Mineral Kingdom. (Lawton, Okla.), Vol. 2, No. 19, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 9, 1905 Page: 1 of 4
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I
MINERA
GBOM.
Devoted to tfye Mineral Interests of tl}e Wichita MountaiQS
Volume 2.
LAWTON, OKLAHOMA, THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 1905.
Number 19.
PROFESSOR DEBARR IS HERE
This w '1-known Professor of Chemistry and Pharmacy in the Univer-
sity of Oklahoma is a visitor in our city, called here as an expert witness
in a criminal case now on trial in our district court. This professional
gentleman is well known not only throughout Oklahoma but in other
parts of the United States far beycnd the confines of this territory. He
has held the position of Professor in the Department of Chemistry and
Pharmacy in the Territorial University at Norman for the last thirteen
years—ever since its organization—and stands high in his profession.
Among the various duties that the Professor is called upon to perform
in his services to the college is that of assaying and of teaching the stu-
dents in his department the art of resolving the various minerals into
their component parts, and is presumed to be able to determine exactly
what the mineral contains, the weight and character of every particle
of metal, and in the case of gold and silver, its value, if any is found,
and to be able to state just what ore will yield in gold and silver per ton
of ore.
About a year ago the Professor made a tour of investigation through
the Wichita Mountains with a view of ascertaining whether the precious
metals really were to be found in quantities sufficient to warrant mining
operations. He visited a great many places where it was claimed that
pay ore had been found and made hundreds of assays for the miners and
for persons interested in the Wichita district. A great many certificates
of assay were given by him, some of them showing high values, and in
hundreds of instances values were found by him and certified to, running
from $5 to $96 per ton of ore.
In one instance the Professor sent one of his trusted students, a young
man from Norman, out to the mines with instructions to take a fair aver-
erage of the ore from a certain group of mines near Wiidman. This was
done without the knowledge of the miners and at the instance of a party
who was a defendant in a mineral contest in the U. S. land office at
Lawton. The samples were secured from five different shafts, taken to
Norman and assayed by the Professor. The deposition is now in the
U. S. land office at Lawton, taken at that time, in which the Professor
swears that he performed the analysis himself and that the assay showed
values ranging from $3.50 to $8 per ton of ore in gold and silver.
In at least one instance the Professor visited a mine near Wiidman in
person and in company with several other persons, and went down into
the mine himself and took the samples out of the wall of ore with a pick,
selecting only an average of the vein matter. This sample he carried
with him to Norman and made the assay himself in his own laboratory
and made a certificate that the ore yielded $1.75 in gold and 3 ounces
in silver, equal to a total value of $3.50 per ton.
The Professor attended a meeting of the Miners' Association, assem-
bled at Mountain Park, in Kiowa County, Okla., and in the presence of
more than a thousand people, made a speech in which he said that he
had carefully investigated the mineral district around Roosevelt and
Wiidman and could assure them that in his opinion the near future would
show a mineral district as rich as any in the United States. He referred
to the fact that he had made a great number of assays of ore taken from
that locality and had found values ranging all the way up from $5 to
$96 per ton in gold and silver.
A great change has come over this learned gentleman since then. He
now reports that he is unable to secure any values out of the ures from
this same district. He now claims that he ne/er did get values only in
cases where the ore was sent to him, and that out of some 60 or 70
samples that he gathered himself he could not find even a trace, only in
one or two instances, and that only very slight.
We ask, why this sudden change? We ask, why is the gentleman
silent as to the instances above mentioned? Why does he so abruptly
change his mfnd? Can it be that the famous report of the Bain of
Hitchcock has caused the Professor to think that he was mistaken when
he found gold and silver in the ores he collected himself? Can it be that
the whirlwind tour of the Bain of Hitchcock, in which he failed to find
even a trace of anything in the Wichita Mountains, so impressed this
Professor that he decided that what he once thought he knew was only
a shadow, and that the gold and silver he saw as the results of his assay
of these ores was only a mirage? Or was he caught between the devil
and the deep deep sea and either compelled to takeback all hehad said and
done and forswear himself or feel the vengeance of the Grand Duke of
the Interior Department for daring to stand at variance with the Bain
of Hitchcock?
BRINCKLE CONTINUES TO FIND VALUES
Philadelphia, Pa., March 1, 1905.
Mr. Georqe C. Jocelyn,
Lawton, Okla.
Dear Sir: Yours of the 21st with samples of ore received and
I beg leave to report on same as follows:
Gold, to ton of 2,000 pounds $29.68
Silver, to ton of 2,000 pounds 3.40
Copper, plentiful.
Iron, traces.
Respectfully submitted,
A. M. Brinckle,
Assayer.
The material from which this assay was made was taken from home-
stead land, not yet patented, just east of Golden Pass, and the same
coming from practically the surface, shows that some fine values may
be expected when the property is fully developed. Mr. Jocelyn sought
to restrain the homestead entryman from making final proof on this land
on the ground that the same was more valuable for the mineral it con-
tains than for agricultural purposes, and fully intended to contest the
same, and while the entryman offered a very good bluff, it failed to in-
timidate Mr. Jocelyn in the least, and seeing that he would certainly
stand pat. the entryman offered a compromise which suited and the
same has been fixed satisfactorily.
This property is located near the smelter being erected by Mr. Pear-
son, and will doubtless prove a very paying property. Development
work will be commenced in the near future, and as soon as the body of
ore in sight will justify, it is intended to place thereon the proper
machinery for its working. This adds one more to the already large list
of good properties and is one more step in the direction of prosperity.
THE BIG FOUR ELECT OFFICERS
At a regular meeting of the stockholders of the Big Four Mining Com-
pany, held March 3, the following officers were elected to serve the
company the coming year: S. J. Hardin, president; Horace Southard,
vice-president: Dick Cooper, secretary; J. W. McDuffie, treasurer.
Active work on the property will be commenced at once and it is prac-
tically assured that the same will be continued for some time to come,
and thus will the first mine in the Wichitas to come into prominence, be
taken up and developed.
Dr. Hardin showed us some specimens from this property which had
been roasted and they showed enough gold that in a country where min-
ing is developed, would have started a whole town crazy. Here if the
specimen be shown, they would simply look you in the eye and say.
"Well, now, if that metal was gold, it would be very rich." Which goes
to show that people do not know gold when they see it, yet will buy gold
bricks when they know there is a skin game being worked.
THE PEARSON SMELTER
The machinery for the Pearson smelter, to be located near Golden
Pass, has been ordered along with that for the Black Bear and the Illi-
nois companies, and will be on the ground within the next thirty days.
This smelter will be of 50 tons capacity, and will use the same size engine
and boiler as the companies above mentioned. The greater part of the
brick is already on the ground, and as soon as the weather settles down
to the regulation, work will be commenced. This will be a thoroughly
modern plant, the building of which will be superintended by Mr. Poin-
dexter, a guarantee that it will be A1 in construction. Mr. Pearson is
not losing a day in working on the development of the property, and fully
intends to have sufficient ore blocked out by the time the smelter is in
readiness, to keep the smelter busy for a long time to come. They have
the values that promise to make this one of the best paying mines in any
country.
STILL A BETTER STRIKE
We were recently shown a letter by Horace Southard, from his fore-
man now working on his galena property at Wheeling, and the contents
of this letter recited that the workmen had just broken into a body of ore
that so far excels the former strike that there is no comparison. It is
simpiy almost solid metal, and from the fact that this formation carries
a goodly amount of silver, it certainly can be shipped at a profit at the
present time. Mr. Southard is very enthusiastic over this property and
intends to get down to business on the same at once, and he makes the
assertion in dead earnest that this property will be the first in the Wich-
ita Mountains to be placed on a paying basis.
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Davis, Frank C. Mineral Kingdom. (Lawton, Okla.), Vol. 2, No. 19, Ed. 1 Thursday, March 9, 1905, newspaper, March 9, 1905; (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc227054/m1/1/: accessed April 25, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.