Excerpt from Bulletin of the Society of Arts: March 1909
Precious metal mines are mostly selected for the salters' art. but cases have been known where attempts have been made to salt an iron mine, which ought, however, to be a very difficult thing to do successfully upon a competent engineer. Thousands of dollars worth of genuine diamonds have been thrown carelessly over large areas to give the appearance of rich diamond fields, and thousands of dollars worth of valuable ore has been placed in the ore piles to be examined. and expert engineers have been deceived. Generally a mine, if a large one, cannot be salted all over; hence, the advantage of taking a large number of small samples from as many different parts of the mine as possible, rather than a small number of large samples.
The cheaper method is to salt the engineers' samples, and besides a better control can be obtained as to the strength of salting; thus less suspicious values are likely to be obtained on assay. In cases where engineers have had their samples salted, the facts are not likely to leak out, owing to the personal element that enters into such matters. No one cares to make a public record of the fact that he has been a victim of such an experience.
No absolutely sure method has ever been devised as a protection against salting. It requires the greatest vigilance on the part of the engineer to make reasonably sure that the mine has not been salted at any one of the many opportunities that present themselves in the course of the examination. Bags containing samples should be sealed with lead seals instead of the ordinary sealing wax, which are too readily duplicated. It is absolutely necessary that these bags should not be out of sight of the engineer or his assistant. Final samples should be placed in a strong trunk, and the greatest care taken that there is no opportunity of tampering with them. In order to have some check as to whether one's samples are being salted or not, it is a good practice to introduce sample bags filled with ore of known assay value and place them in tempting situations.
Despite many cases of the attempted salting of mines. in all justice to the mining business, it is fair to state that probably the majority of mining properties are honestly developed for purchase, but it is not well for the mining engineer to assume this, as otherwise he might be too readily caught.
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