MILLIONS GOING BEGGING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 220, 10 September 1908, Page 4

MILLIONS GOING BEGGING.

It would be dillicult to imagine a mininjj lowa wiiii a history more yomance than that of Cobali, some :>ot) miles norlii of Toronto. When tne work of excavation for the railway was in progress tile excavators valued tne glistening rocks through which liiey blasted their way, as only excellent railroad ballasi. "At one part in the road they cut through the cud of a clill', from which hundreds of thousands of silver has since been taken," says a Canadian niagaziue. "Tile blackened, heavy, rough fragments were cursed as iatoleraJjle barriers to a railway." The ballast for the track was, worth .CIOOO a toa, but no one suspected it, and millions went begging for an owner. A couple jof weeks later two lumber, contractors noticed a-a outcrop of silver ore, pegged out a claim, and made their fortunes. There is a French-Canadian ex'blacksinith who can tell a curious story of luck. One day as lie was busy at his forge near Cobalt, he spied a. ml fox in a bush close by. He resented ■being watched by iL fox, so picking up his hammer, lie hurled at the animal. The hammer struck, not the fox, but a rock, and chipped a piece oil', .showing a bright metallic streak. To shorten the story, that blacksmith can now all'ord to watch other people working. Cobalt is very young, yet the mines of (lie district have produced ,C 2,300,000 worth of silver. Cobalt is a "illy" town hi more ways than one. There is no legal sale of liquor and water has cost as much as 2k a gallon. There is none of tile violence so often found ill mining camps, but the roads a,til sanitary arrangements are deplorable, and rents of mere lulls run from CIO lo Cl2 a nioiilh. There was the usual boom, enginfered by brokers wilin had never been w'ilbin twenty miles of their properties, but issued gorgeously euloivil painphlels and were free with daz/.liag specimens of ore. The boom lias burst, anil Cobalt, sadd-er but wiser, faces a duller but more solid future.