Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1886-04-18
"PocKET-MINlNe."

In one little corner OF CAhfornla 10 founS
q species of OF mining which is seldom o
never mentioned 10 print. 1t is called
pocket mining" and sn not aware tina
any OF il IL done outside OF that little cor
ner. Inc gold is not evenly distributed
through tie surface DIRT as in ordinary
placer mines, but it is collected in little
spots, and they are wide apart and exceed
ingly hard to find, but when you dc
find one you reap q rich and
sudden harvest. There are not now
more than twenty "pocketmlners in ths,
entire little region. ! think know every
one OF them personally. | have known
one of them to hunt patiently about the
hilsides for eight months without finding
gold enough to make 9 snuff-box, and his
grocery bill running up relsntlessly all the
time and then I-,have seen him lind q
pocket and tai out of it thousand dol
lars IN two dips of his shovel. have
seen him take out three thousand dollars
in two hours, and 60 and pay up
every cent of his Indebtedness,
then enter on dazzling
spree that flushed the last Of his treasure
before the night was gone And the next
day he bought his groceries on credit as
usual, and shouldered his pan shovel and
went off to the hills hunting pockets again
happy and content. This is perhaps the
most fascinating of sll the different kinds
of mining, and furnishes very handsome
percentage of victims to the lunatic ssy-
INN. Honest toll and moderate gains in
shops and on farms have their virtues and
advantages. When q man consents TO
seek for sudden riches be does SO at his
peril No charge
Pocket.huntipg is an ingenious process.
You take q spsdetul OF earth from the hill
side and put it 10 large pan and dissolve
and wash it gradually away TILL nothing Is
LEFT, bat q teaspoontul of fine sediment
Whatever gold was in that earth has re-
NAMED, because, being the heaviest, 1t has
sought the bottom. Among the sediment
YOU will fiud half dozen shining particles
no larger than pinheads. You are delight
ed. You move of to one side and wash
another pan. II you find gold again, you
move 20 one side further aud wash q
third pan. If you find no gold this time
you are delegated again, because you know
you are on the right scent You lay an
imaginary plan, shaped like fan with Its
handle up the hill-for just where the end
of the handle is, you argue that the rich
deposit lies hidden, whose vsgrsut grams
of gold have escaped, and been washed
down the hill spreading farther and far
Their apart as they wandered. And 30 you
proceed up the hill, washing the earth and
narrowing your lines every time the absence
of gold in the pan shows that you are out
eide the spread of the fan; and at last,
twenty yards up the hill, your lines have
couverged TO q point-a single loot from
tba, point you cannot fud any gold. Your
breath comes shOrG and QUICK, you are
fsverish with excitement; the dinner bel!
may rug its clspper off, you pay no atten-
ZION; friends may die, weddings trans
uire, houses burn down, they are nothing
10 YOU; you sweat and dig and delVe with q
frantic interest all at once you strike u
10 comes a spadetul Of earth
and quartz that is ell lovely with
soilsd Jumps and leaves, and sprays OF
gold Sometimes that one spadetul is all
$500. Sometimes the nest contains
$4,000, aud it takes you three or four days
10 get it all out. The pOcket-miners tell
YOU of one nest that yielded 500. 600, and
two men exhausted il in two weeks, and
,aen sold the ground for $40, 900 to a party
who never got $500 out of it af(erwsrd.
The hogs are good pockethuuters. AL
the summer they root around among the
bushes and turn up 9 thousand little piles
OF dirt, and then the miners wish tor rain
for the rains heat upon thtse little piles
aud wssh them down and expose the gold
oossioly right over pocket. Two pockets
we're found in this way by the same man II
one d.y. One had S., 900 in it and the
cher $4,000. The man could appreciate
it, for he hadn't had cent Tor about
year. ..:
Ia Tuolumue lived two miners who user
TO 90 to the neighboring village in thu
afternoon aud return at night with house
hold supplies. Part of the distance the!
travelled q trail, and nearly always so
down on a great bowlder that lay besides
the path. 10 the course of thirteen year
they had worn that boWlder toleraol!
smooth, sit,ing on it. By and BY tW'
warrant MeXicsns came along ant
occupied the seat. They begal
10 smuse themselves by chipping
off flakes from the bOwlder with sledg
hammer. TAey examined one OF thes
fakes and found it rich with gold. Tn
boBlier paid them $500 afterward. Bu
the sggrevsting circumstances was tina
these "Gressers" knew that there mus
be more gold where that boWlder cam
from, and so they went panning up tn
hill and found what was probably tn
richest pocket that region has yet pre-
ducsd. 1t took three months to exhaus
il aud it yielded $4,000. The tw
American miners who used to SIT on th'
oowlder are poor yet, and they take turn
ABOUT in getting up early in the morn'n
TO curse those Nexicans-snd when
comes down to pure ornamental cursln
the native American miner IS gifted soo7
the sons of men. =,
| have dHelt at some length upon tn
matter of pocket mining because 1t 10
subject that is seldom referred to IN prin
and therefore judged that it would hay
for the reader that interest which natural
| -1k,ohas N noValtv