Harper's Round Table, August 25, 1896

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THOMPSON'S EYE WATER

The New Way of Extracting Gold.

In these days, when so much is heard about gold and silver, I thought the Table might like to know something about gold-mining at Cripple Creek. Well, everything here is new—the buildings, the shops, the whole town; but more remarkable than that fact is the one that the method of getting gold out of the earth is new too.
It is estimated that not fewer than 2500 men are at this moment walking over the rocks of Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and California looking for gold. Nobody prospects for silver nowadays. It is all gold. The reason for this is that gold is so valuable, and silver so cheap. But there is another reason, and that is that gold is found everywhere, and a new way has just been discovered for getting it out of the rock or sand in paying quantities. Hence gold-fields that once were not worth working are now rich in promise. Gold is one of the most plentiful of metals, but we have just found out how to get it.
Near Cripple Creek is the largest reduction-mill in the world. Into it are poured vast quantities of what look like cobble-stones, and out of it come fortunes every month. The way this is accomplished is by putting into the mill, with the cobble-stones—which cobble-stones have the gold in them—cyanide of potassium. This stuff looks just like common alum, but it is not alum by a good deal, for it is deadly poison. It is made from the hoofs, horns, and refuse of cattle. It has a wonderful way of taking hold of the particles of gold after the rock has been ground to a powder, and of letting the gold go again when it is wanted to do so. The effect is that rock that under the old processes was not worth handling is, under the new cyanide process, a "gold-mine" in reality.
This method of gold extraction was invented by two Scotchmen, and came here from Australia. Now there are a score of cyanide-mills in Colorado, and it is predicted that the next twenty years will see gold far more plentiful than the world ever dreamed possible for it to be.

Walter C. Newport, R.T.K.
Cripple Creek, Col.

Another Word from Distant South Africa.

I live in Africa. I am thirteen years old. My sister wrote you, and a great many American children have answered her letter. One little girl named Xena gave a description of herself which was so like me that when Bertha read the letter they all looked at me and laughed. So Bertha thought I'd be the best one to answer her. I wrote, but after five months of anxious waiting, my letter was returned to me. If Xena sees this I hope she will write again, and send her proper address in print writing.
Can you tell us what has become of the "Author of the clever contrivance"? He was among the first who wrote to Bertha. We are most interested in him, because he was an invalid. Bertha answered him, but he has not written again. Father gave us leave to subscribe to the Round Table, but there are so many troubles lately that we have been obliged to put it off—war, drought, and locusts. Besides eating the grass, beans, potatoes, and pumpkins, they have eaten the leaves off the fruit trees. The latter all look as if winter had come—all except the orange-trees. Father kept them off these trees with flags on long bamboos.

Florence Maria.
Koonah, via Grahamstown, South Africa, February.

Playing at Newspaper-Making.

When amateur papers attain the excellence of those made by professional journalists it is time for the latter fellows to bestir themselves. Ye Round-Table Jester comes to us from Brooklyn—the Avalonia Chapter, No. 792, No. 369 Lewis Avenue. The publishing committee consists of Sir Knights William Hathaway, Beverly Sedgwick, Frederic Cook, and Russell Molyneux. It is mimeograph print, type-writer text, in two colors, and profusely illustrated by "Bev"—Mr. Beverly S. King, who has won several Round Table illustration prizes. The prospectus says the artistic abilities of the Chapter "had to find vent somewhere." Genius always "gets there," you remember.

The front-page illustration shows two Knights, one of 1396, the other of 1896. One is in armor on a horse, the other in knickerbockers on a bicycle. Here are some Jester jokes:

BUT IT WOULDN'T WORK.

Mommer. "Johnny, what's Willy crying about? And why have you got that baby sitting out there in the sun?"

Johnny. "Why, Popper told me that if I left his tools out in the sun it would take all the temper out, so I thought I'd see if I couldn't get a little temper out of the baby."

ONE KIND OF A SCORCHER.

Tommy. "Say, Pop, I saw Bridget scorching this morning."

Pop. "What's that? Bridget on a wheel? I'll give her notice at once!"

Tommy. "Oh, that's all right, Pop. She was only scorching your shirt when she ironed it."

Kinks.

No. 23.—An Anagrammatical Acrostic.

If the cross-words—of equal length—are rightly guessed, one of the vertical columns will spell the name of an English scientist and astronomer of world-wide fame. The name is also concealed in the anagram.

A TOCSIN ANEW.

Cross-words.—1, To fawn. 2, A pendent ornament. 3, To spring, 4, A part of a flower. 5, A public alarm-bell. 6, To cogitate. 7, To hold fast. 8, An Indian dance. 9, To reel. 10, A boaster. 11, A showy but worthless ornament.

No. 24.—Rhymed Word-Square.

Vincent V.M. Beede, R.T.F.

No. 26.—A Riddle.

I am sometimes a quadruped; still, like a fish, I have scales running all over me. Some say I am foolish and put on airs, but I guess my argument is pretty sound. As an instance, though I own my own home, I live in board. Furthermore, I have the reputation of being square and upright; perhaps too much so, for I am often played upon. My name contradicts itself, and when I am largest I am called a "baby." I am a thing of note, and though extremely bulky, am always peddled. What am I?

Simon Theodore Stern.

No. 27.—A Day Out.

The name of the author of the work mentioned completes the sense.

A Beggar's Opera, Night Thoughts, Ivanhoe set out one day for a Fancy and Imagination. He was thoughtful enough, Alma to starting, to Uncle Tom's Cabin away a lunch of Essays of Elia and Novum Organum and some Scottish Chiefs bought from a The Country Girl. Being a Handy Andy of fishing, he carried also a The Christian Hero, The Soldier's Return tied to a The Cloister and the Hearth. He wore a Rab and his Friends The Faerie Queene and a Elegy in a Country Church-yard Song of a Shirt.

As he was a Hiawatha, he made Tale of a Tub progress, till he stumbled over some Queen Mab The Hunchback, and so got an Pleasures of the Imagination. "Land of Labor and of Gold Cotter's Saturday Night!" he exclaimed, in a Tristram Shandy, Sir Thomas Overbury voice. "It is enough to anger a Rape of the Lock or a The Circassian Bride. But what are The Excursion in curing a Age of Reason?" he asked, with a Deutsche Mythologie smile.

He made a fire to The Free his fish, and while they were The Ring and the Book he went to a Christabel to dig for ore, with the intention of showing it to a Vicar of Wakefield to see if Velasquez and his Works The Phrenologist could be made of it. He dug until the sound of a The Adventures of a London Doll and a Hohenlinden recalled him Douglas.

Answers to Kinks.

No. 19.

1, Union-Jack. 2, Jack-o'-lantern. 3, Jack-oak (American black-oak). 4, Jack Sprat. 5, Apple-jack. 6, Jellow Jack.

No. 20.

1, Iowa (I-owe-a). 2, Agate (a gate). 3, Cat's eye. 4, Jade.

No. 21.

1, Garnet (gar-net). 2, Quartz (quarts). 3, Opal (O pal!). 4, Hyacinth. 5, Jasper. 6, Jet.

No. 22.

Minerva, Eros, Atlas, Hecate, Achilles, Venus, Mars, Chiron, Pan, Janus, Io, Hebe, Ge, Midas, Ganymede, Ceres, Hera, Castor, Vesta, Hymen, Leto, Hermes, Orion.

Questions and Answers.

Frank T. Jones is wrong in his controversy with his friend. There are many higher spires in Europe than St. Paul's, London, which is 404 feet. The cathedral at Cologne, Germany, is 507 feet. "Ramie" is a Javanese word, adopted in the United States as the name of a kind of grass growing in China, Borneo, and Java. It is of the UrticaceÆ, or nettle, order of plant, and its fibre can be made into a cloth resembling silk. It is grown to some extent in our Southern States, and its culture is likely to increase.

D.A. Bowman, 4412 Delmar Avenue, St. Louis, Mo., says, "I would like to hear from amateur papers wanting stamp departments, also would like to receive copies of papers devoted to Round Table Chapters." Edward C. Wood asks if any one can tell him on what nights in August and November meteor showers come. A shower was expected on the night after the total eclipse of the sun during the second week in August, but so far as the Table has heard, no shower came. There is no particular date in August, November, or any other month when showers can be predicted with certainty.

Mary M. Hardy, aged fourteen, who may be addressed, College Campus, Easton, Pa., wants to hear from Marion M. Clute, whose morsel about that unreliable Florida lake interested her greatly. She asks Miss Marion to write her, and promises to respond at once. Leo Heileman, Box 823, Phoenix, Ariz., has Aztec relics, and is interested in mound-builders' relics and similar curios. He wants correspondents. A. Haven Smith, Orangeville, Pa., has seeds of Pennsylvania wild flowers, labelled with both common and scientific names, and is interested in Indian, Aztec, mound-builders, and all similar relics. Floyd Pennoyer, Schaghticoke, N.Y., asks Latin students to give him a literal translation of the following:

"Sunt hic etiam sua prÆmia laudi,
Sunt lacrimÆ verum."

Mail answers to him direct.

Why Boers Fight Well.

Having many chances at success proves often a disadvantage. General W.F. Molyneux, a fighter in the Transvaal, tells in Campaigning in South Africa and Egypt about going to the house of a Boer, upon the latter's invitation to become his guest on a deer-hunt. The General arrived on horseback, accompanied by one servant. Dismounting, he carried into the house a bag containing what would measure a peck or so of common cartridges. The Boer looked at the bag in astonishment, and exclaimed:

"You Englishmen must be very rich. Cartridges cost sixpence each here."

Rather mystified, and declaring that there are poor Englishmen, General Molyneux asked, "Where are your cartridges?"

"In this," replied the Boer, tapping his double-barrel.

"Then you don't intend to do much shooting?"

"Well, two spring-buck are as much as I can carry."

"Suppose you miss?"

"Nobody misses when a cartridge costs sixpence."

The sequel was that the Boer got his two deer, one for each cartridge, while the General fired five shots and got one.

Anachronisms In Art.

Tintoretto's painting representing the children of Israel gathering manna in the desert shows the Hebrews armed with guns; while Brenghall, a Dutch artist, in a picture of the Wise Men of the East, placed in the hand of an Indian prince, as an offering to the Holy Child, the model of a seventy-four.

John Cobbe.

A Day at an Arapahoe School.

Perhaps the Round Table would like to hear of a visit I made to an Arapahoe Indian school here. My sister and I started with our host from his home, in El Reno, about nine o'clock. We rode until two that afternoon. There was a river to ford, and some steep hills to climb. In about fifteen minutes after our arrival the exercises began. It was the time of breaking up for the summer. A chorus of Indian children sang a queer little song, of which I could not understand a word. Then followed recitations, addresses by the directors of the school, and songs by the children. All the Indian girls wore purple calico dresses, with white cotton stockings and heavy shoes, and the boys wore dark jackets and trousers, with white shirts, and the same kind of foot-wear. They speak and recite in a very singsong, monotonous manner.
After the exercises were over, the guests were asked to go through the school. The school-rooms were large and airy, and there were some good specimens of sewing, clay-modelling, etc. Some of the Indian children have curious names. Hilda Two Babies, Myra Long Neck, and Charlie Good Bear were some I heard. After a while we went out into the grounds. All around on the grass chairs were set, and these were occupied by "braves." One brave was standing in the centre of a large circle, talking and gesticulating most energetically. On the grass the squaws had ensconced themselves. Not one of them would sit on a chair. They thought it was too civilized.
The children had scattered, and were sitting with their parents, or hanging round the white people, watching. In about an hour men came around and distributed boiled rice, potatoes, and meat. Each family was provided with a tin dish or old coffee-pot, and each held the receptacle out for a share of the repast. The Indian babies, I think, are very cunning little brown things. The braves of the Arapahoe tribe have long tassels of leather, and sometimes fox-tails, fastened to the ends of their moccasins, at the back. They scarcely lift their heels in walking, and so they have a shuffling gait.

Ruth S. Brooke, R.T.L.
The Bishop's House, Guthrie, Oklahoma.

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