The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1894-03-28
a new ELDoEADo.
Description of the Placer Gold Fields
of Southern Virginia.

prescription OF the RlaCeT GOLD FtelQS
of Southern Virginia.
Under these headlines the st. Louis
Globe Democrat, in its issue of March
9TH, contained the following special tel
egraphic account of a recent discovery
of gold near Keysville, Virginia.
WASHINGTON, D. c., March 4.-Col.
Pat Donan today told an interested
group of listeners some wonderful stories
of recent gold discovery not far from
Washington.
'sI have just returned" he said, ''from
an examination of one of the most re-
markable deposits of placer gold I have
ever seen, and as you all know, have
had some mining experience IN nearly
every region from British Columbia to
Honduras and Peru. Think of a whole
Virginia farm literally sparkling with
gold-nuggets, scales and grains of gold
scattered everywhere. Every shovelful
of dirt dug on the place, fIom the grass
roots down, yielded gold, gIittering, yell
low gold Gold washed out in old dish
pans and all sorts of odd utensils, and
thrown out by wagon wheels in the
roadways! All that, and more. have
just seen!'
The place is within six or eight hours
run of Washington, on the Richmond
and Danville railroad, about mile and
a half from Keysville, Charlotte county,
Virginia, it being the farm of a man
named Clifford.
MIR. Clifford is man well on in
years, Christian man. highly esteemed
by everybody in the region. He re-
ceived us with old-fashioned southern
hospitality, and though the weather was
stormy showed us all over his land.
The finding of several nuggets along the
little creek that runs through his place
led to his discovery of gold about two
years ago. Since that time he has sup
ported himself and family by occasion
ally digging and washing our small guam
titles of the dirt. His mining imple-
ments are spade and small ordinary
dishpan. He has often washed 81 out
of single pan, and has found many
nuggets running from the size of pin
head or a small pea to the size of mans
finger-end, and worth 81 to $40. each.
Mrs. Clifford, a pleasant-faced, white
haired lady, showed us large iron
kitchen spoon, with which she has fre-
quently dug and washed out along the
creek bed from so cents to 81 in morn
ing. The old gentleman said: Il have
never washed pan of dirt on the place
that did not yield gold Venera-
hla and frT1fhf11 Ia Al.
struck me as impossible. Mr.. Jones
promptly dug painful of earth from a
hillside just back of the house and,
though entirely without mining exper-
ience, he washed it and got two or three
grains of gold. Four more panfuls, that
he dug out in different places, yielded
over quarter of an ounce of black sand
and gold dust, including one tiny nugget
that weighed nearly two grains. The
old gentlemen brought out rusty sheet
iron scoop shovel containin 5000 or
$4,000 in nuggets and coarse grain gold
that he had recently washed. Then, in
stumbling about, we found an outcrop-
ping vein of quartz, which explained
where the placer came from. Some
pieces of this surface rock which we
broke off assayed 1880 in free gold to
the ton.
The party dug all over the farm,
shovelful here and shovelful there; in
old corn fields and tobacco patches that
have been in cultivation for forty years;
in meadows and grass lots, in the old
kitchen garden, in the woods, on the
hillsides and on tie creek banks-and
they found gold in every pan and spade
ful of earth they washed. From all in
dications it is one of the biggest gold
finds OF the last twenty years, and prom
ises to become another bonanza. The
veins have been clearly traced for four
miles, and there is every reason to be-
lieve that the'placer field extendsfar be-
yond the limits of the Clifford farm. -
Thus talks Col. Pat. Donan, of Astoria
fame.
The Keystone Progress believes that
the discovery will create big boom
about Keysville, and would not be sur
prised to see another Deadwood or Lead
vile rise as if by magic among the piney
woods OF Southern Virginia.
American Footgear.