Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-02-03

floating hoe handle.
Sea gulls! That is all. They have come
like arrows from the hot heavens above,
They did not come from the waters below,
But thew came SO suddenly and so soon that
little wonder it is that people, even those
who are engaged in piercing the buried
river below, nave insisted, and still insist,
that a sea gull has been known to come uI
from the watery world below. dry and white,
and clean as snow, along with the curious
little schools of fish that so love the light,
leap once, twice, thrice, and then melt away
like little spears of ice in the sun and are
seen no more. They see the light although
they have no eyes.
As Iwrite, even before the ink is dry on
the preceding page, a ponderous book comes
70 hand by post from 5000 miles distant 1t is
the latest work of General John G. Fremont
On page 30 read:
while engaged in operations at the South
had the great regret to learn that in just such a
boat voyage through the Straits of Carquinez
ComnodoreM Montgomery had the shock OF los.
ing his eldest two sons"
1t is needless to recite here the long search
for these gallant young officers and their crew
of many good men. Fremont made all possible
effort to ind some trace of ship, men or money.
Nothing was ever heard of anyone or of any
thing connected with the sad loss.
The names of the lost officers were not
dropped from the rolls of the navy even at the
end OF the Oflclal wear IL appears, DQL SPECIAL
search was made for long years after.
Nothing, nothing at ALL No sign of men, ship
or money. And yet it was right here in these
Straits of Carquinas-the Spanish spelling
diferent-righ here on the bank and edge of a
body of water not five miles square, that the
man spoken OF as the author of the first story
about the Buried River located the mouth Of
it-right here, where General Fremont, now
after more than ~ years, tells us that our two
young officers and their ship crew persisted and
utterly disappeared from the face of the earth
this first mad(g writer about the buried
river tells us that he was bumped and thumped
about in the mouth Of his river. among masts
and hulRs that had been swallowed upl
Let us mention just one more published fact
and then proceed directly with our own narra-
tive. In q book, only this year published, YOU
can read that the largest nugget of gold ever
exhumed, was dug up in California long ago
by four "Kanakas," natives of the Sandwich
Islands. This book tells how that, in attempt
ing TO reach the city of San Francisco with
their incalculable treasure by boat, they were
lost in this same Straits of Carquinas; and
neither boat, gold or Kanakas were ever heard
Of again.
The book from which 1 take this last Incl
dent is a sober, trustful work 1t is a rare and
costly publication; SO costly, indeed, that /
give the page. One thousand dollars, 1 be-
leve, is the price of this book; but you can
ind it at the libraries if you care to verify
further. 1t is called Picturesque California"
Did l forget to mention that the vessel of
which General Fremont spoke as having been
lost in the Straits of Carouinas had on board a
large sum of money? 1t was on its wayto Fort
Sacramento, now the State capital of Cali
fornia, with money TO pay for supplies.
And so it seems beyond dispute, for we must
of course believe General Fremout's book. and
this new California publication as well, that the
gold Of the lost ship, and the greatest nugget of
gold ever found, lie tumbled together some
where in the whriling and edying waters of the
Straits of Carquinas.
nzo Hhfn~ 80 nH1 ~ Lava - n,-l-
landmarks and approach more recent events.
An Italian engineer miner on the MERGED river,
not far from Mariposa. suddenly disappeared
about a quarter of a century since.
No; there lis nothing at all strange in the sud
den disappearance OF a miner in Californis.
either in the old DAYS or the new. But this was
an able and an eminent man in his way. A
great engineer he was; made the first great
fumes IN California: located and made the first
great water bitches; was always in debt, and
was always talking about finding the buried
river. He had his cabin walls covered with
maps and surveys of his supposed underground
river. And he always insisted that the buried
river flowed under the Yosemite and on down
under the MERGED river toward the sea. His
argument was that the awful chasm making the
Yosemite Falls and the Yosemite Nalley-by
which earth enough to make a county must
have been remOved-had been formed by an
underground river which emptied its debris
into the ocean.
Well, to speed along over this dry ground, |
this man suddenly disappeared, leaving his
maps, charts, instruments, all things behind
him. OF course it was thought he had run
away to escape his debts. Inquiry showed,
however, by degrees that he had paid every
dollar of his obligations. Still people only
shrugged their shoulders, and saying they ''ai-
ways thought he was a little cracked" soon
forgot all about the great engineer who be-
lieved in the existence of O buried river with a
bed of gold.
Years later. some rowing miners eamped in
the old deserted cabin. A few days afterward
there was a deadly quarrel in that cabin-a
night that ended in death. 1t appears that
these rowing miners had found a vast heap of
hidden AWAY under the hearthstone. |
The deadly fight alone could have brought out
the facts now so well known through the trial
of the murderers; but which must be hastily
passed over. Enough tn say that the people
tins time said; surely found his buried
river with its bed of gold"
The miners of Mariposa now secured the
bills and the valleys, winter and summer, but
trace could they find of any probable spot
from which these rusty and rich and massive
old nuggets had been taken.
True, the windy, or the trembling cave as il
called, much like those found in the Rocky
Mountains, still bore some traces of his steps;
his trail or path leading thither was fairly
traceable. But as the wind was always SO vio-
lent at the mouth of this ugly cave as to blow
out any lamp, lantern. or even torch, that could
be brought, 1t seemed clear that, mad as the
man may have been, he had never been mad
enough 10 adventure to any depth here.
: And SO the fallen leaves soon filled the dim
trail entirely. The cabin ratified down: the
quail sat in pairs and piped undisturbed on the
broken boulders that had made the fireplace
and hearthstone; the rabbits danced in the
twilight on the bare and beaten spot that had
once been the dooryard, and that was all. The
earthquake of 1872 closed in the walls of the
and the winds come never any more
from the cave to hustle the leaves overhead.