"SALTING" A GOLD MINE.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17393, 2 March 1922, Page 10

"SALTING" A GOLD MINE.

To "salt" a mine artistically and with due regard for the intended purchasers . knowledge of . mineralogy, "shows," and reef-faults, is a matter requiring -some craft and largeness of mind (writes Albert Dorrington in the London "Daily Mail"). Bill Smith may own v a. small claim situatpd within an auriferous zone of gold-bearing country. Bill and his partners may have worked their claim and found it a "duffer" all the way down, if so, it is safe to say that they are at the end of their resources ana are being pressed daily by the local storekeeper for a settlement of accounts. If Bill is an old mining "crook" or is tempted by crooked partners, he will scheme to sell his claim at the earliest moment.

Therefore Bill goes to a distant part of the field and buys as much loose gold as his purse will allow.. Or he may acquire a few barrow-loads of quartz specimens from a distant friend, and with due care and seerccy convey them to his claim. These specimens are impregnated with fine gold and will probably yield several ounces to the ton under treatment.

Bill and his partners will dump the specimens at the bottom of their shaft, br have them plugged and mortised into their own worthless reef to await the luckless mine buyer when he comes along. Also an old shot-gun may assist in the swindle: coarse grains of the precious . metal fired point-blank into the schist or clay formations within the tunnellings are easily indicated by the light of a miner's lamp. Not satisfied with "loading" the reef, Bill and his partners may pepper certain heaps of dirt below with more fine gold, so that the intending buyer can be treated to a'"clean up" while he waits. The "dirt' will bo "washed" in his presence, and the amount of gold taken from each bucket of dirt will be duly noted.

Even mining experts are deceived when expert "salters'' get to work. In Austnilia hundreds of thousands of pounds have been paid for worthless mines by syndicates who have relied on the reports supplied to them by professional assayers and agents The acid test of a small mine's quality was supposed to He in the amount of sold it handed in to its hank after each "clt'.an-up." "When this fact became known it set the crooks at work "salting 1 ' the banks. This is how it was done:

X became nnxioui to soli his claim. His monthly clean-up averaged about fix ounces of gold. He sold this to the bank, and with tho money received'he was able to buy from an Afghan dealer (Kurr.alpie and the Murcliison diggings swarn.ed with them during the late •'nineties) several ounces of gOod/gold which he also sold to his bank. He loot slightly in his dealings with the Afghan, but the system enabled him to increase his sales to tlie bank. Later he sold his claim on a thirty-ounces-a-month basis, the actual sales registered in hi 3 name at the bank.