COLORADO. 



119 



States, by the terms of the treaty of March 2, 

 1868, with the Indians, is to enforce their crim- 

 inal laws within the limits of the reservation 

 against all classes of offenders. If the State 

 be conceded jurisdiction in this case, it would 

 be entitled to enforce its own criminal statutes, 

 now in force or to be enacted in the future, 

 against whites or Indians, in all parts of the 

 reservation; and thus it would lie in the pow- 

 er of the State to defeat and destroy the treaty 

 entered into with the Indians by the Govern- 

 ment. All the Indian reservations granted by 

 Congress have been kept within the jurisdic- 

 tion of the United States, whether located in 

 Territories or States; and no instance has been 

 known of a tribe of Indians and its reservation 

 being handed over without their consent into 

 the control of a State. 



In a letter of instructions from the Commis- 

 sioner of the General Land-Office, the Govern- 

 ment surveyor in surveying mining claims is 

 directed to base the survey on one lode only, 

 and to make it conform more or less nearly to 

 the figure of a parallelogram. According to the 

 law, a miner can locate 1,500 feet along the 

 length of a vein or lode and 3 ;0 feet to each 

 side of its center. It is not allowable to work 

 the claim beyond the vertical planes drawn from 

 the end-lines when it abuts upon the claim of 

 another ; but laterally it is permitted to fol- 

 low the dip of the lode beyond the side-lines. 

 If the survey does not follow the general direc- 

 tion of the vein or lode, and the side-lines of 

 the surface claim cross the vein, the miner is 

 debarred from working further along the length 

 of the vein than the vertical plane from his 

 side-line at that point. Claims can not be made 

 to depart so far from the form of a parallelo- 

 gram, upon the supposition that the strike of 

 the vein or lode is tortuous, that the side-lines 

 may fall across the course of other veins; and 

 therefore the surveyor is instructed not to 

 allow claims of an angular form in which the 

 end-lines are not parallel with each other or 

 nearly so. When the top or apex of a second 

 vein is discovered within the surface bounda- 

 ries of a miner's claim, he is confined in his 

 right to operate it to closer restrictions than 

 apply to the vein on which his claim is based ; 

 and in working the original vein he is allowed 

 to pass his boundaries only to follow its natu- 

 ral dip, but not along its 'length, whether his 

 surface plot conform to the true course of the 

 vein or not. 



A general strike of the miners commenced at 

 Leadville on May 26th. More than 7,000 hands 

 are employed in the mines at this point. The 

 action of the strikers was preconcerted in se- 

 cret. A band of several hundred men went 

 first to one of the larger mines and called all 

 the men out early in the morning. In con- 

 stantly augmenting numbers they visited each 

 mine in succession. Before night work had 

 ceased in every mine in the camp. About 

 5,000 miners took part in the strike, the re- 

 mainder remaining in their homes. The mine 



owners and managers took rapid measures to 

 protect their property. Strong guards were 

 posted at the shafts of all the leading mines, 

 and barricades were erected. After some 

 weeks the citizens of Leadville, fearing that the 

 managers would close the mines for an indefi- 

 nite period and the business of the town would 

 be destroyed, organized a vigilance committee 

 on the llth of June, and on the 13th Govern- 

 or Pitkin was prevailed upon to proclaim mar- 

 tial law. The militia patrolled the town, and 

 orders were issued closing the public houses, 

 forbidding the carrying of arms without a per- 

 mit and the gathering of groups of more than 

 two upon the streets. The president of the 

 strikers' association, Michael Mooney, was 

 arrested while at a Greenback Convention in 

 Denver on the 15th. Upon the promise of the 

 personal safety of their leaders, the strikers 

 quieted down, and work was resumed in the 

 mines, new hands largely taking the place of 

 the old miners. The cause of the strike was 

 stated to be the strict rules introduced in some 

 of the mines against talking or smoking dur- 

 ing working hours ; the declared object was 

 an increase of wages from three dollars to four 

 dollars a day, and a reduction of the hours of 

 labor from a ten-hour to an eight-hour shift. 

 The strike is estimated to have occasioned a 

 loss of about $4,000,000, this being the amount 

 of metal which would have been produced dur- 

 ing the time in which the mines andsmelting- 

 works were kept idle. 



The total bullion output of Leadville, for the 

 calendar year 1880, amounted to $15,095,153, 

 against $10,189,521 in 1879. The aggregate 

 product of the Leadville mining district from 

 the days of early placer mining is computed 

 as follows: 



1860-18T3, gold from placers $6,400.000 



1874, gold and silver 145,000 



1875, gold and silver 113.000 



1876, gold, silver, and lead 8&800 



1 377, gold, silver, and lead 555.330 



1 873, gold, silver, and lead 3,152,925 



1879, gold, silver, and lead 10,189,521 



18SO, gold, silver, and lead 15,095,153 



Total up to 1831 $35,736,129 



The total product of Colorado, as given in the 

 annual report for 1880 of Wells, Fargo & Co., 

 is $21,284,989, or over one fourth of the total 

 yield of the United States, being $3,000,000 

 greater than California's product, and $6,000,- 

 000 more than that of Nevada. 



The mineral discoveries are not often de- 

 veloped rapidly in Colorado, owing to the large 

 amount of capital required not only to sink the 

 shafts but to erect smelters, without which the 

 ores of many of the camps are of very little 

 value. Among the most important new min- 

 ing points besides several in Gunnison County 

 are Rico and Breckinridge. The latter is the 

 shire town of Summit County, and has been for 

 many years a placer-camp. Mineral deposits 

 were discovered here as early as 1859. Lately 

 rich veins have been opened in the neighbor- 

 ing mountains, and the place has developed into 



