MAY MEAN MINER'S FORTUNE

Veteran of Metal Fields Claims Device Will Use Many Fuels and Supply Light as Well as Heat for Cooking.

A camp stove designed to meet his own needs as a prospector in the mountains and on the desert, seems likely to bring a fortune to Jack Bell, well known in Colorado mining circles.

Bell has prospected all over the mining sections of Mexico and the United States, including Alaska. He has won and lost fortunes, and has made a dozen original discoveries which have meant wealth to others, but it the invention growing out of his own necessities as an outdoor man that apparently is going to bring him the real stake at last.

There isn't a Colorado mining district in which Jack Bell is not known. He has been a pioneer in all the big mining camps, and was one of the first in the rare metals fields of the western part of the state when discoveries of vanadium and sarnotite began to attract the attention of the world.

Reported on the Border
Just now Bell is said to be on the border preparatory to opening up a big mining proposition in Mexico when affairs have settled sufficiently to make lives and investments reasonably safe. Meantime, with characteristic energy, he has submitted his plans for a prospector's camp stove to a big Eastern manufacturing firm, which promises to put it on the market in many forms.

Bell's stove is a novelty in that its chief fuel is gasoline. A gallong of "gas" will be sufficient for a two months' trip, according to the inventor. The stove is modeled after the ordinary reflector heater. The flame from the burner passes thru a series of air chambers, the heat circulating around the over and under the plates used for cooking.

Back of the reflecter, and designed to fill the vacancy, between the reflector and stove back, is a tank with a pump for pressure. There is a system of oils and screens, constituting Bell's invention, which requires no superheating to create the gas for the flame.

Many Fuels Possible
Alcohol, gasoline, kerosene, crude oil or natural or artificial gas can be used. Also it is possible to convey the gas from the stove to an ordinary Weisbach or other burner and make an illuminating light of any power.

It is claimed the stove will be a boon to the poor because of its economy in heating, baking and illuminating. But the inventor had chiefly in mind the outdoor man, and believes he has the perfect camp stove, light and easily packed, and selling at not more than $4. The chief problem of thousands of campers in the West has been the camp stove -- and this problem the veteran prospector seems to have solved.

Bell is a typical man of the open -- explorer, prospector, mining engineer and miner. He has done all forms of minng, and has a wonderful knowledge of minerology. For thirty-five years he has followed the lure of the mines and has nearly died of thirst in the desert and from exposure on the high peaks in winter.

Once on Hammond's Staff
He was one of the pioneers of Goldfield and Rawhide. And in Cripple Creek, when on John Hays Hammond's staff, engaged in a thrilling battle with ore thieves in the underground depths of the Independence mine. When the carnotite fields of western Colorado were opened Bell was one of the first on the ground and stood to win a large fortune in the yellow metal when the European war temporarily checked the demand for radium.

Bell has worked as a newspaper man in Denver and other Western cities, and is known as a contributor to various journals on mining subjects. he has also collaborated in magazine articles on outdoor topics growing out of his own varied experiences.

There are hundreds of mining and newspaper men in the West who will join in the wish that Jack Bell's invention turns out to be the equal of a mining bonanza in point of dividends.