New Camps Spring Up on All Sides -- Jack
Bell Finds a Rich District -- Tremendous Copper Enterprises Under Way.

There is an epidemic of discovery, so to speak, in the mountains of Southern Nevada this year. New camps are springing up in all directions, populated in a week or a month by float from the older districts. Those who are fortunate enough to have tents occupy them; the balance sleep under trees or without shelter of any kind. The next step is to get lumber and build houses. Meanwhile, the more favorable prospects are stocked and advertised. Not long ago The Post received a special dispatch to the effect that Jack Bell, formerly a reporter on this paper, had made a big strike in a new camp called Buckskin. Jack is one of the ex-shift bosses on the Stratton Independence of Cripple Creek, under Manager Shipman, also an ex-lieutenant of the Colorado National guard, under Sherman Bell, a splendid fellow in the main, with hosts of friends in this state.

His Latest Discovery

Today comes the report from Goldfield that Jack has made some astonishing finds in another new camp, about five miles east of Buckskin. The first ledge opened is a true fissure about two feet wide, carrying free gold; the next, two veins in porphyry, which pan gold in long strings. After securing what territory he wanted, the report "leaked out," creating a stampede in that direction. There is no man in the West who knows better how to put such rumors in circulation than breezy Jack Bell. Well, within forty-eight hours thereafter the whole country round about was staked and a new district put on the map. Every fellow who found quartz pounded some of it and began assaying by the pan process. L. L. Patrick, formerly of this city, struck in through a representative, who staked some claims adjoining Bell's locations.

Railway Building

In the meantime the Buckskin has been populated and the work of prospecting and house and store and saloon-building is under rapid headway. A daily mail service has been inaugurated.

Work on the Bullfrog and Goldfield railroad is being pushed, the contractors pledging its completion on or about Oct 1. Goldfield is the main center of action, the base of supplies, the point whence the tide of prospecting and discovery flows. We can't say it ebbs and flows, for there isn't any ebb - it goes right along without ceasing. Mining conditions there are materially improved because there is more legitimate development and less fireworks than formerly. They are milling all grades of stuff ranging from $15 to $20 per ton up to picture figures. Within another year there will be more railways and cheaper rates for everything.

Eastern and Northern Nevada

While this is going on in the southern, or desert, country, Eastern and Northern Nevada people are doing things on a gigantic scale. Some vast copper mining operations are being carried on. One concern is preparing facilities to treat 5,000 tons per diem; another from 1,200 to 3,000 tons a day, mining the ore with steam shovels. Tremendous concentrating mills are being erected, to be followed by great smelters, which indicates that Butte, Mont., will soon be distanced in the production of copper. I met a capitalist yesterday who said he knew of a mountain of high grade copper ore, the finest ever discovered over in the Nevada mountains, which, owing to the distance from railways, had never been opened. "But," said he, "I'm going over there to spend part of this summer in a thorough investigation, and if it turns out as well as I now anticipate I'll find ways to get a railway in there." It seems strange that Nevada, which was founded simultaneously with Colorado, should have waited forty-seven years to let the world know how much greater riches it possessed than the wonderful old Comstock lode, which yielded nearly $1,000,000,000.