The Council Bluffs nonpareil. [volume] (Council Bluffs [Iowa]) 1857-1867, 1859-08-27

that, with the exception of being a light
greyish color instead of yellow, they looL
in the distance like an immense cornsield
in autumn. In other places, where the time
since the burning has been longer, the pine,
have fallen, and in their stead a thick growth
of popple has sprung up--the wind, pre-
sumo, having sown the light cotton-winged
seeds of that tree. These fires have men
toned are of the most terrific description
Let any one who has seen n prairie fire in al
its wanton wildness, imagine tall trees in
stead of grass, burning with equal fury, and
he has faint idea of these fearful conla.
grations. The ground is covered with a
thick coating of pine leaves dry as tinder,
and the trees are full of pitch. The fire run
ming with incredible speed, licks up the dry
fuel below, flashes up the trees to their tops
stripping them of leaf and limb, and leaps
Kissing and roaring full fifty feet into the
air above. The smoke rolling, in immense
volum.s over the mountains, darkens the
sun, and it needs but q slight stretch of the
Imagination, to see in the tarrible scene a
fitting type of that last great day when the
whole world shall be wrapped in flame
During the month of June, it is probable
that nearly twenty men perished by the fires,
and many moro run frightful gauntlet with
the surging fiery tide roaring after them
like legion of fends. The agony of the
poor fellows who were lost must have been
terrible, as in the desperation of despair
they strove to escape; but, when once the
destroying element enveloped them, death
speedily closed the scene, for suffocation
must have ensued instantaneously. Three
crisped corpses were found together, within
five miles of Mountain City; an inquest was
held upon them, and they were decently bu-
ried. Who they were-where they were
from-and who they left at home to mourn
their fate-no onesbut the Eternal knows
Ere the close of another year their bones
may be thrown out by the shovel of tk mi
ner, and left to bleach in the Mountain
streams: and they may rest undisturbed
till their nameless graves yawn for the re-
surreetion. Many a fond heart In the States
will wait long and anxiously for the object
of its love to return! 1t will assign thou
sand reasons for his mysterious silence, and
in the nobleness Of woman's love, invent q
thousand excuses for hm--but the wheels Of
time will roll rcmorselessly over that heart
and leave it crushed and despairing.
The same contradictory reports, concern
ing the mines, that we continually hear in
the States, are met with righ: in the heart
of the gold region and men standing be.
side the sluices where several hundred dol
lars per day are being washed out, watch
as the glittering dust dazzles their unbe-
lieving vision, they turn away, muttering-
Humbug!" {" salted !" you can't fool
me-! " and sundry other sensible excama-
tions, indicative of either q long head or
long eGrs-the reader can judge which. 1t
is ludicrous enough to see some men pros
pecting; one would think they were lost in
a revere, and imagined themselves back on
their native hills and prairies, digging post
holes. After they have dug score or more
of these foot-pits, they assure you, with
great gravity, that they have prospected
thoroughly, and can't find any god-s Such
men would make better wages at home setting
out apple trees. Others are incurably af-
ficted with laziness: they spend four or
five weeks in the Mountains with pick, and
shovel, and pan, and in the whol6-time do
about as much work as an Irishman on
railroad would do in one day and, when
we sum up the number Of unsuccessful gold
hunters, these fellows should not be count
ed-they should not be allowed to swell the
aggregate. There is still another class of
disappointed gold seekers, who, having once
caught slight glimpse Of "the elephant"
now wish to be" right on the record" and
in their far-seeing wlsdomsskhey think the
chances are in favor of the BE thing pro-
wing fzzle. So, whenevs1he mines are
the theme of conversation, on the tramp or
in the camp, they shake their heads with
motion indicating concentrated thought, and
with look, in which melancholy resigna-
ton and 81 told you 500 are struggling for
the supremacy, they assure their comrades
that they don't believe the mines will ever
amount to much. Well, the mines will not,
probably, ever amount to much in their fa-
vor, although there is still hope for some of
the bachelors among them, If they will hur-
ry back where woman reigns, and let the
sunlight from her happy, hopeful face, shine
through the grated, cohwebbcd windows Of
their narrow souls, and chase AWAY the
gloom.
was greatly amused by one young fc!
low who came up to Leper and Henderson's
claim, with an awful long face, and asked
permission to take out pan of dirt to wash
just to satisfy himself. They told him to 60
aneau, anu IL was lun 10 Se6 the ~ Cuause
come DER the spirit of his dream,' as he
washed away the dirt, and had above dol
lar of the shining dust in tho bottom of
his pan. The muscles of his elongated phiz
relaxed, n smile stole over it, and he stood
by the magic wand of the gold
fend, from a grumbling doubter into an
earnest believer.
When GREELEY came into the Mountains
We had great time, and as he stubbed about
among the sluices with his cottonwood cane,
as thick as his wrist and as long as himself,
he was thronged by uuaedged politicians,
old Indian killers, and other rambling varie-
ties of the genus homo, all eager to get an
introduction to tho world-renowncd HoR-
ACE. The airs which some of them put on
were ludicrous in the extreme, and no doubt
there was crest fallen crowd when their
names didn't happen to como out in flaming
capitals in the Tribune.
The foolish story that the figures given in
GREELEY's report were the result Of " salt