"SALTING" WITH A CIGARETTE

It is not, however, always the city promoter who furnishes all of
the crookedness. He himself may be deceived by those who sell him
the mine. Some of the most thrilling stories in literature might
be written about salted mines. The sale of the Bear's Nest Mine,
and the special train expedition to the salted Bear River placer
field; the sale of the Mulatos Mine to a set of Chinamen, and
scores of other instances in American mining history, have been
regarded rather as big jokes than as great lessons. And as to
such large jesting we advance in finesse. The old way of salting
a placer or a quartz vein with a shotgun is now antiquated.

A little while ago a party of capitalists bought a Nevada placer
on what they thought to be strictly a "cinch" basis. With their
own hands they collected the specimen dirt from all over the
claim, and they watched a Mexican miner pan the dirt at the
creek. The pans showed up beautifully. They bought the claim.
Later, it proved worthless. Afterward they remembered that the
Mexican smoked cigarettes all the time he was panning, and that
he was careless in expectorating, as well as in knocking the
ashes off his cigarettes. The truth was that the highly
intelligent Greaser was using the cigarette trick in salting the
pan. There was much fine gold in his cigarette and under his lip!


THE MULATOS MINE SALTING SCHEME

All sorts of methods of salting mines, even to the injection,