The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1889-02-05

Fremont, now after more than forty years
tells US that our two young officers and
their ship crew persisted and utterly dis
appeared from the face of the earth-this
first mad(0 writer about the Buried River
tells us that he was bumped and thumped
about in the mouth of his river, among
masts and hunks that had been swal-
lowed upi
Let US mention just one more published
fact, and then proceed directly with our
own narrative. In a 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 attempting to
reach the city of San Francisco with
their incalculable treasure by boat, they
were lost in this same Straits of Car
quinas; and neither boat, gold or Kama
kas, were ever heard of ag~ain.~-
The book from which I take this last
incident is a sober, truthful work. 1t is a
rare and costly publication; SO costly in
deed that I cannot afford to have a copy
at hand so as to give the page. One thou
sand dollars, I believe, is the price of this
book; but you can find it at the libraries
if you care to verify further. It is called
Picturesque California"
Did / forget to mention that the vessel
of which General Fremont spoke as hav-
ing been lost in the Straits of Carquinas
had on board a large sum of money! 1t
was on it's way to Fort Sacramento, nov
the State Capitol of California, with
money to pay for supplies.
And so it seems beyond dispute, for we
must of course believe General Fremonts
book, and this new California publication
as well, that the gold of the lost ship, and
this greatest nugget of gold ever found,
lie tumbhed together somewhere in the
whirling and eddying waters of the Straits
of Carquinas.
One thing more, and we leave these
early landmarks and approach more re-
cent events. An italian engineer miner
on the MERGED river, not far from Mari
posa, suddenly disappeared about a quar-
ter of a century SINCE. E.~Aa
No; there is nothing at all strange in
the sudden disappearance of a miner in
California, either in the old days or the
new. But this was an able and an emf
nent 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 sup
posed underground river. And he always
insisted that the Buried River flowed I'M
der the Yosemite and on down under the
MERGED river toward the sea. His argu-
ment was that the awful chasm making
the Yosemite Falls and the Yosemite Val
ley-by which earth enough,to make a
county must nave been removed-had
been foImed by an underground river
which emptied it's debris into the ocean.
Well, to speed along over this dry
ground, this man suddenly disappeared,
leaving his maps, charts, instruments, ali
things behind him. Of course it was
thought he had run away to escape his
debts. Enquiry showed, however, by de-
grees that he had paid every dollar of his
obligations! Still, people only shrugged
their shoulders, and saying they "always
thought he was a little cracked" soon for
got all about the great engineer who be-
lieved in the existence Of a Buried River
with a bed of gold.
Years later, ONE rowing miners camped
in the old deserted cabin. A few days
afterward there was a deadly quarrel in
that cabin a fight that ended in death. It
appears that these rowing miners had
found a vast heap of nuggets 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 to say that the
people this time said: ."He surely found
his buried river with it's bed of gold"
The miners of Mariposa now secured
the hills and the valleys, winter and sum-
mer, but no 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 it was called, much like those found in
the Rocky Mountains, still bore some
traces of his steps; his trail or path lead
ing thither was fairly traceable. But as
the wind was always so violent at the
mouth of this ugly cave as to blow out
any lamp, lantern, or even torch, that
could be brought, it seemed clear that,
mad as the man may have been, he had
never been mad enough to adventure to
any depth here.
And so the fallen leaves soon filed the
dim trail entirely. The cabin ratified down;
the quail sat in pairs and pedundisturbed
on the broken bouldeTs that had made the
fireplace and hearthstone; the rabbits
danced in the twilight on the bare and
beaten spot that had once been the door
yard; and that was all. The earthquake
of 1872 closed In the walls of the cavern,
and the winds come never any more from
the cave to rustic the leaves overhead.