Any person, association, or corporation, or the agent of any person, association, or corporation, engaged in the business of milling, sampling, concentrating, reducing, shipping, or purchasing ores who keeps or uses any false or fraudulent scales or weights for weighing ore, or who keeps or uses any false or fraudulent assay scales or weights for ascertaining the assay value of ore, knowing them to be false, is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars nor less than one hundred dollars, or by imprisonment in the county jail for not more than one year, or by both such fine and imprisonment.