CHAPTER XXVII.

Previous

Discovery of gold. Turn the stream out of the lake, and build portable engine to separate the gold.

I started with the canoe to the mouth of Stillwater Cove, having first attended to my numerous flocks, and put on board two of my best guns, with some lead bullets and shot, and provisions for some time, and also carrying with me my two inseparable friends, the pet goats. When I arrived, at the mouth of the cove, I entered the concealed harbor, and got out the steam yacht and commenced putting her in order. I soon had a fire built under the boilers, and in an hour's time was all ready to set out. Leaving the canoe behind me, I pushed out of the cove into Perseverance Bay, and made my way to the west about for Mirror Bay. I arrived safely and in good season, and landed to examine my treasure-ground, and found the grass growing over it nicely, and it seemed well concealed. Going on board again, I pointed the yacht up the river towards the lake. I had heretofore always stopped before reaching the latter, for fear of striking the bottom on account of shoal water, but I now made up my mind to proceed in a cautious manner into the lake itself, if possible. I thought that there was water enough if I could keep clear of any boulders or rocks that might possibly be concealed beneath the water. The yacht did not draw over three feet, and I felt confident that she could carry that draft to the lake if she could be kept clear from any unknown obstructions. So I steamed along very carefully and slowly, and often left the helm to rush forward and look over the bows, and, oftener yet, stopped the boat completely and examined ahead before proceeding. In this manner I advanced towards the lake slowly but surely, taking land marks as I went on to enable me to return without injuring my craft by running her upon any submerged danger. At last the lake opened before me, and with a few careful turns of the propeller, I soon floated upon its surface safe and sound. The moment the yacht came in sight, numbers of swans and other fowl commenced to rise from different parts of the lake, and take their departure to more quiet and distant places. I knew, however, that I had not disturbed them greatly, and that they would return during the day, flock after flock. I kept on across the lake to the mouth of a little brook pouring into it, not over fifteen feet wide, and, entering this, I ran on for about a hundred yards, till the water commenced to shoal and to be filled with numerous rocks. Here I moored the yacht carefully to the bank and went on shore. I had no occasion to build any fire or erect any habitation. The steam yacht served me for home, kitchen, bedroom, and parlor, and I had on board of her everything that possibly could be asked for. Tethering out my two pet goats, I took with me two of my guns and quite a lot of ammunition, and the small landing skiff, and made my way back again to the lake. I carried with me also some twelve or fifteen nice decoy ducks, that I had made of wood and dyed with black and red colors, similar to the ducks that frequented the lake. These I anchored at an easy gunshot from the shore, and then, landing, took out my guns and ammunition, which I carefully placed on the sand, and, shouldering the boat, carried it into the bushes near by and concealed it carefully. I then went to work with a hatchet and cut down some of the small cedar and fir trees with which the back part of the shore of sand was lined, and soon had them driven into the sand near the edge of the water, and converted into a blind, from which I could shoot into the flocks of ducks and geese that might come to my decoys without being seen by them. Even whilst I was at work, several flocks were almost willing to alight, hovering over my decoys, but finally departing as they saw me at work. When I had everything to suit me, I retired into my blind and waited for a chance for a good shot. I used to shoot well with a percussion gun in younger days, but I had too little lead now, and too little practice, to try and kill these birds on the wing with a flint-lock gun, and my only chance was to wait till a whole flock settled down, when I intended, by a discharge of one gun whilst they were in the water, and another as they arose, to get as many as possible; and that it may not be thought that I must have had a great stomach for ducks, I would say that I intended to pick and preserve these birds in saltpetre and salt, to use during the winter seasons, and to make of their feathers a nice soft mattress.

I had not long to wait before a small flock settled to my decoys, and, after sailing about a little, became disgusted and made off before I could fire. But after them came a larger lot that settled boldly down, and as I had found out that they would not long remain ignorant of the cheats that had enticed them, I let drive at once into their midst with one gun, and gave them the other as they rose to fly away. As the result of my fire, I counted eleven large ducks dead upon the water and three badly wounded, which I soon despatched by hastening to the shore with my light landing boat and killing them with a boat-hook, and, picking up my dead, brought onto the shore fourteen nice fat ducks. I then drew up my boat and waited for more shots, but the discharge had made the others somewhat wary; but finally my patience was rewarded with two other good shots during the day, in which I bagged three geese and seven more ducks. With this game I made my way back to the yacht, highly pleased with my day's sport. I had noticed, both to-day and in my former trips to the lake, that the species of duck that I had shot were divers, and seemed to get their food by seeking at the bottom of the lake for it, and particularly at this place where the spring water poured into it from this brook or inlet, which evidently arose in a mountain back of me, and, fed by springs, enlarged so as to pour into the lake quite a volume of pure water. As I had to name everything upon the island, I called this brook Singing Water Brook, on account of the low musical murmur that was wafted to my ears from the miniature falls and rocks over which it bounded, gurgled, and found its way, further in the interior, where, from the sound, it evidently was more rapid in its descent from higher ground, but distant enough not to be noisy, but musical, in its progress towards the lake.

I first went to work and picked my whole twenty-one ducks and the three geese, carefully saving all the feathers. I then proceeded to open them preparatory to salting them away in casks which were on board of the yacht, that I had brought for that purpose. I had opened and dressed, I should think, some five or six, when I became curious to know what food they fed upon, and to know if it was to obtain it that they kept diving below the surface. To settle this problem I grasped with my left hand the gizzard of the duck that I had just dressed, and, observing that it was well inflated, I drew my knife across it to expose its contents. It seemed to contain the usual amount of sand and gravel, and a sort of semi-digested food that I was unable to determine as to whether it was fish, flesh, fowl, or good red herring. As I was picking the mass to pieces with my hands, I laid open to view quite a large pebble, fully as large as a pea, that was as yellow as gold. I pounced upon it, for I had seen too much virgin gold in California and Australia not to know it. I had it not one moment in my hand before my sight and its weight convinced me that it was indeed, in verity, a pure golden nugget.

Could it be possible? I had heard before of gold being taken from the crops of chickens bought in Siam and on the coasts of Africa, but I never before had credited the stories; but here before my eyes, in all its unmistakable purity, lay a piece of virgin gold. Then it was this that my ducks were gathering with their other food, mistaking it probably for some kind of grain. To work, therefore, I went upon all of the gizzards of my slain, and my search was rewarded by the finding of seven pieces more, two much larger than the first specimen obtained, fully as large as beans, and the others much smaller. When I had buried my treasure, I had kept out, to have on hand at the Hermitage, several of the ingots of gold and two or three of the bars of silver; why, I do not know, but it was human to have a little amount of gold and silver near at hand,—for what I cannot say; but it was natural, and probably arose from former education and habit. I was not yet perfectly content with the evidences of my senses or the malleability of the metal before me, which I tested by beating one of the pieces with a hammer; but before I would wholly give myself up to the belief that my discovery was really gold, I intended to make a certain and positive test. Stories ran through my head of vessels in olden times, which made voyages to the East Indies, returning home with what they considered gold ore in ballast, which only turned out upon arrival to be simply mica or silica. Whalers also, as I had heard, had given up whole voyages and filled their casks in different parts of the world with worthless earth, thinking that they had become possessed of the wealth of the universe. I was not to be deceived in this manner. I determined, as I have said, to make a final and complete test before I gave myself up to the excitement that would undoubtedly attend my magnificent discovery, if true. For this purpose I left all my ducks and geese, except two for cooking purposes, and made my way as rapidly as possible back to the steam yacht, and, although it was nearly sunset, got under way and started back to the Hermitage with my precious pebbles or nuggets with me. I arrived safely by the aid of a magnificent moon, and ran into Stillwater Cove and up to the Hermitage, when I moored the yacht and went on shore and into my bed; but a restless night I made of it, and early morning saw me at work in the foundry at my proposed test. In the first place I went to work and made a nice pair of balances of steel, with little pans on each side to contain the substance to be weighed. I then went to work and made a mould of iron, by boring out a small oval hole with my steel drills in the face of two pieces of steel, which I hinged together exactly like a bullet mould, only much smaller.

After having everything arranged I set to work and smelted a portion of one of my golden ingots, and whilst in this fused state I moulded several golden bullets in my mould, some ten or twelve in number. I then put the remainder of the gold away, cleaned out the crucible perfectly, and put my nuggets in it and smelted them, and with them made also eleven impressions of my mould in the shape of bullets. I kept these far from the others, so as not to get things mixed. I then placed one of the true bullets of gold in one pan of the balance, and added small clippings of iron in the other pan, till it was exactly balanced. I then took it out and replaced it by one of the bullets made from the metal I had found. The problem was solved,—they were exactly of a weight, or, rather, so nearly so that a minute atom of iron dust added to the pan preserved the balance, for my metal bullet, proved by the very slightest degree to be the heavier. Yes, this was gold,—gold beyond peradventure; but, to satisfy my mind, I weighed and weighed them by one and by twos, and by fours and by fives; always with the same result, scarcely a hair's breadth between them. Practically, they were exact. I knew that no other metal could approach gold in weight so as to deceive me beyond this test. I was living on an island that was a vast gold mine, or at least contained it in large quantities; for it would be impossible for me to have found seven nuggets in a few ducks unless the bottom of the lake was strewed with them at or near the mouth of Singing Water Brook, which must have poured them into the lake for ages, carrying them along from their first resting-place, the mountain, to the westward from which it took its rise. Convinced that my discovery was real and true, I gave myself up to all manner of day dreams, and it was a week before I made up my mind to return to the lake and explore further. At times I gave up the idea of gathering any of this gold that I now knew lay at the bottom of the lake, and at others the desire to be possessed of it all swayed me also. But, finally, dreaming gave way to my natural temperament, and I made all preparations possible to secure my prize. Should I pen in a portion of the lake opposite the mouth of Singing Water Brook, turn the latter aside, lay bare the bottom of the lake and sift and examine the sand? Alas, this would take great time and pains, and I was afraid also that the water would be forced back, after I had pumped it out, though the sand of which the bottom was formed. Should I lower the outlet of the lake so as to draw off the water in a degree? This was not very feasible, as it was already quite deep, and it would take great time and application to deepen it enough to draw off the water of the lake to any extent. No, I had another plan than this, which I finally decided upon, and that was to use the submarine boat. Having fixed upon the means, I hastened to put them into execution. I made all my preparations, and, taking the submarine boat in tow of the steam yacht, made my way back to Mirror Lake. I had some trouble in getting the former into the lake, but finally succeeded after considerable labor. I had provided myself with some utensils, to pan out the sand with, and also a rocker, that I had built to be placed on shore, and worked by a belt from a driving-wheel of the steam engine of the yacht, which I had attached to it for that purpose only, intending to use it by anchoring the yacht, disconnecting the propeller gear, and leading the belt from the rocker on shore to the engine room of the yacht, and thence to the driving-wheel attached. Let it suffice to say here that during my long stay at Mirror Lake I made weekly trips to the Hermitage and attended to my flocks, but gave up all idea of making butter, and only brought a few of my female goats to this side to give me milk.

Having gotten the submarine boat into the lake, I made a descent in it and examined the bottom. It was almost wholly of pure sand. The water varied from a depth of a few feet near the margin to about three fathoms near the centre. I saw several kinds of fish but none of large size. Having made this examination, I commenced upon the work before me of finding the gold. I went quite near to the mouth of Singing Water Brook, and descended and filled the tops of the tanks with sand from the bottom, failing to find any nuggets with the eye; but I afterwards found several in different trips, but never many or of very large size. Having loaded the boat, I arose to the surface, and beached her near the mouth of the brook, and landed my sand in baskets upon the shore. I then went to work with the pan and washed it in the mouth of the brook, and as the result of this one trip gathered together more gold-dust and small nuggets than I could hold in one hand. This was placer mining with a vengeance, the cream of all mining while it lasts. But I felt that I was going back-handed to work; so the next day, instead of coming on shore with my sand, I took the pan into the submarine boat, and as I pulled it up with a sort of long-handled shovel, washed it then and there in the water of the lake inside the submarine boat; but this again was, during a long day, tiring to my brain, as I had to keep renewing the air by rowing the boat ashore, for it was too shallow to use the air-boat, and I had long ago given up the idea of using the spray-wheel except in case of actual necessity, the air-boat superseding it.

Here I was in the ninth year of my captivity, working hard in my own gold-field. I worked nearly six months of this year, at all spare moments, in this manner, occasionally shovelling sand into the rocker on shore, which I procured from the edges of the lake near the mouth of the brook, just under water, and extracting the gold-dust by means of a belt from the steam yacht. I was quite successful with this method also, but the largest quantity of the dust had evidently been for ages swept into the lake opposite the mouth of Singing Water Brook. I also ascended the brook several times during these months, till it led me to a mountain of some eminence, where it ended in little branches that tumbled down its side.

I got "signs" of gold often,—in fact almost always at the eddies of this brook, and even in its branches,—but never in as large quantities as in the sand at the mouth, although I obtained one very large nugget in the sands of a quiet pool fully half a mile from the lake. I also ascertained that the mountain was composed mostly of quartz,—which miners term the mother of gold,—and all the little pebbles that I picked up in the running brooks were of this description, several of them being prettily marked with little veins of gold. There was no doubt whence the gold came; it had been pouring down from this mountain side in these small trickling streams for centuries, veining the pieces of quartz that contained it till the latter, by friction and water, deposited itself in the shape of sand, and the released gold as dust or nuggets, at the mouth of the brook, having been, perhaps, centuries making the descent from the mountain side to the lake, a distance perhaps of one mile. I knew perfectly well that the mountain contained the inexhaustible mine from which this precious dust escaped, but I also knew that without quicksilver it was beyond my reach to gather it. For in quartz-mining I should need iron stamps, fuel, steam-engine, amalgamator, rocking-table, etc., all of which I could supply, perhaps, except the quicksilver; but this troubled me very little, for I knew that there was more gold at the mouth of the lake than I could gather in perhaps a lifetime, unless I could invent some way to come at it more convenient than the ways that I was now employing. I had often, at the end of a day's work, at this time, nearly as much gold-dust as I could hold in my two hands, much more than one handful, and in value, of which I could only guess, at least $200 to $250. After getting quite a quantity together,—say a week's work,—I used to transport it to the Hermitage, take it to the workshop, smelt it, and preserve the button by burying it within the enclosure of the Hermitage.

I had at the end of some six months become greedy and was not satisfied with my daily gains, but longed to extend my operations. During these months I had not been idle, but had studied upon the problem of how to get at the bottom of the lake. I was thinking about this one day, when nearly half-way between the lake and the mountain side, passing the brook once in a while and looking into its waters for quartz-pebbles marked with gold. At once it struck me, why not turn the brook from the lake towards the sea, in a new direction. I struck my head with my fist to think what a fool I had been for so many months; why, here, even where I stood, was a natural valley on my left, that would convey the water to the sea. I dashed down my pan and worked my way seaward. Why here was even a little mountain brook already tending in that direction, and, following it about two miles, I saw it pierce the sand of the seaside, at least two feet wide, and discharge its tiny current into the ocean. I was crazy with excitement. I dashed back again to the point where I had left my pan, and, picking it up, made for the lake. When I arrived, I went to the inlet and examined it. I felt that I had the whole matter under my thumb, and without much labor, too; for if I should turn the direction of Singing Water Brook so that it would not pour into Mirror Lake, the latter at its outlet would be exactly as low as the bottom, over which a rapid current was now flowing, but which would, by this process, be in one sense brought to the surface; and, as it appeared, I could work upon it, and cut it down, and as I cut it down so would the lake be drawn off, till, if cut little by little, a passage-way which I could timber up to the depth of eighteen feet, all the water of the lake would be drawn off, and the whole bottom exposed to my view, and the golden accumulation of untold ages beneath my feet to pick and choose from. It was feasible, fool that I was, not to have thought of it before. The very next day, armed with axes, tools, and shovels, which I had to make two trips to convey, I found myself at the place on the brook where the natural valley leading towards the sea seemed to meet it, and where a little further on to the seaward I had found the miniature brook, trickling its way to the southward. At the point that I commenced work the brook was not over ten or twelve feet wide, rapid to be sure, but with not a very great descent just at this point. I commenced in the first place by cutting and opening on its southerly bank, towards the sea and into the valley. I did not cut the bank away so as to let the water in yet to its new channel, but worked a little distance from it. For two whole weeks I dug at this, making a good bed for the brook to rush into in its new passage that I intended to give it to the sea. Having this to suit me, I commenced cutting down trees to fall across the brook as it now ran, and these I filled in with pebbles and stones. It was hard work, but at the end of three weeks I had made such a dam across the original brook that I opened the passage for the water into the new one, and kept on strengthening the former till all the water in a day or two bounded down its new course to the sea as if it had always run in that direction. I restrained my curiosity, however, to look for gold in the now dried up bed of the brook, but felled more trees, and put in more stones, and banked up with more earth, till I felt convinced that even in a storm the brook would no longer seek an outlet in the direction of the lake over such a barrier, and with the bed of its new course so well dug out by itself even now, helped as it had been by my labor of two weeks, before allowing it to seek it. Finally I felt my work complete, and, breaking up my camp that I had so long made in the woods, I went back to the lake, looking once in a while into the now empty brook. I should have said that of course, before I undertook this work, I had taken the yacht and submarine boat out of the way,—the submarine boat to its old resting-place at Still Water Cove, and the yacht at anchor in Mirror Bay near the shore. I had been living a hard, rude life in the woods, and had only come out once to go to the Hermitage for food and to attend to my flocks; and I hurried down now to look at the lake, which I knew would be lowered to exactly the former depth of the water at the outlet, some four or five feet. As I came in view of it I saw at once the effects of my work; it looked already woefully shrunken and belittled, but I did not stop to look at it, or for nuggets either. I felt convinced that I had passed many in the bed of the deserted brook, but at present I was intent upon my work of changing the face of nature. In two trips I had all my traps and tools conveyed to the outlet, and it was here that I established my new camp. I had to go to the saw-mill and get some plank, and by the aid of the goats and wagon finally, after bringing them around in the yacht, got them to the outlet where I needed them. I commenced digging in its bed, and the water soon began to pour out, as I did not have to dig a great distance, as the decline was quite sharp. I found that I should not need my boards till I had gotten considerably down, if even then, for my work consisted only in shovelling the bed of the late stream out upon each side and in making a channel lower than the water still remaining in the lake. Suffice it to say that in three months I had the lake drawn off, so as to expose a very large margin of the late bottom. It would take too long to relate how I travelled over these exposed sands and the deserted bed of Singing Water Brook; it will be sufficient to say that my findings were immense, and in the bed of the brook I found several nuggets in what had before been eddies, weighing as high as two or three pounds, as near as I could judge. I soon, however, got tired of tramping over the sand to try and find nuggets by the eye, and arranged to go to work in a more thorough and satisfactory manner. To do this, I left my gold-fields for several months, and went to work at my forge to turn out a portable steam-engine, with a rocker or sand-washer attached. When this was finished I took it, in pieces, to the bed of the lake and erected it on wheels. It was arranged with sections of pipe and hose so as to be placed near the sand that was to be washed, and the water pumped for that purpose from that still remaining in the lake, and which I had left for this very purpose, intending to draw it off and expose more bottom by opening the outlet whenever I should have been over the sands now exposed to view. It was well also that I should have had to make this engine, for the fishes contained in the lake had commenced to die, and the air was impregnated with their effluvia, and the surface was covered with their dead bodies. When I got to work with my rocker and engine it seemed as if the sands were inexhaustible. I often gathered, as far as I could judge, in one day's work, the sum of at least $500, and some days I must have gathered hard upon $1,000, not to mention the nuggets large enough to pick up with my hand, that I was continually coming upon. But at last I got absolutely tired of gathering this golden harvest, and abandoned it for other occupations, having already more than I knew what to do with, and of not one dollar's value to me unless I could escape or be rescued. After my fierce excitement was over in this direction, I returned to the old problem of escape.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Clyx.com


Top of Page
Top of Page