THE REAL ELDORADO

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18875, 30 May 1923, Page 5

THE REAL ELDORADO

THE ROMANTIC HISTORY OF THE “PREMIER” MINE AND ITS NEIGHBOURS. By H. Geynn-Waed, in the World’s 1 Work." Up that 600 miles of tortuous waterway in the northernmost corner of the British Columbian coast, closed in an. either side by walls of eternally snowcapped mountains and named “Portland Canal” by someone with.no ear for sound and no eye for beauty, there came 15 years ago two prospectors. They wandered a lot, worked a lot, struck gold, and then, after passing on their claim to others, they died, poor, unknown, and unremembered. To-day their find is that startling, staggering heap of promised - wealth known as the Premier mine, that in nine months paid half of its total capitalisation, the most fabulously wealthy silver and gold producing mine in the_ world. All around it is country so rich _ in minerals that, to quote a locaP mines manager, “People would think me crazy if I told them the values of our assays so ,far as we have worked.” '■ But not at once did the Premier come into its own. When the claims were bought up by one Bush, and incorporated into the Salmon and Bear River Mining Company (Ltd.) in 1910, it boomed for a time, .and then as no new developments occurred it died.

i After this came two New Yorkers, who bonded the property for 150,000d0l (about £30,000) and spent another 70,000d0l (about £14,0C0) in working. it for two years. But they lost the veins, and after calling in experts, who_ gave pessimistic reports, they too gave it up, and closed down early in 1916. Eldorado was waiting for the man with the magic key. In July of that same year he came, R. K. Neill by name, a mining man of Spokane, Canadian-born, quiet, shy,. retiring, a man of few words and long vision as.those are wiio sojourn much, and alone among the mountains, a man of sound knowledge and practical sense, never talcing a, step before he was..sure of where his foot was going to be. Neill came as a prospector to look over the adjacent properties on behalf of certain big interests, and he spent a night at the old camp where the Premier mine is now located. 'ln the morning he strolled about looking at the out-croppirigs> and examining the ore, of which he took several samples for assay purposes. "^ After a general survey of the previous workings and the lie of the land, it struck him that all the former operators had missed the direction of the ore body, and had driven tunnels parallel to the veins and not in the right direction to tap the ore properly. He made plans of the property and charts of the workings, and the samples he had chosen of the ore showed. extraordinary mineral values, all of which went to confirm his theory that former owners had spent their efforts in a false direction. Working on this assumption, Neill tapped . a tunnel at a certain point, _ excavated a couple of feet and came right upon The True Vein, 'Containing Ore of Amazing Richness. — : ■ Thereafter no time was lost in having the property tied up and starting operations. Neill himself, together with. Messrs Trites, Wood, and Nelson, became associated with New York interests represented by the American Smelting and Refining Company, Isaac UhtermeyerGuggenheim Bros., and Minor C. Keith. The Premier Mining Cimpany— ; has already paid its second dividend this year (June 30) of 800,O0Odol (about £160,000), the first of 500,000d0l (about £100,000) being paid last March. Information goes to show that another dividend equally, large will be paid this year, all of which brings the total receipts for nine months up to half the company's capitalisation. This is the most sensational dividend record for years in tho mining world. , ■•-: The property consists of three parallel veins, the principal or No. 1 vein being 100 ft wide, 14C0ft long (approximately) and going down to unknown depths. The other veins are not so wide. The original New York Company had put in 1200 ft of tunnelling in three places. In No. 1 vein they had started on ore, but at 60ft had struck "country rock," had worked on for 250 ft without finding the vein again, and had given up ..the attempt although, had they but known, they were within two feet of it. So with the other veins. ;' ' Neill began his operations on No.'l vein about 400 ft west of the original portal and 250 ft below it. On the basis that 10 cubic feet of ore in any place equals one ton, and nutting the value of the ore at the lowest adverage of lOdql (about £2) per ton, he based his financial calcn-? lations, and figured that should the pror posed development of the lower tunnel come, up to expectations, there was enough ore in No. 1 vein alone to .put the company on safe ground. •• His calculations were, to say the least, conservative and modest. The Premier is now producing 300 tons of ore a day and some of it has ran as high as 1200dol (about £240) per ton. v " • The low-grade ore, worth 45d0l (about £9) per ton and under, is shipped by scow down the coast to Anyox, and nut through the smelters * there; the highgrade, worth 125d0l (about £25) per ton and over, is sent down to Tacoma. Anything between these values is concentrated on the spot at the mine's own mill. '' One of the first things the Premier Mining Company did to prove their faith, when organised, was to put in a road, which cost them 54,000d0l (about £10,800), from the dock near Stewart up to the mine. A Government road runs the couple of miles or so across the oanadian-United Stiates boundary between Stewart and Hyder, a strange wooden village built on piles out over the sea. The company's road starts from Hyder in Alaskan territory, and is a waggon road for the first nine miles. Then it crosses the boundary into British Columbia again, and from here supplies have to be taken the rest of the 16 miles by packtrain, the road becoming ever more difficult, the mountains on every side piercing the sky with their everlasting snows. Today The Longest Known Aerial Transportation Cable carries the ore in buckets from the mine to the dock —111 miles. High up in the mountains round the Premier lies the richest mineral zone yet discovered. That which is already prospected lies north of the junction of Cascade Creek and Salmon River, between the great Salmon River Glacier on the Missouri Ridge on the west and the uear River Ridge on the east. This ridge forms the backbone separating Cascade Creek Valley and Bear River Valley, at the end of which Stewart is located, and the distance across is about 18 miles. Those claims already staked cover a distance of about 10 miles north and south as the crow flies. r Here you find all the wealth of Crcßsus hidden in such names as the Big Missouri and the Mineral Hill claims; the Pluribus, which holds untold riches in silver; the Yellowstone, and the "49" claim, which latter, they say, has the best surface showings of them all. When you consider that this Eldorado is set in a region that can only be reached by precipitous mountain trails cut out of solid rock, and at times but 2ft wide, where a false step of your mule or packhorse would pitch vou straight into destruction thousands of feet below, you may appreciate the difficulties that beset the working of these claims. A New Trail, — known as the "Texas Creek Trail," was just opened in mid-July, whereby horses were taken for the first time across the Salmon River Glacier, and a pack-train went through laden with supplies for tho Outland Silver Bar property, six and a-half miles up the glacier on the west side. In the winter dog-teams are used on account of the snow which is 15ft to 20ft deep up at the high levels, and not frozen hard, as it is further north in the Yukon, so by no means such easy going. The latest excitement is the report (not yet officially confirmed) of a new strike of silver on the Big Missouri, and the history of this claim is as full of romanc* as is that of tho Premier.