The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-12-20
PROSECUTORS TALES.
Some Notable Instances of the Fact
That Gold Grows.

They were all weather beaten trail
blazers who had led the march of civil
ization into the mountains and as they
toasted their shins by the big stove in
Lon Pickett's hotel bar at Melrose their
conversation wandered from the recent
election and the departed glories of
other days to the latest discoveries in
science, says the Butte Inter Noun
tain. John Helehan had just finished
reading an extract from a mining
journal about Professor Emmons' dis
covery of the method of transmitting
silver into gold.
Il think Emmons is a humbug," said
old Judge Lonely. a California Argo-
maui; the old alchemists. You know,
tried that, but they might as well have
tried to make an apple seed. Nature
holds the germ and all the scientists
who initiate her can do is to quicken
its growth"
i've heard tell of gold growing"
remarked Will Robbins.
so have l." said the judge but you
have never seen it, now have you?"
replied the judge. Il don't believe all
the yarns these acknowledged experts
spin, anyhow. They are a good deal
like these bugologists who come down
from Butte occasionally and talk about
made and female trees and vegetables
and things till they make me tired"
Boys" spoke up John Treanor, per
haps / have got some queer old notions
slowed away under this diggin' hat of
mine, but for 80 years, man and boy,
I've been prospector, and have been
dom some thinking; and tell you now
that l believe gold does grow. Twenty
years ago I struck the Locust and sank
a shaft. 1t was silver ore, and after
diggin' for awhile I gave it up in dis
gust. Then / wandered over to the
other side of the range and located the
Banner, a copper mine now in the pos
session of the Anaconda company.
moseyed around for awhile and eight
years ago l went back to my old love-
the Locust. Hang me If / could believe
me eyes, boys. when l found the pref
test ledge of gold ore right where the
silver ledge was. 1t was as pretty as a
picture to my eyes, and I kept right
on diggin' and have been diggin in that
hole ever since. 1t seemed TO me that
in the places where the water struck
it. it grew richer. 1 run in three tun-
nels at the bottom, but found the gold
was not yet ripe, so l just closed up
the tunnels and let them rest for a
few years"
Blame me if I don't think Hank
Stebbins does the same thing" said
Jack Filce. Hank lives up in Soap
gulch and has a claim he calls the
Belcher. He discovered it 80 years ago
when Wash Stapleton was making bull
lets in his lead mine TO kill Indians
with. 1t is in a funny formation for
that part OF the country. 1t is in reef
of sand lying between the lime forma-
ton that borders on the Melrose valley
and the statified gneiss formation that
runs from that point to the base of Red
mountain. Thirty years ago Hank dis
covered that there were globules of
silver in the sand. and located it, but
there wasn't enough mineral to pay
and he abandoned it. Ten years ago
he went back TO the old mine and be-
gan turning over the sand. He began
to find chunks of gold instead of silver.
He has a good thing of it now He
mines it like the Mexicans used to
mine years ago. He cuts stairs in the
sand and takes the rock up in a candle
box and sorts it over. Now all he has