60 ALEXANDER AGASSIZ 



nothing has been less than 15 per cent by our present 

 processes. 1 



I will see your father in the course of a day or two 

 and tell him all I can about this, but although I have 

 put every cent of mine into these two mines, and have 

 no temptation to sell out at the present prices, I hate to 

 advise anybody about such precarious things as mines. 

 One thing you may be sure of that when there is any 

 screw loose I will be sure to let you know in time. I do 

 not think I shall be able to build this year, first, because 

 I have not the heart to sell out enough stock to pay for 

 the house, second because I think it probable that I 

 shall be at Lake Superior so often and so long that a 

 house would be only an incumbrance, while I know if I 

 have to postpone a year or more I shall not have to pay 

 so much. I have the land, a very nice piece, and it will 

 keep. 



Modest as this prophecy was compared to the ulti- 

 mate success of the enterprise, it seems singular that 

 Agassiz should have been so optimistic at this time, for 

 only shortly afterwards the mines found themselves in 

 serious trouble. The hard, heavy, and tenacious con- 

 glomerate was a very different thing to mine and mill 

 from the comparatively soft and less finely subdivided 

 amygdaloid rock hitherto mined in these parts ; the best 

 mining men of the day declared that it could not be 

 done at a profit. It was discovered that Hulbert had 

 grossly misrepresented the true condition of affairs as 

 they actually stood at Calumet, and the venture threat- 

 ened to end disastrously for all concerned. 



1 The original estimate of the average percentage of copper in the rock 

 was much exaggerated. 



