MINER DIGS THE OLD WAY : MAN, 83, EMPLOYS GOLD RUSH METHODS.

Byline: Keith Bradsher The New York Times

Anyone who has watched old Western movies or visited deserted mining towns in the Rockies has probably seen 25-foot-tall wooden frames standing over mine shafts, with huge pulleys near the top for bringing up buckets of ore.

But in the Dale Mining District 30 miles east of here, at the end of eight miles of rutted mountain trails and past signs labeled ``Private Property,'' ``No Trespassing'' and ``Explosives in Use,'' Clarence W. Harkness is still using mine structures he has built from thick timbers of Douglas fir.

When told of Harkness' existence, mining historians said he must be one of the last Americans still using underground mining techniques that were popular during the California Gold Rush of 1849.

With few exceptions, wood-frame mining ``went out with the derby hat and the steam engine,'' said Robert E. Kendall, a retired mining engineer and historian. Steel beams have replaced wood for what little underground mining is left in Western states.

Harkness, who is 83 and goes by the nickname Verne, grew up in the coal fields of northern Washington state. His stepfather, a mine safety inspector, began taking him down into the mines when he was 12. He started digging gold and silver mines after graduating from high school, working at first with other miners and then on his own, and has been digging ever since.

Harkness has found enough precious metals over the decades to keep him in business, but has never struck it rich. Wearing a red flannel shirt and dark red trousers during a recent day at the mines, he said he finished his most recent wood-frame structure over a mine in 1987.

Short on money for ore-processing equipment, he has not hauled any ore out of the 260-foot-deep shaft for three years. But using a large pickaxe, he continues to prospect for new veins in a shaft he has dug several hundred yards away.

There are several small mine shafts in this valley, some that Harkness prospects in and some that have been abandoned or put to other use: He has covered one 150-foot-deep shaft with an outhouse.

His mines, 150 miles east of Los Angeles, are next to Joshua Tree National Park and a few miles from the ruins of Dale, a gold-mining ghost town that had several thousand residents a century ago.

Harkness and his 44-year-old assistant, Donald Van Steinburg, a caretaker who lives in a small, steel-side trailer less than a hundred yards from the main mine, personally bulldozed much of the road to the mines. It is a stony, barely passable track less than 10 feet wide that slices across a wide expanse of yellow desert dotted with shoulder-high creosote bushes and knee-high sagebrush. The path then takes a terrifying loop carved into the side of a steep hillside and winds around a bend into the arid, nearly lifeless valley of red and gray gravel where Harkness prospects.

The desert air is very dry, but Harkness said he seldom used metal nails in mine structures because they might eventually rust. Instead, he precisely fits together beams of dried wood to shore up his tunnel walls. The moisture in the desert, though scarce, is enough to cause the wood to expand slightly to form a solid barrier against collapse, he said.

Harkness is scornful of young miners these days because they tend to prefer strip mining, which has almost entirely replaced underground mining in California. In strip mining, huge machines tear away all the rock and earth above a mineral vein.

``They don't want the hazardous work of going underground,'' he said, walking along a hillside to the newest of his wood-frame mine structures.

In the late 1950s, Harkness said, a mine accident elsewhere left him trapped underground for nine days with a broken leg.

Though Harkness has been mining in this area for more than a quarter-century, state and federal mine safety inspectors said that they had not been aware of his presence in the hills. The miner said an inspector, whom he would not identify, had told him that only he could mine with wooden structures in California because he was so good at it.

Harkness said he used only 8-inch by 8-inch timbers of Douglas fir and was careful to paint them with red, fire-retardant paint. But when he sold one of his mines a few years ago to an investor, California mine safety regulators required the buyer to replace all of the wooden tunnel supports and nearby wooden buildings with steel, at a cost of $40,000.

It is legal to use wood for mine supports and adjacent buildings, provided the timbers are treated with fire-retardant chemicals and are sturdy enough to be exposed to a fire for one hour without collapsing, said James Ploughman, the federal mine safety supervisor for Southern California and parts of Nevada.

Finding prospectors in this vast desert is difficult, and few of the small operations comply with all federal safety standards, Ploughman said. But enforcement is directed at more active mines.

``If we went out there,'' Ploughman said, ``we'd probably have to shut him down. Stuff like that can give me heartburn, you know.''

Kendall, the mining engineer, said that even built of wood, head frames - the structure that holds a pulley over a mine shaft - could be strong enough to bring up ore from mines up to 300 feet deep.

It is possible, he said, that some other prospector in the deserts of Arizona or Nevada is still using wooden supports and pickaxes, although he does not know of any. Many prospectors are solitary people who do not talk much to outsiders about their mines.

Harkness, who is divorced, said he had five great-grandchildren in Washington state but had never seen them. After working in 50 mines in several states over the years, Harkness said, he has decided that ``a miner has no business marrying and trying to hold a family.''

Instead, he has been living with Lillian V. Schudar since 1972.

``If we'd have married,'' Harkness said, ``it never would have lasted.''

In a telephone interview from their home at the side of a distant highway, Schudar, who is 84, said she had long done Harkness' bookkeeping but had only made two or three visits to his mines.

``I don't like the ride up there,'' she said.

Eleanor H. Swent, a mining historian in the library at the University of California at Berkeley, said she was unaware of anybody else in California still using wooden head frames. She expressed hope that a researcher would tape Harkness' reminiscences and submit them to the library's oral history project.

If Harkness is ever recorded, the results could prove interesting. Mining companies now give radios to their staffers for above-ground use, but Harkness said he had a more traditional approach when he wanted to summon Van Steinburg.

``Whoooo-whoo-whoo,'' Harkness bellowed to the surrounding hills, hands cupped to the sides of his mouth, as his dachshund, Motor, whined painfully at the noise and cowered at his feet.

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Photo

Photo: Clarence ``Verne'' Harkness, 83, uses techniques from a century ago to mine precious metals in the California desert. While he has been prospecting well enough to stay in business for 50 years, he has yet to find a mother lode.

New York Times