GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



341 



1 think I told you the population of .lorome 

 w-is about •-•(KW. Of thi:. number about GuO 

 are at work in ihn mines. Wages average 

 about ?=:< Taaday. Now IJKure this up for seven 

 days in a week and you will see huw much 

 hard casii is paid to workmen in that one mine 

 every wet k; and 1 suppose it is true ilut some- 

 thing like $15,000 a wei-k is what the fompany 

 pays its men. Hut, hold on. friends. They not 

 only work week days and Sundays, but ihey 

 work i:ay and night. There is no stopping at 

 all of the ponderous machinery. If 1 am cor- 

 rect, there are extra engines and dyn.mios and 

 other machines, so that one can be hitched on 

 while the other is being overhauled and repair- 

 ed. When the machines wear out they get 

 new ones; and when the men wear out they 

 get new ones You may think the wages pretty 

 high; but please remember that board, even by 

 the week, is about a dollar a day; and if you 

 rent a decent house to live in, your reut is a 

 dollar a ilay. and other things in proportion. 

 Wnnd is -i^T.iK) a cord. They do not draw it in 

 wagons, a> we do, but it is carried on the backs 

 of patient and faithful burros. These burros 

 need no graded road, such as a wagon must 

 have. They toil patiently up and down a foot- 

 path or trail sometimes almost too rough and 

 narrow for one to go on foot. I was greatly in- 

 terested in the burros. The man who furnishes 

 wood comes into town with perhaps half a 

 dozen. He talks to them as he would talk to a 

 well-trained dog, and they are wonderfully 

 obedient to his voice. Their load is so great 

 that it is sometimes a difficult matter for them 

 to keep their balance. A sort of rack made of 

 wood and ropes holds the load of wood — not so 

 much on their backs, but each side of their 

 backs being about equally balanced. They 

 seem nervously afraid of running against any- 

 body or against each other; in fact, it makes 

 me think of a rider on a wheel carrying a con- 

 siderable burden. If you look at the feet of tne 

 burro and the size of his slender legs, it seems 

 almost incredible that he can carry such loads; 

 and, in fact, they often do jostle over and go 

 rolling down the mountain. In that case it is 

 no great financial loss if the burro is killed, for 

 they cost only nbout five or ten dollars. When 

 they come into town each seems very anxious 

 to have his load removed. The driver is always 

 careful to take the wood first from one side and 

 then the other, so as not to throw the little 

 animal out of balance. When he is relieved of 

 his burden he seems very thankful; and while 

 his master is unloading his comrades, he takes 

 the opportunity of looking about to see what 

 he can pick up in the way of provender. I 

 asked one of the clerks at a grocery what burros 

 fed on. He replied: 



•'Oh! any sort of rubbish they can pick up. 

 In fact, they eat almost any thing. Some folks 

 say the burros eat tin cans when they can 

 not do any better. This I can not prove, but I 

 do know they eat all sorts of waste paper; and 

 when a burro can get hold of the outside casing 

 of smoked hams then he has a picnic indeed. 

 Why! they are regular scavengers. They pick 

 up almost every thing that is thrown out of 

 the front door or the back door, all over town."* 



*Mrs. Jordan told me Fhe saw a burro one day 

 that must have got strayi d away from his comrades. 

 He came into town alone, and marched up to a 



I had quite a curiosity to know more about 

 the source of the waterworks that supplied the 

 town. In the afternoon, when niji-good friend 

 Mr. Jordan was obliged to resume nis work, f 

 secured the services of Master Harold .j.ruan. 

 fie is just about the age of Huber, and. like 

 Huber, Is greatly interested in any thing about 

 electricity. I told him some things he wanted 

 to know, and lie tola me a good deal that / 

 wanted to know. Among other things, he said 

 if I did not mind the walk he would go with 

 me to the spring that feeds the flume that 

 pours its contents into the great water-tank, 

 iiOO feet above the town. First we took a burro- 

 path up over the mountains. On the way we 

 passed under an apparatus that strongly at- 

 tracted my atteniloii. It is what they call a 

 ■■ bucket-line." It was pui. up ten years ago, 

 before the railroad was built This bucket-line 

 is an arrangement of a stationary cable and a 

 movable cable elevated on posts or poles, so as 

 to run a bucket along the wire for a distance of 

 nine miles. I should say, rather, a strUirj of 

 buckets, for the buckets are perhaps 100 feet 

 apart. On one side they go to the town of 

 Jerome loaded, and on the other side they go 

 back empty. Of course, a steam engiue works 

 the machinery. Harold toM me it took the 

 buckets from morning till night to make the 

 trip; for one of the boys wrote something on a 

 piece of pap r and put it into a bucket in the 

 morning, and it did not reach Jerome until 

 night. This bucket-line brought in fuel, lime- 

 stone from a distant quarry, and supplies of 

 other kinds that might be needed. Of course, 

 such an apparatus could run from cliff to clilT, 

 over and through tree- tops, and across yawn- 

 ing chasms where even a burro could not make 

 his way. 



Now we went up hill and down hill in going 

 to that spring; but when we found it, it was 

 off in a little valley or canyon where a little 

 stream came down between the hills. Said I: 



■' Why, Harold, this spring can not be higher 

 up than that great tank away up above where 

 you live ? " 



"Why, it looks so, Mr Root; but if it were 

 not higher, how in the world would the water 

 run? and it does run all the way, and seems to 

 be down hill too, for we boys have followed it 

 away around the mountain. It i.s a good way 

 farther than the way we came, but it is surely 

 down hill all the way." 



Here, again was another illustration of that 

 queer feature of these mountainous regions. 



The United Verde & Pacific Railroad comes 

 into Jerome away up above the town. If you 

 want to see the railroad station you have to 

 look away up. This railway is proud of the 

 distinction of being the crookedest road on the 

 face of the earth— at least, folks say so. In- 

 stead of following watercourses through the 

 valleys it runs a good deal of the way along 

 the crests of the mountains; and of course it 

 has to do a great deal of twisting and turning 

 to keep any sort of level. I suppose one object 

 in bringing it in at such an elevation above the 

 highest point of the smeltingworks is that the 

 freight may be all dropped down an incline to 

 such a point in the mines as it may be most 

 needed. In loading the cars with the copper 

 and gold, these metal ingots are simply run up 

 on a powerful elevator. 



By the way, there can not anybody steal gold 

 from this mine — not even the workmen. Every 



woodpile and looked around in a pleading sort of 

 way to have somebody unload him; a .d then he 

 went to anoth r woodpile, and so on all around the 

 neighborhood. Nobody could unload him, because 

 nobody had a right to do so, and so the poor fellow 

 was in trouble indeed. 



