82 ALEXANDER AGASSIZ 



attempt to gloss them over; and I must say, if they 

 don't improve materially, my advice would be to sell out 

 the whole thing in a block, if it can be done, and let 

 somebody else try their hand at it. I have attempted, I 

 think, to do the work with too small tools on account of 

 expense, and am afraid we are attempting to dig a ditch 

 with toothpicks." 



However, when the mill got going smoothly, he found 

 that it would stamp nearly two hundred tons a day, and 

 his letters take a more cheerful tone ; on April 13 he 

 writes : — 



" I will acknowledge that my letters of March 18-25 

 were very much of weathercock style ; yet it was natural. 

 I had worked like a horse and had taken all precautions 

 I knew of to have things go off well from start ; and to 

 find on first handling how far below my expectations 

 everything seemed to be was pretty hard and I knew 

 everybody in district must have been only too glad to 

 see me fail. I did not make sufficient allowance for 

 things being new, railroad being a new thing up here, 

 and I had expected everything to start off first pop as 

 I had been accustomed to in coal mines where you do 

 as well first day as afterwards ; but then style of mine 

 accounts for difference. They are now commencing to 

 know their parts and everything is going along better, 

 and capacity of different parts of equipment is not so 

 far below my estimate. I also can see how to remedy 

 and improve what we have." 



But a few days later came a most discouraging ac- 

 cident : — 



