The Brunswick times. [volume] (Brunswick, Ga.) 188?-1900, 1897-08-29
ISITKLONDIKEG OLD2l
THE OLD FIND IN INDIANA TRACED TO
ITS SOURCE.

Ingenious Theory of AN Ancient Gold Bear
ing Glacier From the KIondIIse Region.
Brown County, Ind, Has Been Success
fully Worked For the Past Sixty Years.
News comes from Bean Blossom.
Ind, that great activity has marked the
recent operations in Brown oounty's
goldfields 1t is also added that at no
time in the past has such success re-
warded the labors of miners. Two men
from Georgetown washed out quite
| quantity along the banks of Salt creek,
and party from Brownstown, the
county seat, are going to organize q
company to buy up all the gold land
and put in new machinery for the rapid
and economical separation of the gold
from dust and gravel. The gold beater
at Bean Blossom has more work than
he can do and thinks of securing help
from indianapolis or Bloomington,
Every one in Brown county, north of
Weed Patch hill, seems to think the
day of jubilee has come.
Sounds like a vagary, does it not?
/ The idea of gold in Indianal And Bean
Blossom, Salt creek, Weed Patch hill
they can be nothing but fanoied crea-
tons of some imaginative writer. Yet
these names are all mentioned in your
atlas. Brown county lies south of In
dianapolis and is cut across from east
to west by range of hills, the only
considerable elevation between Canada
and Kentucky. Bean Blossom is the
name of a postoffice and town "north
of the ridge" and there is a gold beat
er with long established business in
the place. Salt creek does flow down
the north country, near the foot of the
ridge, and Weed Patch hill is the high
est peak in the range.
And there is gold in Brown county.
Of this there is no room for question.
More than one state geologist of Indiana
has taken note of the fact, and Geolo-
gist Owen, with others, has recorded
his opinion that the gold came down
from the north in the glacial age and
was deposited here to the north of the
ridge i'll that period-perhaps centuries
in duration-while the glacier, caught
and lodged against the range of hills,
melted at the bottom and deposited the
soil it had dragged loose in the north
west country.
There is no easily discoverable gold
south of the ridge. There is none any
where else in Indiana or any of the
region roundabout. The glacier which
hid it's treasures against this Brown
county ridge no doubt had lost its last
| :. : l. L,
Of Kentucky and Tennessee. OF course
. in every acre of ground it is probable
some trace of gold may be found by
chemistry. There is a trace of each min
eral in all the minerals. But this Brown
county soil-north Of the RIDGES real
ly SO rich that man may readily earn
from 81 to So a day mining.
In the light of the recent northern
discoveries it is curious to reflect that
doubtless the glacier which made this
Salt creek deposit must have gripped
in it's icy hands the original Klondike
claim and have slowly carried it from
the tributaries of the Yukon to the
tributaries of the Wabash. There is
no gold bearing quartz north of the
ridge" nor anywhere nearer than Col
orado. There is nothing but the scat
tered flakes. of free gold through the
dark gravelly soil. But every woman
and every girl child in Brown county
4 has ring or pin or a brooch or a
bracelet fashioned by the gold beaten at
Bean Blossom and of Brown county
gold.
All that is the lighter marvel. The
notable thing is that every one north
' of the ridge" expects a marvellous dis
oovery; that the first thing in the
ohild's consciousness is the probable
imminence, the ultimate certainty, of
Finding the gold. :" Smart youth may
revise its views as to the wisdom of ia
Their, the business of laws, the accuracy
J, of history and the very divinity Of
Christ. But the youth of Brown county
knows there is gold in the hills. Hard
life may teach a skeptic doubt Of better
times, of greater ease "some day, of
}, the railroad so often promised, so often
expected i'll vain, but no adversely,
however long drawn out, can dull the
), expectation of that glorious day when
the gold shall be found-not found i'll
. these meager measures. The people be-
o lieve there is storehouse in the hills,
bullying to bursting with mysterious
/ gold, from which some truant fakes
slip down the streams. And some day
: the spring will be touched, to the mag
nifioent enriching of the people. And
this is no new thing. Gold was discov-
a cred here before Marshall found it at
Suffers fort. Robert Dale Owen knew
: of it as early as 1885, as he mentions il
in his letters, and belief in a greater
treasure, still hidden, has existed from
the first
t So it seems probable that the first Of
the Klondike gold was found on the
slopes of the Brown county hills. Chi.
S, cago Times Herald.