The Gold Camp That Can't Afford to Dig

Wenatchee, June 28.—Special.—Mr. J. R. Toole, successor to Col. Hart as representative of the Daly syndicate of Montana, has resumed development work on the properties bonded in the Slate camp. He has about fifty miners at work now and it is his purpose to thoroughly prospect some of the more promising claims to determine the extent of the ore bodies.

The thirty or more samples of the outcroppings taken two weeks ago are said to have assayed satisfactorily. No one outside of those directly interested knows exactly what these values were, but it can be safely stated that the Eureka ledge, of which so much has been said during the past eight months, will average $10 in gold across its entire width of twenty-eight feet.

Some very fair ore ledges have been located recently on Gold creek. A sample of gray copper ore from there assayed 7 ounces gold, 52 ounces silver and 12 per cent copper.

It is reported that the Red Point mine, which is owned by Seattle men, will be bonded soon if price and terms can be agreed upon. This is the best developed of any in the Methow district and it is hoped that it will soon pass into the hands of those who are able financially to place it upon a producing basis.

Mr. Adams, exponent of the cyanide process for the treatment of gold ores, has been looking over the Squaw Creek camp and his report is anxiously awaited by those men whose claims he sampled. He is represented to be backed by capital sufficient to install a large plant there if his working tests are favorable and providing he can get working bonds on certain properties.

So far as general surface showings go, Squaw creek is the best gold camp in the Methow country, if not in the state, and it is to be regretted that circumstances have to retard its development.

The majority of claim owners are absolutely without means and yet they have held their claims at such ridiculously high figures that no one has felt justified in taking hold. But they are beginning to take a more reasonable view of things now and some encouraging developments may be looked for in that camp within the next few months.

Mr. Penne, owner of the four-stamp mill recently shipped here from California, has not yet decided where to set it up. He has been looking over some of the large porphyry dikes in and about Wenatchee, but in all probability he will ship it up into the Methow country.