The San Francisco call., 1898-02-21
SIXTY POUNDS
 OF NUGGETS A Second Fortune From the Blue Jay Comes
 to Town.
The Graves Brothers Arrive With $1e,OOO Worth
 of Raw Gold.
Took It Out in One Month in the Klondike of Their Own Up
 on Coffee Creek.

A record of $16,00O for the labor of two men working for four weeks amid California pines is not calculated to inspire trips to the auriferous ice fields of the Yukon.
 No, the Graves brothers and Henry Carter are not going to the Klondike. They have just come out from Coffee Creek, Trinity County, on another trip to the Mint, and they arrived yester- day on the train from Bedding, which brought in the express car about sixty two avoirdupois pounds of yellow gold fresh from the famous Blue Jay mine
 When a prospector comes to town with about all the gold he can carry a mile and a half he might be expected to feel lucky and naughty and buy a plug hat The Graves boys and their young partner feel lucky and smile without great effort, but they were not wearing plug hats when they registered at the Golden West. and they didn't display any more hauteur than they do around the little cabin at the mouth of Coffee Creek or at McNamara's poker game at Trinity Center.
 Their return with another star story of California mining recalls the sensa- ticn Of last August, which made these men and the Blue Jay mine famous There were the eight years of patient prospecting mixed with work for wages to keep the pot boiling, the long inter mittent trailing of evidences of a pocket mine in Morrison Gulch the sudden finding of thousands. and then the strike a few feet underground of the worlds biggest nugget about four feet long, though it was broken up in getting 1t out. The boys said they took out 52,000 altogether from on. 15-foot tunnel. and then followed the Coffee Creek rush, which resulted. of course, m several hundred being dis appointed and ,disgusted and few find ing p1uspe cts which may turn out to be valuable
 When the Graves boys went back they bought new buggies and watches, and for some reason or other best known to themselves they didn't do any more work in the Blue Jay until last month. Meantime John Graves had put up a sawmill, where Coffee Creek empties into the Trinity River about sixty miles from the railroad and has been getting out lumber, while Richard Graves and Henry Carter re- sumed operations at the mine. The three hold placer claims on Morrison Gulch amounting to over ninety acres and on this ground they have two quartz claims; one the Blue Jay A blind ledge of refractory ore was found, and accompanying it a peculiar vein of soft matter, Bearing black man ganese. tale, etc. This soft vein is full of pockets, and the gold has been taken in chunks of all sizes from it as the tunnel has followed it.
 When Dick and Carter went to work again about five weeks ago they start ed tunnel down on a level with the creek, fifty feet below the other one" said John Graves yesterday They found the first gold before they had got in three feet. and they kept finding it strung along as far as they went, and the tunnel is in forty feet The biggest piece is worth about $300 and it is all sizes from that down to dust, which was banned out at the creek The quartz in the ledge is four feet thick, and that I reckon to be worth 5000 a ton on the average. but we haven't worked any of it yet. Will put up some sort of a mill this year and will sink a shaft from the tunnel. We've got as good Klondike as we want"
 Bars, a paddock and a watchman in a cabin guard the Blue Jay tunnel while the lucky owners take a weeks vacation in the city and cash their raw gold. The Trinity County nuggets will go to the mint to-day.