Montreal (Annual) Paper - Notes on the Lease- or Tribute-System of Mining, as Practiced in Colorado

The lease-system is the gradual result of the development of our larger producing mines throughout the State of Colorado. The operation of a mine, or group of mines, by corporations has been attended, in many cases, by disaster, owing to the difficulty of securing a fair day's work from the men employed in the mine, and the loss entailed by careless mining and sorting of high-grade ores, or by lax or inefficient management on the part of superintendents and foremen. Given, therefore, a mine that has been practically abandoned by its owner, for the reasons given, but still possessing merit, the lessee appears on the ground and secures a lease for a year, or term of years, from the owner, upon the payment of a royalty upon the gross smelter- or mill-returns of the ore which he mines. In this way many of our abandoned mines have been re-opened by the miner, who, with two or more associates, has been enabled, by careful attention, to obtain profitable results.