A. T. Britton brought suit in the Superior Court to recover $10,000 from W. C. Childs. According to the allegations of the complaint, Childs purchased a half interest in the Valentine mine, Amador county, for $60,000, and paid thereon $20,000 in two payments of $10,000 each, agreeing to cay the remaining $40,000 out of the two thirds yield in the mine. After working the mine for a while, Childs shut down on the work, on the ground that the ore extracted from the mine was not paying.
The trial of the action was resumed before Judge Hunt yesterday; the evidence before adduced was in reference to the contract. Today, an old miner, Andrew J. Field, was called as an expert to test the value of crushed ore taken from a drift in the mine. In the presence of the Court, counsel and spectators the miner placed a handful of the pulverized rock in a "horn spoon" and proceeded to wash it out in a basin of water in a corner of the Court-room. The "horn spoon" is an almost indispensable article of use for mine prospectors, and predates the old pan process of washing out gold.
After a process of filling the spoon with water, shaking and turning off the water for a time in the orthodox style of placer pan mining, the residue was submitted to Judge Hunt for examination. It was found to contain a "color" of gold, which the expert said would yield $15 of gold to a ton. The process of testing with a horn spoon is common among prospectors, but was somewhat of a novelty in a Court. The spoon is made from the horn of a beef, about nine inches long and four inches wide and shaped not unlike a wide Indian canoe. The horn is split and when heated is molded into the desired form.
