promised.  All this in addition to the regular, unavoidable risks of mining itself, which may, at any moment during the year lost, call for increased expenses and increased faith in ultimate success.  To the mining man who makes money by the business, the natural risks of mining is all he will take; it is sufficient; and when he invests more money in machinery he takes good care that he takes no chances of either failure or delay.

“The following are rules which no mining company or individual mine-owner can afford to neglect.

“(1) The risk should be confined to mining.  No body of directors is justified in taking a shareholder’s money and investing it in new processes or machinery when the subscription was simply for a mining venture.  Directors are invariably incapable of deciding whether a so-called improvement in machinery or process is really so or not, and the reasonable course is to follow established precedents.

“(2) The risk of selecting an incompetent manager should be reduced to minimum by taking a man with a successful record in the particular work to be done.  The manager selected should be prohibited, as much as the directors, from experimenting with new methods or machinery.  A really experienced man will require no check in this direction, as he will not risk ruining his reputation.

“(3) The only time for a company to experiment is when the mine is paying well by the usual methods, and the treasury is in a condition to speculate a little in possible improvements without jeopardising regular returns.”

Probably this is the best place to insert another word of warning to directors who are not mining specialists, and also to investors in gold mining shares.  Assays of auriferous lode material are almost invariably worthless as a guide in the real value of the stone in quantity.  The one way to decide this is by battery treatment in bulk, and then only after many tons have been put through.  The reason is obvious.  First, the prospector or company promoter, if he knows it, is not in the least likely to pick the worst piece of stone in the heap for assay; and, secondly, even should the sample be selected with the sole object of getting a fair result, no living man can judge the value of a gold lode by the result of treatment of an ounce of stone.  So when you see it stated that Messrs. Oro and Gildenstein, the celebrated assayers, have found that a sample of rock from the Golden Mint Mine, Golconda, assays at the rate of 2,546 oz. 13 dwt. and 21 gr. to the ton, and that there are thousands of tons of similar stone in sight, the statement should be received with due caution.  The assay is doubtless correct, but the deductions therefrom are most misleading.

A few words of advice also to directors of mine-purchasing companies and syndicates, of which there are now so many in existence, may probably be found of value.  It is not good policy as a general rule to buy entirely undeveloped properties, unless such have been inspected by your own man, who is both competent and trustworthy, and who should have indeed an interest in the profits.  Large areas, although so popular in England, do not compensate for large bodies of payable ore; the most remunerative mine is generally one of comparatively small area, but containing a large lode formation of payable but often low grade, ore.