The Phoenix herald. (Phoenix, Maricopa County, A.T. [Ariz.]) 1879-1882, 1880-10-08
cospENsED rELEGRAMs.
" Millions En- H. =

The following amusing note, by
Mark Twain, to the New \ ork Even
ing Post, on the last gold fraud of
California, might be applied to quite
a number of mining propositions
that have reached. market:
L have just seen your dispatch
from San Francisco, in saturdays
Evening Post, about Gold in S0Iu-
tion'' in the Calisioga Springs. and
about the proprietor's having "ex-
tracted $1,000 in gold of the utmost
fineness from ten barrels of ;he water"
during the past fortnight, by Il pro-
cess known only TO himself This
will surprise many of your readers,
but it does not surprise me; Tor /
once owned those springs myself.
What does surprise me, however, is
the falling off in the richness of the
water. In my time, the yield was a
dollar dipperful. l am not saying
this to injure the property, in case
a sale is contemplated l am only
saying 1t in tho interest OF history.
1t may be that this hotel proprietor 5
process is an inferior One-yes, that
may be the fault. Mine was to take
nv uncle-I had an extra uncle st
that time, on account of his parents
dying and leaving HIM on my hands
and fill him up, and let him stand
fifteen minutes, to give the water u
chance 20 settle well, then insert him
in an exhausted receiver, which had
the effect of sucking the gold out
through his pores. | have t4ken
more than eleven thousand dollars
out of that old man in a day and a
half | should have held on to those
springs but for the badness of the
roads and the difficulty of getting the
gold 10 market.
consider that gold yielding rock
in many respects remarka bic; and
vet not more remarkable than the
goldbearing air of Citgut Canyon,
up there toward the head of the
auriferous range. This air, or this
wind-fOr il is kind of trade-wind
which blows steadily down through
six hundred miles of rich quartz
groupings during an hour and a
quarter every day except Sunday-is
heavily charged with eXquisitely fine
and impalpable gold. Nothing pre-
cipitates and sOlidifies this gold so
readily as contact with human flesh
heated by passion. The time that
William Abrahams was disappointed
in love, he used to step out doors
when that wind was blowing, and
come in again and begin to sigh, and
his brother Andover J would extract
over a dollar and a half out of every
sigh he sighed, right along. And
the time that John HARRISON and
Aleck Norton quarrelcd about Har-
bison's dog, they stood there swear
ing at each other all they knew how
and what they didn't know about
swearing they couldn't learn from
YOU and me, not by a good deal
and at the end of every three or four
minutes they had to stop and make
y dividend; if they didn't, their jaws
would clog up SO that they couldn't
get the big ninc-syllabled ones out
at all and when the wind was done
blowing, they cleaned up just little
over sixteen hundred dollars apiece.
| know these facts to be absolutely
true, because / got them from man
whose mother knew personally. l
do not suppose person could buy
water privilege at Calistoga now
at any price; but several good loca-
tions along the course of the Catgut
Canyon Gold Bearing Trade-Wind
are for sale They are going to be
stocked for the New York market.
They will sell, too; the people will
swarm for them as thick as Hancock
veterans-in tho South.
MARK TWAIN
HARTFoED, CoNS., Sept. II.