The San Francisco call., 1897-08-15

CARRNILDE, GAL, Aug. 14,-burgess
and Murphy sold a baking powder can
full of gold from Hickory GuIch to store
keeper at the Nash mine on Upper
Coffee Creek on Thursday, according
TO the last verifable report reaching here
from that mountain fAstness. Burgess
and Murphy had then probably taken out
not over $1,000 from their fabuIously rich
prospect, but they are starting to work
with a rocker, and according to all reports
will be cleaning up several hundred dol
lars day in this primitive fashion during
the coming week.
The prospectors now trooplng into
coffee Creek from this end all make the
weary but fascinating trip from the one
great highway that hugs the shore OF
Trinity River, back and up into the wild
retreat, where the Bluejay mine yielded
the greatest nugget the world ever knew.
Most of them then push on up Coffee
Creek to see the greater strike on Hickory
Gulch, for the Blueiay's prestige was
brief. 1t is great pocket mine; but twenty
m lies further on there seems to be millions
in one great vein of soft decomposed
porphyry, any single pan of which will
pay man days wages.
If these wild and jumbled nous tains
are scanned and ieweled with he likes of
these things, it is time for the thorough
investigation that is at hand. Every body
is minded to start for Hickory Gulch.
A vigorous and intelligent old man,
who is wandering through this wilderness
IN search of gold, brings 10 this delightful
old road tavern, which constitutes Carr
bo LOT a ini-
Gulch. He is Jonn Lyle of Santa Cruz,
an old California miner, who is still on a
quest and who has turned his persistent
foot to this region.
He was in Hickory Gulch last Wednes-
day and then crossed the divide to the
Salmon and swung around to the Trinity
by way Of Callahan's Ranch. When he
came down the road leading his tired
horse, and stopped at the great porch by
the roadside, he had to tell over and over
the story of all that he saw and heard, and
he judged that Burgess and Murphy had
struck it rich.
This Carrville is on the Trinity, six
miles north of Trinity Center, near the
mouth of Coffee Creek, and where any one
from Hickory Gulch first strikes wagon
road But even here one is mainly fed
on rumors about that remarkable find.
"I examined the situation as well
as l could,' said Mr.. Lyle, land find that
Burgess and Murphy had struck seam
ofdecomposed porphyry aud quartz, ten OF
twelve inches wide on the surface and IN
a serpentine formation. 1t dips into the
hills and runs with the trend of the hiiI
northeast and southwest.
The formation is so soft that they car
Just dig 1t out and wash it. They told me
that they got $142 out OF twenty-five pans
and that it would average $6 or 81 par
right along at the surface, though they
had washed more from some pans.
'The storekeeper who bought their god
confirmed their story. They were just fix
ing up rocker, and were calculating tha
if it did not average more than 81 a par
they would clean up $500 a day for three
men, or 500 day per man, and 1 dom
doubt it.
Il don't know how much gold they hac
taken out, but all the dirt they hac
worked you could put in that watering
trough. They were grading off place foI
a cabin and had hired pack train tc
bring in lumber for il"
which lies twenty-five miles back from
the stage road by the Trinity, and al a.
altitude of several thousand feet, right a
the head waters of Coffee Greek, and or
the divide between the Salmon and In,
Trinity rivers.
The early rush has just fairly arrived
Dozens of prospectors made their way
into the gorge from the lower end to-day,
and they are struggling in alone and n
twos and threes across the divide by trails
from the west and north.
Nearly 100 men with packhorses or with
packs on their backs have already reached
the wonderful hill that walls this stream,
but only the first ripple OF the sush has
reached this section.
"Say, where is the trail up to that Blue
Jay striker" inquired a rusher as he
reined a iaded horse this morning in
a forest jungle. "Yes, l just got in
from Dunsmuir, over in Siskiyou County.
The whole town was crazy to go
to Coffee Creek, but when they heard
was going they thought they would wait
Till they heard from me. started al 10
o'clock last night. didn't want to rush
that trail over the divide when it was so
hot, and so ! rode all night"
j. w. Price of Dunsmuir displayed a
more striking but not greater energy in
getting there than many others are doing.
1nese two great strikes have a far greater