Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1886-03-25

unpered into me ~ German university.
! Mineralogy was my fayorite study. There
/ became acquainted with Madame Quartz
/ the mntrix, in fact mother, of gold-a mother
who has good deal to answer for in bring
ing SO much of the root of all evil into the
world So soon as arrived in these mines 7
knew that the gold which has through
ages drifted into all these rivers. creeks and
gnlches, must have tunfbled some time or
other out of this kind OF rock and wherever
the rock was, there was the chance of find
ing gold in the original package So /
hunted and found it at last, and here are
more of the original packages
| He turned up fiat bowlder as he smoke
and underneath, in a cavity, lay "a pile of
the yellow-hecked white rock Pieces were
there varying in size from potato TO a
human skull Some seemed half gold, /
picked up the biggest, and was astonished
at its weight
That's a hundred ouncer,n said Broener.
! 4'outside the rock it carries. Seventeen hun
dred dollars more than the whole crowd on
the bar below win geteuti in a day, 1t makes
me laugh to think of those poor devils hump
f; ing themselves down there, and fighting over
sardines of thirty-three feet claims to the
man, when there's enough uA here to send
of em would go If they struck it.n
And he laid back and had his laugh ont in
an expansive, silent grin, whose heartiness
4 seemed to pervade his whole being. .sSinpu-
lar, he remarked, show circumstances alter
cases Rich as am, can't afford to laugh
aloud, lest the poems below hear me- They
alone can enjoy that luxury.n
But where does this quartz come frNmP' I
asked
He arose. went forward a few steps 10 the
base or the precipice where 1t Joined the
shelf, and turned over few bushes care
lessly laid against the rock. There, low
down near the ground, was a streak of
white quartz. Then | observed on closer in
spection that it had been dug into here and
| there to the depth of a few feet Looking
closer still | saw the yellow metal, and in
places where ruptured by the pick it shone
with CLINT like gilt-very different from
the duller color of the 'sriver wash gold or
that of bank diggings"
YES, there's the bank said Broener.
1.-THE Bank of California, and if wasn't
man oil more than ordinary strength of mind
I'D worry myself to death nights fearing lest
some other quartz learned reptile came crawl
ing up here and worming himself into my
pile. As it is, / have fits of such fear at
times, but when find them coming ON say:
be Off, ye devils Because all fears are
devils-devils of the mind Hard to be put
out If once let in, and bound TO kill if you
can't drive 'em outn
How do you get the gold out of the rockr'
I asked
Pound the gold out of the bigger humps
with mortar and pestle,n he replied, ''but
most of it l carry TO San Francisco to DO
treated such as that piece you threw down
just now. 1t looks worthless You can't SEQ
any gold in it, yet it's full, full Of dust gold,
fne as fiour-yes, finer-fine as the dust ON
the butterflys wing. / take that to tho
assayer. How the mint officials opened their
eyes at them First they ever saw. Wanted
TO know where dug them and how and all
about it OF course l told them. | located
my diggings in the farthest possible country
from this, and fired volleys of lies otherwise
at them A man must protect himself, you
Know, and cut and run from truth Just as
ship In an open roadstead with q gale sud-
denly coming on must cut and run from her
best bower. l half believe they didn't quite
ai>cept my story, and suspect sometimes they
set watch on me to see which way tray
eaed. NO knowing, you know, what some
learned worm of the dust at the mint might
do Because such one would know what
TINS rock meant, and he would yearn, yea,
seek, for it diligently, and do-just as
might do under the same sore trial.