Millions in Zinc Deposits of Northern Arkansas
IT HAS lout- boon n favorite prophvy
among minors that the zinc market
could easily bo cornered, boc.utso then
Is no Hiuli thing s scrap metal to
Interfere with tlu- oninploto control of tho
mining output. Hut this tlrenni must now
be dlspolloil. for tho discovery of tnllllons
nf dollars worth of tho motni In Arkansas
will render a corner Impossible. It would
not oven bo possible to buy up tho mines
nnd form a combination, because nearly
all the mines aro on government land, of
which any one person may buy but 1120
acres. While htindtcds of prospective set
tlers nro agreeing under tho government
ink- to settle In the prairie states on the
Indian reservation, then- are thousands and
thousands of acres owned by the govern
mint In tlu zinc district of Arkansas which
may be (.btained by any citizen free under
the homestead law or which may be pur
chased outright for $ I -J." an acre The
land is all underlaid with zinc, nnd there
Is a fortune in It for tho settlor, It he has
patience to wait awhile-, for the very rich
est district Is not on the railroad. It Is
truly a remarkable condition. Several rail
road's nro lining Into the district which
heretofore has been a much despised re
gton. nnd the day that the llrst one nets
Its feeders into tho mines thousands of
people who can hardly grub a living off
their land now will become wealthy. And
yet all tho government land is not taken
up, although the rush Into tho district Is
tretneliib lit.
I have mined for gold and silver In Mnlin
ami I'oltrndo, but I never saw such a pecu
liar boom condition. Tho people travel
everywhere on horseback and by wagon
Yin can travel over a radius of flOO miles
In a bunny, and In that whole area millions
of dollars worth of zinc would lie under
the hoiscs' feet, of absolutely no use to tho
world as yet because of tho lack of rail
roads to transport It. Of course tho sumo
might bo said of tho Alasknn coal bods, but
hero the condition exists only n few m!!o.
from the center of population of tho United
Stales. It Is only a .picstlon of a short
time when the railroads will go Into the
district, but Just now tho most feasible
mode of travel Is by stag" or by llatboat
down tho river.
Hvery one In the region Is dealing In
futures. Hvery cue Is waiting, waiting,
waiting for the wealth to come. The
cocksure conlldence of the religious con
vert Is not more full of tho promise of
the rewards of the future than arc these
people of their coming prosperity. You
can not buy oro from then now, oven at
tho small margin of suro proilt obtained
by hauling tho mineral In carts to tho rail
road terminus 100 miles awny. "Why,"
they say, "tho oro will be worth dollnrs
where It Is now worth pennies when tho
railroad gets through. Tho Interest will
warrant a few years' waiting."
Near Jasper, Marlon county, 1,000 tons
of oro lie piled on the ground waiting for
the future market. It Is nt least 00 per
cent ore, and tho mine from which It came
seems to bo Inexhaustible. Tho thousand
tons were blown right off tho surface of
the ground. On tho llultalo river there Is
a shaft which had been sunk sixty-seven
feet through zinc and the oro seemed to
be getting better In grade tho further down
they went. The bcttoni of that shaft had
water In it. and from what tho writer could
learn the owner had Intentionally placed it
there for tho purpose of concealing his
bonanza from tho gaze of objectionable
neighbors and claim-Jumpers. Near Dudd
City is another shaft 125 feet deep, ninety
feet of which was pay ore. llotwecn liar
rhtcn and Dodd City a Massachusetts man
riches as well, for their farm rests on the
zinc bed, and when the railroad gels
through (the Inevitable preface to all things
In that region) they expect to settle down
to a life of case and comfort somewhere
In civilization. You meet instances of this
Kind all through the region.
Meantime the railroads are racing one
another to bring the futures of these peopl
nearer to them. The St. Louis & San Finn
Cisco railroad has already got as far as
Harrison on the way to Ycllvllle, the cen
ter of the zinc district. One of tho Mould
that tho end of It mean wealth for limit
The roads will radiate like a star fr in the
center of the zinc district.
A curious feature Is th altitude (f ih
Jopilu miners towards the new dlslnot
X.itc ore I locally known as "Jink." and
Joplln. Mo, Is the town that Jack bull:
Judglhg the new tlnds by their own re
gion, the Jopilu miners do not believe so
much oro can exist In tho direction of
Ycllvllle. They say tho dip should carry
It away from there. One of the e men full
of theory came down to l'nnther creek and
ONLY METHOD OF TRAVEL IN THE Z INC COUNTRY.
who had purchased eighty acres at $2.00 an
acre refused $90,000 for his laud, and stands
pat for $100,000 when tho railroad gets
through.
Tho writer was riding along a mountain
road one morning and stopped at a farm
gate for a drink of wntcr. The woman who
procured the water seemed to bo better
educated than most of the people of the
neighborhood. During our conversation
she said she had come from Chicago. Her
husband's health had broken down and
with almost their last means they had
purchased a mountain farm In Arkansas.
They paid only $3 an acre. They had lived
there three years. Hut In going there tho
man had found not only his lost health, but
roads is constructing n connecting' link
pasting to the northwest near Harrison Into
tho Joplln district. Another road will bi
built from Salem, Mo to Fort Smith, pass
ing right through the zinc bolt. Still an
other road is being built from Ilanlson to
Wmnorva, the head of navigation on tho
White river, where tho government la put
ting In locks and dams to Improve tho
water transportation. One of tho roads Is
boring a tunnel 1,000 feet long through the
mountain near Eureka Springs. It Is all
mountainous country and tho obs a les
with which the roads have to contend make
the race exciting. The mlno owners watch
the offorts put forth In their behalf nnd
take all things good naturedly, knowing
explained to ono of the new distn. t owners,
an old man, how impossible It was that
any oio could exist in tho region. All the
laws of geology and inctullurg, ho said,
were against It. After some arguing tho
old miner got angry, went to his shanty an I
returned presently with n drill lie bored
a hole, put In a charge of powd r and blew
out a couple of tons of zinc oio from th-
very spot on which the man of theory ha I
been standing during the argument. It con
verted the Jopilu man.
Jack is not the only good thing of which
the region boasts, There arc many nat
ural curiosities around about. Near 'West
ern (Irovo thero Is a cave which extends
under ground for over tight miles. Ex
plorers havo towed on tho underground
rier fir that distance, and they did not
.-co the end ef It. They were afraid of
i tiuuing out of provisions and getting lost
If ihe wmt further. At Jasper thoto Is
another large cave, which has sp.etacular
features The columns within It, formed
by tho stalactites and stalagmites which
have become Joined, are over fifty fiot
high. Some of them are pure white. Others
aro discolored by the earthy substances
which drip fiom the limestone roof of tho
cave. This Is called tho Diamond cave, be
cause of the way In which tho crysta.s
scintillate when light Is thrown on them.
In emo of the great chambcis eif the Dia
mond cavo the- columns gave feitth a musical
note when struck sharply with a stick. The
old guide who charged $2 for taking mo
through struck seveial of these column?
Each was of a diiToront pitch, and If a
musician could jump around quickly enough
from column to column ho might manage
to play a tune. The place gives one tho
linpiesslon of a gicat pipe organ under
ground. Hut the native has no time for thoje
natural wonders, which In a nioie accessi
ble region would soon become world tuuious
Ills lulk Is all of Jack -steel Jack, ruby
Jack, resin Jack, salmon Jack, puhhlo Jack
and all the either Jacks, and the fact th.it
though the yield eif tho Joplln Held hut
year was worth $10,000,000. yoi If only thus
mines In tin- Arhiinms Held already op. nod
are worked thero aro already $7,000,000
worth eif eire waiting fur railroad tians
pollution. Curiously enough, the) discovery
of zinc tire In this legion was lundo in
Arkansas and not In Missouri. The natives,
though, were looking for silver ami when
they found zinc they abandoned It In disgust
Vet the mine the-y abandoned has turned
out the richest In the district. Two faruiuts'
girls made! the discovery. Driving homo the
cows ono evening, they picked up pieces of
a shining mineral, which they called Dickers
Tho men folks, however, thought they hail
found pieces of silver, ami a company win
formed nnd prtiipcctlug begun. They round
a ledge where tho oro showed thick and
they Imported two (icrtuuu metallurgists,
who built them a smelter planned according
to tho old .Spanish pattern. It Is still
standing. 'Tho smelter was filled with ore
nnd charcoal and they held Indies to catch
thti molten silver when It ran out. lint It
tlid not run ami nil they got wits the fumes
of Hit) metal passing up from the smelter, or,
us one uatlvt s put It, thero "rlz the hcautlful
est rainbow you ever seed." That was over
thirty years ago and they did not think
enough of zinc then to develop tho ledge.
Yet the Mornlngstar mine, as tho site Is
now called, contains the greatest deposit
eif zinc eiver unreivorcd in thu history of
mining. It Is really a zinc tpiarry. Tho llrst
blast threw off hundreds of tons of 10 per
cent ore) nnd tho tiro face now exposed Is
sixty feet thick. Thero Is really no es
timating the value of the ore In sight and
yet so crude lire the triilisportatlou facilities
that tho ore now being nintketed Is rafted
200 miles down the river.
A FT Hit THK HARVEST COME THE THRESHERS TO NEBRASKA'S WHEAT FIELDS Photos by a Staff Artist.
Messengers from the Polar Seas
liy I'.velyii llrinus liiiklwin, Conimuiulcr
of the ILiluwin-Zcij-ler l'olur Kx-podition.
(Copyright. Hid. by H IS. lluldvvln )
I T Is only In recent years that Arctic
explorers have attempted to keep in
touch with tho world after onro leav
ing their bases of supplies until tholr
return thereto. Tho old way meant
not only months of Isolntlon In tho Arctic
regions, but also as many months of watt
ing on the part of the civilized world for
news of theso seekers for an eluslvo
geographic point. Nor have recent elTorts
to overcome this latter condition of affairs
boon marked by any great degreo of suc
cess. Tho history of nil tho expeditions
which have set forth to determine the
secrots so Jealously guarded by tho Ice
sphinx of tho north have shown this groat
lack of detail. Tho chronicles of events
occurring In that almost unknown legion
lying beyond tho olghtloth parnllel nro novnr
written until tho return of tho survivors or
of tho relief expeditions For months
sometimes years tho members of an Arctic
party aro dead to all tho known world.
What would Americans not give to know
what Peary has been doing for nearly two
years past. What would Sweden not give to
learn of the wanderings of Andrei- and the
fate of hluuclf anil his two comrades?
The expedition which I havo tho honor
to command typifies In Its equipment for
Informing tho world of our progress tho
truo spirit of tho twentieth century. In
tho matter of exploration wo shall to a
largo extent tako up the quest whoro our
ptodecessors left off. Certainly no previous
expedition to tho north has ever nmtlo such
cotnploto arrangements for the transmis
sion of news back to civilization. When
Andrco sailed away four years ngo ho took
with him thirty-two pigeons and thirteen
buoys. Ono of tho pigeons returned four
days nftorvvnrd, bearing tho lust nows over
henrd of Andrea a brief sontenco giving
his location nnd tho direction In which ho
was then traveling. Of tho thirteen buoys
supposed to have) been sut adrift by him
two havo thus far been recovered -ono olf
thu north coast of Iceland and the other on
King Charles' Land, 1,200 miles away. It
should bo remembered Hint Andree hud no
device for releasing his buoys, being com
pelled to thtow thorn from tho ear of hW
balloon. It Is more than likely that some
of them wore crushed anil broken by tho fall
upon tho Ice.
Profiting by Androo's experience, therei
foro, I decided to adopt n typo of buoy
somewhat slmllnr to his carrying the Stnrs
and Stripes Instead of tho flag of Sweden
and I devised a plan of rolcaslng each buoy
without Involving tho risk of any injury
to It. If two out of thirteen Andree buoys
could bo recovered, why should not n larger
proportion of nioro carefully devised ones
rent out by my pnrty no recovered? We
shnll employ balloons to carry tho buoys
back southward, and I fully expect that tho
news of our progress toward tho polo will
be- had quickly and frequently. Not only
nmy this news feature be nccoinplishod, but
If wo reach the pole and we have deter
mined that nothing shall stop us tho news
of this triumph may hu brought back
months before wo shall get to civilization.
Two hundred of tho buoys nro to bo placed
nt stntions on tho east coast of (Ireenland
to bo used by any of my party who may
re-neb theso points on their return. It may
bo stated here that we havo chosen tho east
coast of (Ireenland its our objectlvo point
nfter reaching the pole.
Iloforo tho end of the present summer we
hope to establish our main station some
where In tho neighborhood of tho elghty
llrst parnllel on tho eastern sldo of tho
British channel among tho islands of I 'ran.
Josof Land. Thence wo shnll move north
ward through the loo until tho America,
my flagship, shnll ho frozen In, and from
this station wo shall transport sitlllclont
supplies and equipment to establish an ad
ditional base at the very northernmost point
of Fruuz Josef Laud. Soon aftur this shall
have boon accomplished thu long Arctic
night will havo begun and hero we shnll bo
obliged to stay until Maich, 1002. Mean
time, however, wo shall bo making observa
tions of wind, weather, clouds and various
Arctic phenomena, and records of these Im
portant Bclontllle Invcsllgntlons, which wo
uxfiee t will bo of great meteorological
value, will form u part of tho nows to bo
sent back by our buoy messengers to
civilization. Soon after the return of thu
sun wo shall throw out advance stations
on the sea Ico to tho northwest before thu
Ice shall havo acquired much movumont,
nnd our advance will begin about tho first
of April. With only ftfiO miles between
our winter homo nnd the polo and the most
complete o(ulpment posslblu for covering
this distance), I havo every hope of accom-
(Continued on Seventh Paije.)