked on the east by an immense thickness of quartzite and limestone strata, the last mentioned generally holding the lead and silver-bearing veins. In these rocks Professor Blake obtained numerous fossils, principally encrinites and one species of Archimedes. He refers the formation to the Lower Carboniferous or Devonian period. In the upper portion of the principal cañons or valleys, cutting the range transversely, there are distinct and well-marked traces of former glaciers. At the head of Little Cottonwood Cañon the granite is worn by glacial action into smoothly rounded summits-roches moutonnées-and part way down the valley the ancient terminus of the glacier is marked by a moraine stretching across the valley from side to side, except where it is cut through by the existing stream. In the higher portions of the Wasatch, especially east of Salt Lake City, in the valleys of the Big Cottonwood and the Little Cottonwood, there is an abundant supply of timber, consisting chiefly of fir, pine, and cedar. The quaking ash grows in great luxuriance along the streams lower down. During the winter snow falls in great quantity, and accumulates to a depth of from 6 to 20 feet or more in some places, and where it is sheltered from the direct rays of the sun it remains through the summer or until September and October. The melting of this vast accumulation of snow gives a constant supply of pure water, and forms rapidly-flowing streams, valuable not only for saw-mills and smelting-works but of far greater importance for the irrigation of the valley lands. Both of the Cottonwood Creeks are thus utilized, and are two of the most impor tant sources of water for the irrigation of the valley near Salt Lake City. The unrestrained use of the timber by the miners and the Mormons is working its speedy destruction. It is not only cut freely for the mills, but for making coal, and immense quantities are annually consumed by forest-fires, the result of carelessness or neglect, or of willful determi nation to destroy. It is abundant now, but in a few years will be very scarce and valuable. The Mormons have for many years obtained their supply from the Big Cottonwood, and it is said that the first discoveries there of mineral deposits were made by the lumbermen. The discovery of metalliferous deposits in this region, inaugurating the series of discoveries leading to the formation of the several districts named, may be said to date back to the year 1863. The first silver-lead veins were found in the Oquirrh range, in Bingham Cañon, and in the mountains bordering Rush Valley. In October, 1862, the United States volunteers from California, under the command of General Connor, arrived in Utah and established the post known as Camp Douglas. Many experienced California miners were in this command, and naturally enough took every favorable opportunity for prospecting the hills and valleys. of that vicinity. In the fall of 1863 Lieutenant Weitz and a small party discovered the outcroppings of a lode in Bingham Cañon, and from that time prospecting was energetically prosecuted. In 1864, when Company L was stationed at the Government reserve in Rush Valley, many lodes of argentiferous galena were found. In the same year many locations were made by parties of persons emigrating from the Western States to California, and about this time the town of Stockton was laid out. The land was "taken up" for the purpose by General P. E. Connor, J. F. Rogers, Joseph Clark, and J. J. Johnson. The first mining district was organized in December, 1863, and was named "West Mountain Mining District." It embraced the whole of the Oquirrh range of mountains lying west of Jordan Valley. At a meeting of the miners, held June 11, 1864, this large district was subdivided, the eastern slope of the mountains retaining the name of "West Mountain Mining District," and the western slope was called the "Rush Valley Mining District." Rush Valley district.-In the years 1865 and 1866, when the troops were mustered out of service, a great many men turned their attention to the recently-located veins, and Stockton soon grew to be a mining town of considerable importance. About fifty new buildings were erected, and the trade in supplies for the miners was very brisk, though the cost of every article was enormous. Transportation of supplies from the Missouri River to Salt Lake City at that time cost 25 cents per pound. This heavy expense upon all tools, together with the great difference between gold and currency, and the large profit asked on goods by the traders, made mining a very costly occupation in those days. A shovel, for example, cost $5; steel, $1.40 per pound; powder, $1.50; sugar, $1.25 per pound; coffee, $1.50; tea, $4.50; and other articles in proportion. In the year 1864 the West Jordan Mining Company was incorporated under the laws of California, and work was commenced on a lode of that name in Bingham Cañon. A tunnel was run into the hill about 40 feet. The work was continued until the great expense, amounting to $60 per running foot of tunnel, caused it to be suspended. The first furnace for smelting the ores was built by General Connor and others, associated under the title of the "Pioneer Company," at Stockton, in the year 1864. About the same time a company, called the Rush Valley Smelting Company, was formed at Camp Douglas; the stockholders were the twenty officers then stationed there. Other fur |