The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-10-26
HOUND FOR TIE SEA OFFERS HOME.
Wherever 1t i,. skipper ohismutI win be
 Rich tf he Finds it.

The little schooner Nellie Martin lef
 Juneau. Alaska. about q month ago ir
 search of reputed island where Henry ohlemutz. the captain of the little craft
 expects to find great treasures. The
 treasure which he is seeking Is not
 buried. He expects to And the wealth which he is seeking on n mysterious
 island. In short. he Is hunting sea ot'
 ters, the coats of which animals arc now more valuable than those of tho
 majority of seals. As the sea otter Is rapidly becoming extinct the fur-bear' ing skins are becoming more and more valuable. Good specimens are now worth as high as $500. Captain ohle' mutz believes that he will find an is'
 land almost alive with the sea otters and that his reward will be as great as though he had discovered a rich gold mine.
 For many years there has been tra' dition among settlers and the frequent. CTS of the Behring sea that there existed a lost paradise of sea otters. The story told by old sealers Is about an island upon which the eyes of man have sel. dom rested. away out to the westward of the Aleutian isles, which is the breed. ing place of the sea otter. This myster' ious reef has been searched for In a desultory way by many sealing vessels but none have had the fortune to find 1t.
 The Nellie Martin has been fitted out to carry party on thorough search for the lost island. The members of the party are Captain Henry ohlemutz, the owner of thelittle schooner; James Bid. dle and Fred Hogue. They are all con. fdent of securing the wealth which they believe is awaiting the lucky dis. coverers of the lost paradise. The Mel. lie Martin arrived at Juneau about two months ago with a cargo of seal sea otter, lack fox, bear, and mink skins. These were disposed of for ships stores and provisions. Many of the skins came from a small island in Prince Williams sound. where James Riddle, formerly Montana man, has gone into the business of rearing black foxes. Two years ago he bought two pairs. and this spring his heart was gladdened by a litter of five, whose skins in another years time will be worth from s2O0 to $500 each.
 It was supposed that the schooner would return to Prince Williams sound but the unusually large quantity oi provisions taken aboard of her aroused a suspicion that some secret expedition was about to be undertaken. Captain OhlemutL, when questioned, was close. mouthed, but the day before the schoon. CT sailed he beuame more communica. tive. He then announced that search was to be made for the traditional sea- otter's breeding place. The captain Is a deep-water salt; a tall, big-boned and tough-grained mariner.
 "Yes, I'm bound on voyage of dis. covery," said the captain, in response to Q query regarding the reason of hie elaborate preparations. You have heard of those sea-otter rocks out to the westward? They were first found by Russian navigators in the last century Well, I am going to find them or die in the attempt."t
 "For nearly five years I have sailed and traded about ito the westward, and all the time have been hunting for those low-reefed rocks where the sea- otters breed. About a year ago run across an old Russian sea captain at Kodiak. He told me he had the record of an old Russian, navigator who speaks of finding those rocks and of killing 100 sea otters. That was many, many years ago, and no one has been known to set foot on the place since. I am the next man who will find those rocks, if the place still exists, and there ought to be rich hunting.
 T made a contract with the old cap- tain and agreed to give him third of the skins we get if he would tell the location of the reef. The bargain was struck, and from the log book of the navigator got the exact lati- tude and longitude of the place. The log described the rocks as a low reef which is almost covered at the high stages of the tide. Anyway, I'm off to find the spot, and I think this black, greasy schooner of mine will contain the value of kings ransom when I return, for sea otter skins are worth from $10O to $500 now, and are constant ly increasing in value.
 "The rocks are not a myth, for, be- sides the Russian log book, I have the word of Captain Murphy, who was drowned in Murphy's cave in 1889. He made many daring trips in his little schooner, and told me that he sighted the rocks once during a storm. He was anxious to fit out and find them again He would have done so had not death 
 The story is like many told of hidden treasures, but as Captain Ohlemutz feels sufficiently assured from different sources of the existence of the rocks .o go to the expense and time of making , trip, there is a possibility of his dis covering the place, especially as he claims to have the latitude and longl- Jude of the location.
 There was speculation in Juneau as so what course the schooner would .ake. Some believed that 1t would be coward Amadir gulf, on the Siberian coast, but others contended that this would be too far north. The greater number of people inclined to the belief hat its course would be towards Cape 0lmtorsk or Karaginski island. while ,ome thought the mysterious island mist 1ia off Kamchatkas 4tiGgl