342 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 1. 



dollar's worth of gold Is securely locked up iti, 

 say, a hundred dollars' worth of copper, and 

 it would take an expert burglar, I tell yon, to 

 break the lock that holds the gold cotubined 

 with the copper. So these great bricks are 

 loaded on tu fr.-ight-cars, and run clear across 

 the Uniu-d States, with as much safety as if 

 they were blocks of paving stones, and yet 

 they may contain millions of gold. In fact, it 

 has been estimated that the Jerome mine has 

 produced as high as eight millions of dollars' 

 worth of gold in a single year. 



ELECTRICITY VERSUS MULE POWER IN MINING. 



The Jerome mines are said to be the first in 

 the world to pull out their ores by substituting 

 an eleciric motor in place of the time honored 

 mule. With ordinary mining, a mule or other 

 animal pulls a single car; but the eleciric motor 

 will pull a train of a dozen cars or more, all la- 

 den with ore. It wa^ my good fortune to stand 

 at the mouth of one of the tunnels when the 

 motor came out with its string of ore. Said 

 motor is about the size and shape of a good- 

 sized cooking-stove. Imagine a large sized 

 cooking-stove mounted on wheels, with the en- 

 gineer sitting on the stove-hearth, and you have 

 it. He sits on the stove hearth, or a low down 

 seat, because his head would be hitting the 

 roof of the mine were it otherwise. Then he 

 does his switching and backing up and going 

 aJtiead, etc., by simply " pressing" the proper 

 '• button." I was kindly invited to take a seat 

 on the motor, and ride around the yard in the 

 open air while he pushed certain cars here and 

 there as the workmen wanted them for conven- 

 ience in building up the piles of wood and ore for 

 roasting, as 1 have described. 



1 was very anxious to accompany the motor 

 away back under ground into, the mountain; 

 but my companion had told me that nobody 

 was allowed to view the mineral wealth the 

 company had discovered in their underground 

 tunneling. Not even the bosses and proprii'lors 

 of the mine were permitted to view the com- 

 pany's wealth unless they were specially em- 

 ployed in the mine, and the workmen were not 

 communicative, for reasons best known to 

 themselves. 



Now. lest some of you may think it worth 

 your while to take a trip to the Jerome gold- 

 mines to get a job, let me tell you there are men 

 standing around all the while, waiting for a 

 chance to work. Mr. Jordan told me of a man 

 who walked over that crooked railway all the 

 way from Prescott to Jerome, then waited for a 

 chance to get a job, without any thing to eat 

 until some time in the middle of th^ night, 

 when a man was found lacking. Then he 

 worked several hours without any sleep or food, 

 so as to secure a place. The man who is not on 

 hand to take his place when the whistle blows 

 loses his place, and somebody else steps into his 

 shoes. If he makes an arrangement to be ab- 

 sent, or gives some good reason why he can not 

 be at his post, I presume he might hold his job; 

 but the man who is awav, with no explanation, 

 is out. I wonder what the friends in our estab- 

 lishment would say if we should substitute a 

 similar rule. 



A competent physician is employed by the 

 year, and a small per cent of each man's wages 

 is held back as a fund to pay the doctor's bill; 

 so that the man who is sick does not have 

 to stand the expanse of medical care. I am 

 not sure but this fund, or a similar one, supports 

 the man's family while he is sick, or in case 

 of accident and loss of life. Each man as he is 

 employed is oblieed to submit to this small 

 assessment as required. 



I was obliged to take my departure from Je- 



rome before daylight. This I greatly regretted, 

 because I missed a view of the grand scenery. 

 There was just a glimpse of dawn as we start- 

 ed; and after we were out four or five miles I 

 could see tolerably. The San Francisco Moun- 

 tains loomed up in glorious majesty at almost 

 every point around Jerome. In fact, we had 

 them constantly in view when we were making 

 that trip between Camp Verde and Jerome. 

 The two peaks are just a little north of Flag- 

 staff, right on the road to that wonderful Grand 

 Canyon. I do not remember now their height; 

 but it is great enough so they are constantly 

 white with snow. A little further west, and 

 the celebrated peak "Bill Williams'' looms 

 proudly up in the distance. 



Before leaving the locality I want to give you 

 a little bit of illustration in regard to that 

 crooked railroad. In railroading all over the 

 United States we often see a " horseshoe" fea- 

 ture as it is called. In order to avoid the ex- 

 pense of a bridge across a valley, railroad men 

 often run around, as it were, so that the track, 

 after making quite a horseshoe loop, comes 

 around m^ar to the place of starting. Now, the 

 Jerome railroad not only makes some wonder- 

 ful horseshoes, but it has a horseshoe within a 

 horseshoe. In the figure below I have not 

 tried to draw a man's face. 



First we have the large curve; then, in order 

 to get in and out around the mountain, we 

 have the short curves bark and forth, so the 

 passfuger, if he keeps his eyes open, and fixes 

 them on some point on the mountain, sav at A, 

 he will be able to see this point again at B, then 

 after a while at C, then again at D, and finally 

 at E, where he will be only a few rods from 

 where he left A perhaps an hour before, only a 

 little lower down, and this sort of thing is being 

 enacted again and again on that United Verde 

 Railway. 



I was exceedingly fortunate in having for my 

 traveling companion my good friend F. E Jor- 

 dan, as he had business in Prescott. He told 

 me there is one place just out of Jerome where 

 the railroad has 14 miles of track in order to ac- 

 complish a distance of only h}4 miles— nearly 

 three miles of crookedness to get ahpad one 

 straight mile. The railroad is about 2.500 feet, 

 or nearly half a mile, higher than the Verde 

 River, which seems like a slender thread of sil- 

 ver all along the valley. 



About 40 tons of copper are sent off by this 

 crooked railway every day in the year. At the 

 moderate price of 10 cts. per lb., tne copper 

 alone would be worth $8000 a day; and there is 

 a sort of understanding among the workmen 

 that the gold in these ingots is worth about 

 ticice as much as the copper. 



Our Homes. 



The cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of 

 rici)es, and the lusts of other thlng-s entering: in, 

 choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.— Mark. 

 4:19. 



The principal thought I have in mind in the 

 above words, spoken by our Savior, is that part 

 about the deceitfulness of riches. Probably 



