The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-02-08

| three to seven inches wide, and over
 an inch thick. The gold was embedded
 in a mass of crystalized quartz, with
 clear cut corners, the sides of which
 shown with great brilliancy. When 1 thoroughly cleaned 1t weighed 147 ounc-
 es, and was sent to the San Francisco
 mint, where it brougt $2,S52 In 1864
 near Michigan Bluff, nugget of pure
 gold weighing 226 ounces and valued at
 S4,204 was found. In July, 1876, J. B..
 Colgrove of Dutch Flat found a white | quartz boulder in the Polar Star mine
 which contained $5, 700 worth of gold.
 In Eldorado county in 1853 a 105-ounce
 nugget of gold was discovered that was valued at $1,800. Another was found
 near Kelsey in the same county which l sold for $4,700. In 1867 ait Pilot Hill g
 boulder of gold quartz was found which | yielded $S000. This with several small Ter nuggets was taken from the Bould-
 CT Gravel claim near the Pilot Hill post l office. Several large and valuable gold
 nuggets were discovered in Tuolumne county. In 1853 a mass of gold weigh
 ing 360 ounces was found at Columbus.
 This was valued at $5,625. At Gold Hill In the same county, a MT. Virgin found
 
 $6500. A Frenchman in Spring Gulch,
 near Columbia, in the same county, found one of almost pure gold, which was worth $5,000. The rich mass of
 gold rendered the miner insane on the
 following day, and he was sent to the
 Stockton asylum. The nugget was sold
 and the money for it was sent to his family in France.
 Near the Knapp ranch, half a mile east of Columbia, a MT. Strain discover ed large gold quartz nugget which weighed fifty pounds. After the quartz was crushed and the gold melted, the amount obtained was $S,500. On Sulli- vans creek in the same county, in 1849, twenty -eight-pound nugget was pick ed up by one of the pioneers. It was sold for $716S
 Near Magalia, in Butte county, on August 14 1859, Ira A. Willard found on the west branch of the Feather a nugget that weighed fifty-four pounds avoirdupois and was worth $1o,690 On finding this the miners quit work for the day and celebrated the event by a grand jolllification. #
 In the last decade several nuggets have been found in the mining regions of California that have brought over $3,000 each. Tn October, 1889, two men who were tramping on the coast, were put off a southern Pacific freight train | at the little station of Caliente, and | started off to walk to Bakersfield. TwoI days later they came back to Caliente l with a lump of gold and crystalized | quartz. They were suspected of hav- ing robbed a mining camp, and even | of having murdered a miner to get | their gold. They, however, proved that | while going about in the dry bed of an ancient stream of water, two miles from the Bealeville placer mining camp for fagots for fire, they had stumbled upon their lucky find. They had of fered the gold for sale to a railreadI man for $10, but he, suspecting fraud, would not bargain with the strangers. Subsequently the nugget was sold in | Los Angeles for $2,750. It weighed 216 ounces. In less than week after the | find there were 100 men from all parts of southern California hunting daily up and down the old river bed for gold nuggets, but beyond a few $3 or $4 finds there was nothing worthy the search.
 In January 1884, nugget of pure 6OlU lLletG WGl6hGd 1tU OuiICGS WdS lOuIluI in drift of coarse gravel in the Collar district north of Mojave desert. The very next day another nugget of pure gold about the size of a. goose's egg was found. Both were bought by a jeweller in Pomona The former brought S2120 and the latter s975 Several months ago a nugget that sold for $1,4O0 was brought into San Diego by a poor, weak consumptive from New Jersey, who had been rough ing it up in the mountains with some sheep ranchmen. Tn his long daily walks he amused himself in looking for Indian relics in the canon. He found the nugget among lot of rocks one day after a heavy rainstorm had washed down immense masses of gray sl and earth from the side of the can 1n. Where was no one more astonished 1 than he at the value placed upon his 1 ind when he offered it for sale in San Diego. Experienced miners visited : he locality where the chunk was pick { d up, but not one of them has vet { 'ound another sign of gold there. Itl { s one of the perplexities and aggraya- l ions of hunting for new gold fields.
 The largest nugget ever found in l North Carolina weighed eighty pounds. I The largest ever found in Siberia I weighed ninety-six pounds and four l ounces. The largest piece of gold Y yer found in Colorado weighed IS t and this was by no means pure I ,old The largest ever found in the ( world was discovered in Australia in t S52, and was known as the King of r he Water Moon nugget It weighed 23 pounds and 4 ounces and was worth