THE CALUMET AND HECLA MINE- 81 



incline ready, I could commence stamping in twenty- 

 four hours. The wood work is all out for that now and 

 carpenters commence to put it together to-morrow, and 

 to-day will, I trust, finish everything at head of incline 

 and take rock down. But this infernal weather beats all 

 my calculations — shovelling snow, shovelling snow — 

 so that forenoon is spent in shovelling what snow fell 

 during night and you get afternoon to work if the snow 

 does not drive too hard." 



The early tests of the mill did not come up to expec- 

 tations, and in the middle of March he was utterly dis- 

 couraged, and almost ready to abandon the enterprise. 



" I am afraid we must consider Hecla a failure as far 

 as equipment is concerned ; it is not adequate for pur- 

 pose and has just missed being what was needed by a 

 little, which little will increase materially the cost of 

 running and increase cost sheet considerably and thus 

 lessen greatly the small profit we expected to make with 

 two heads. I have done the best I could, but I am satis- 

 fied from the result that I have made many blunders 

 and that much money has been spent which will not 

 affect the purpose for which it was intended simply 

 from my want of experience of the ways of men up here. 

 I had been used before, when asking a man about things 

 which he made his specialty, to get some reliable inform- 

 ation and have based many of my blunders as it turns 

 out on just such information, which is perfectly worth- 

 less, and all you can take here which is good for any- 

 thing is actual working practice, which I have had no 

 time from our peculiar position to study. 



"We must look at things just as they are and not 



