Arizona republican., 1891-06-14


 this its value was for few months pushed far up into high and airy realms of finance.
 l told some of my acquaintances in Sonora that could find the "continua. ion" of the Halsey lead. They "staked" me with a few dollars, in consideration of which was to make them sharehold- CTS in whatever I might find. Then l went forth into the chapparal to 'spros- pect." The Halsey claim lay about a mile east of Table mountain, near Mon- tezuna, a mining camp then far in fes decline. Table mountain is one of the geological curiosities, if not wonders, of Tuolumne and California. Through Tuolumne it is a veritable wall, from 250 to 600 feet in height, flat as a floor on the top. That top had an average width of 300 yards. Tho ''table" is com posed of what we miners call ''lava" It is q honeycombed, metallic-looking rock, which on being struck with a sledge ernits sulphurous smell. The sides to the ungeological eye seem of different kind of rock. But parts of the sides are not of rock at all-they are of gravel.
 On the eastern slope you may see from the old Sonora stage road two parallel lines, perhaps 200 feet apart, running along the mountain side. Mile after mile do these marks run, as level aud exact as if laid there by the surveyor. Climb up to them and you find these lines enlarged to sort of shelf or wave washed and indented bank of hard ce- ment, like gravel You may crawl un- der and sit in the shade of an overhang- ing roof of gravel, apparently in some former age scooped out by the action of waves. Not only on the Table mount ain sides do you find these lines, but where Table mountain merges into the plains about Knights ferry will you see these same water marks running around the many low conical hills.
 Ageological supposition. That's what water seems to have done outside of Table mountain. Were l a geologist I should say that here had been lake maybe a great lake-which at some other time had suddenly from the first mark been drained down to the level of the second, and from that had been drained off altogether. Perhaps there was a rise in the Sierra Nevada, and every thing rising with it the lake went up too suddenly on one side and SO the wa ters went down on the other. Inside of Table mountain there is an old river bed, smoothly washed by the currents of per haps as many if not more centuries than any river now on earth has seen, and this forms a layer or core of gold bearing gravel. In some places it has paid richly, in more places it has not paid at all.
 I said to myself, "This Halsey lead, like all the leads of this section, runs northeast and southwest" (N. B.-Three years afterward we found there were no leads at all in that section.) "The Hal sey lead must run under Table mountain and come out somewhere on the other side" So I took the bearings of the Hal sey lead, or what then supposed were the bearings, for there wasn't any lead any way, with compass. aimed my compass at a point on the ledge of the fiat summit of Table mountain. Init it. Then climbed up over the two water shelves or banks to that point. This was on the honeycombed lava crags. From these crags one could see afar north and south. South. over Tuolumne into Mariposa, the eye following the great white quartz outcrop of the Mother or Mariposa lead. North was Bear mountain, the Stanislaus river and Stan islaus county.
 This view always reminded me of the place where one very great and very bad historical parsonage of the past as we'll as the present showed another still greater and much better being all the kingdoms of the earth. For the earth wasn't all laid out, pre-empted and fenced in those days, and its kingdoms were small. Then l ran my lines over the flat top of Table mountain, south east and northwest. So they said ran all the copper leads, commencing at Copperopolis. So then we believed, while tossing with the copper fever. Certainly they ran somewhere, and ran fast, too, for we never caught any paying copper vein in sTuolumne county; at least any that paid-except to sell.
 aimed my compass down the other side of the mountain. There,- when the perpendicular lava rock stopped pitching straight up and down, sometimes fifty, sometimes two hundred feet, was dense growth of chaparral--the kind of chap arral we called "chemisal." I got into the chemisal.. Here the compass was of no more use than would be a certificate of Copperhead copper stock to pay board bill. It was furry, prickly, blinding, be- wildering, blundering. irritating growth, which sent pang through mans heart and a pricker into his skin at every step. At last, crawling down it on all fours, for could not walk, dirty. dusty, thirsty and perspiring, lit on rock, an outcrop of ledge. It was gray and moss grown. It hid and guarded faithfully the treasure it concealed. Like Moses, struck the rock with my little hatchet. The broken piece revealed underneath a rotten, sandy like, spongy formation of crum- bling, bluish, greenish hue. It was cop per! I had struck it! I rained down more blows! Red oxides, green carbon ates, gray and blue sulphurets! had found the Copperhead lead! I was rich. got upon that rock and danced! Not graceful, but an enthusiastic pas seul. l deemed my fortune made. was at last out of the wilderness! But wasn't.
 . w. PRENTICE MUIJoRD.