P a g e 3 G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y o f M o n t a n a N e w s l e t t e r While Park county is great in many other ways, having been endowed by nature with great resources, yet it is now and must for all time be greatest in its minerals, mines and mineral reduction, and when its greatness is spoken of from this standpoint, the gold and silver mines of the New World Mining district, the arseno-pyrites and gold production of Bear Gulch, and the immensely rich deposits in the Boulder district may be considered as its foundation. Although a great amount of injury has been done to the progress of the mining industry by the floating of stocks in companies having nothing back of them but an undeveloped prospect hole, yet the two greatest existing evils is the lack of capital on the part of the owner and prospector, and lack of transportation. GOLD The search for gold has ever been attractive. Although pioneer and "tenderfoot" alike have loved to live this life of allurement and uncertainty, the prospector for precious metals has now the same chance to "strike it rich" or "make a stake" as was ever held out here or elsewhere. But little of the hidden wealth stored up ages ago in these mountains has been discovered, while it is nevertheless a fact that Park county has been prospected only in a superficial way. Whole districts, aggregating an enormous area, and filled with the greatest possibilities have been unvisited by those of practical knowledge in quest of hidden mineral deposits. It is no exaggeration to say that if the practiced eye, aided by a knowledge of metalliferous formations, searches among the mountains for a day it is certain to find locations that will justify work and exploration. This is as true of the old districts as it is of those but seldom visited. As an example, the district of Bear Gulch had been prospected to a certain extent for more than twenty-eight years, when a common landslide in the spring of 1898 revealed to the naked eye one of the richest lodes of gold-bearing ore in the state. The Boulder district had been worked for its placer "diggings" for many years, when during the summer of 1899 E. H. Cowles, an expert placer miner, had used his hydraulic works so thoroughly that on reaching bed -rock, the leads of very rich veins of gold-bearing quartz were revealed to him. The Emigrant district was until recent years only worked for its rich placer gold; but great possibilities await the development of the recently discovered quartz leads in the Great Eastern, St. Julien and the North Star—the St. Julien assaying as high as $368 in gold and about $40 in silver. A nugget of gold, weighing $58, was picked up in the Yellowstone near the present site of Gardiner by one Jim Ponsford. Rich spots have been found that yielded five thousand dollars per day to the washer, then after it was worked out it might be days or weeks before another was found. Gold is obtained from auriferous gravels of placer mines or from veins or lodes, and by one of the following methods : (a) By smelting ore from the veins or lodes. (b) By milling, amalgamation and concentration, together with cyaniding of quartz ores. (c) By placer, hydraulic mining or dredging of gravels.
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