Read Motor Matt's Quest; or Three Chums in Strange Waters Page 22

  STUMBLING UPON GOLD MINES.

  Gold was discovered in California in 1848, and in Colorado in 1858.The discovery was accidental in both cases, and the fact created theimpression that mines were "lying about loose." Adventurers driftedabout in hopes of stumbling upon a mine. Here are some instances oflucky finds.

  Three men, while looking for gold in California, discovered the deadbody of a man, who evidently had been "prospecting."

  "Poor fellow," said one of the trio, "he has passed in his checks."

  "Let's give him a decent burial," said another. "Some wife or motherwill be glad if she ever knows it."

  They began to dig a grave. Three feet below the surface they discoveredsigns of gold. The stranger was buried in another place, and where theyhad located a grave they opened a gold mine.

  An adventurer who had drifted to Leadville, awoke one morning withoutfood or money. He went out and shot a deer, which, in its dyingagonies, kicked up the dirt and disclosed signs of gold. The poor manstaked out a "claim," and opened one of the most profitable mines everworked in Leadville.

  "Dead Man Claim," the name given to another rich mine in Leadville, wasdiscovered by a broken-down miner while digging a grave.

  A miner died when there were several feet of snow on the ground. Hiscomrades laid his body in a snow bank and hired a man to dig a grave.The gravedigger, after three days' absence, was found digging a mineinstead of a grave. While excavating he had struck gold. Forgetting thecorpse and his bargain, he thought only of the fact that he had "struckit rich."

  An unsuccessful Australian miner went up and down Colorado for severalmonths "prospecting" for gold, and finding none. One day he sat downupon a stone, and while musing over his hard luck, aimlessly struck astone with his pick. He chipped off a piece, and sprang to his feet.The chip was rich with gold quartz.

  He hurried into the little town of Rosita, and went to the assayoffice, where a teamster had just dumped a load of wood. He agreed tosaw the wood to pay for assaying his chipped sample. The result ofthe assay sent him back to his "claim." When he had taken out of it$500,000, he sold the mine for $400,000 in cash and $1,000,000 in stock.

  But these "stumblings" are the exception to the rule that mines arefound by painstaking, intelligent prospectors. They spend wearisomemonths in exploring mountains and gulches. They are mineralogists,geologists, and, above all, practical explorers, who can tell from a"twist" in the grain of the rock, or from the color of a spar seam,whether "paying gold" can be mined in the region.