The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1879-08-30
THE LOST SILVER MINE.

WAS mining coal on the Broad Top In
Pennsylvania when | was commissioned
by the Northern Pacific Railroad COM
pany as one of party of three civil
engineers to make barometrical survey
of the Skagit and Sank passes of the
Cascade mountains, in Washington terri
tory. This was in 1870 The Skagit
pass was supposed to exist. No white
man had knowledge of it. The Cascade
mountains are continuation Of the
Sierra NeVadas. The Skagit pass, if it
existed, was the most northerly one in
the range on American territory. It
was supposed to be about forty miles
south of the British boundary line, and
to be due east of the Fidalgo Island in
Puget Sound, and of San Juan Island,
which is better known.
When this survey was ordered the
directors of the Northern Pacific Rail-
road company, as well as the United
States government, had not sufficient
knowledge of the tremendous mountain
barrier between the Columbia river and
the Pacific to determine the route by
which the projected road could best
reach the sea. They had to feel their
way in the dark. This will explain the
long hesitation in fixing the western ter
minus of the railroad and the seeming
incertitude of policy shown in the large
purchases of land on Puget sound for
account of the company at Bellingham
Bay, Whatcom, WILDLY island Utsala-
dy, Seattle, Olympia, and elsewhere.
No man knew where the railroad would.
could, or should terminate ON Puget
sound; and these purchases were scat
tered to insure the speculative netting
of the terminus somewhere.
Well, our business is to find out if
railroad of standard gauge can be built
across the Cascade range through the
Skagit pass or the pass channelled by
the Sank river, which is the southern
branch of the Skagit. The party organ
ICES at Whatcom, on Bellingham bay.
We embark in three canoes, accompanied
by ten Indians. The paddles are dipped
in the cool salt water and we have started
on our trip across the bay, then through
sloughs, over scantly covered mud flats
until the Swinomish flats are reached.
There the Swinomish slough is taken, and
we are soon at an Indian agency. Here
we camped for the night, dreadful
place, damp, swampy, and afflicted with
mosquitoes. These were so thick that
the remark of one of the natives was but
little exaggerated. Moving around q
"smudge" fire had built, so as to keep
In the line of the smoke, l injected an
explanation or two into my conversation
with him, about the troublesomeness of
the northern mosquitoes. Hardly in
terruptlng bis story, the native said,
" We don't call them thick until club
thrown up in the air comes down
bloody" and without smile he kept on
with his tale of an elk as big as a mule.
Next morning we start for the Skagit
river and get as far up as the settlement
below the jam" Though it is far
from nightfall, our chief halts and makes
camp, and stalks majestically around for
the admiration of the settlers. The
camp being pitched under some wide
spreading cedars, | strolled off TO the
river, got into a canoe and crossed to
where | saw some men clearing the for
est. They stopped work and we seated
ourselves on a log, talked and smoked.
They told me that it costs two hundred
dollars per acre to clear this land, and
as / looked at the large trees from four
to six feet in diameter | believed it. /
asked them if they knew of the passes
through the mountains. They did not;
they had heard of the Sank pass from
the Indians, but never of the Skagit
pass.
Soon firing of the wood cutters, I
wander off, and wandering come to log
hut in front of which a white man is
sitting ION a stool, watching two little
half-breed children play in the sand by
the river. A couple of canoes are tied
to some stakes and float round and
round in an eddy of the river. Leaning
against great cedar, | watch the chill
dren play, and look at the man. There
is something in his appearance, as he sits
before me, that impresses me as being
different from the Missouri Pixies have
just left. So | stand, unseen by him,
and look.
Across the river is jolly party of
Indians. They laugh loudly, talk in
as they cook fresh salmon
They make pretty picture as they
move and act around their fire, shaded |
Dy the great evergreens A neatly |
ressed 7at.haadad Indian woman oan,as