The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-11-26

work they had ever undertaken and that
the suffering of their helpless burden was
pitiful as they swung him around jutung
crags, lifted him up and down the cliffs
and slipped and fell with him over the
rugged rocks and along the steep inclines,
holding the litter with one hand and
clnging to roots or branches with the
other.
In the Cave of Gold.
Up the final crags we went at last, and
then we stood in the mouth of the cave
of gold, and l1okCd outward into the bHe
distance stretching far away below US and
before us upon a whole world ready and
willing and waiting to under AXE any haz-
ard, to undergo any hardship if il may,
TO secure the precious metal stored here by
natures own hand But the shine of the
yellow gold did not dazzle our eyes, nor
were we struck speechless with amaZe-
ment at The wondTous wealth about us.
On the contrary, we didn't see anything
much, but the peculiar geological forma-
ton of a cave in the face of a mountain
not otherwise cavernous, and it was just
as dark inside as caves usually are We
looked about Us fer tangible prof of the
tales that had been told to US and we be-
gan TO set aside the romance that always
hedges gold as divinity doth a king, and
get at the practical side of things. What
we had found was a cave seventy (. ct
high at its entrance and twenty odd feet
wide, exl ending back into the darkness for
80 feet or more. Its sides were the hard
rock of the mountain, but its roof, its floor
and its back was a grayish white granu-
lar substance, a cross in appearance be-
tween fine clay and spoiled cheese and
so soft that pick could be stuck into it
anywhere. Chunks of ii had fallen down
from the roof and sides as if decay were
far gone in lis work of disintegration. on
the floor of the cave this clay or rock"
in the technical, had been crushed into a
granular dust that could be shovelad OUT.
Back some distance the cave forked and
in the two apartments thus formed the
men had made beds and were literally
sleeping in chambers of god for all this
rock was rich in the precious metal They
were taking ii out in tin bucketfuls and
sending It down the mountain 2 500 feet on
wire that looked like a slken gossamer
swung over the valley, with shining but
ter cups dancing down its length.
Over $4,000, 900 In Sight.
The cave was in fact no more than a
great hole worn by the weather in a YER
teal strip of this grainy, soft rock $500
feet from top to bottom, wedged in be-
tween the granite walls of the mountain.
How long it had stood there open mouthed
breathing in the air of the hills that was
wearing out its tissues, before some Gu
rious and adventurous prospector had no.
ticed II and climbed TO its eerie no man
could say nor did any man care to waste
time in vain calculations, for the soft
earthly rock that it contained held gold
and gold was what men sought regardless
of how or when it came. All about us. 10
the right and to the left, over our heads
and under our feet, trodden there like
common dirt, was this pale gray crunb-
ling stuff, in some places almost brown
and We looked at ii critically and tossed
it about as one might toss potatoes in a
| patch Yet it was rich in gold; tests had
proved that its value varied from ten to
| ten thousand dollars ton and and there
was seventy thousand tons of il in sight
| in the mountain, worth on an average SEA
a ton. Probably nowhere else in the world
is there such cave and when its lucky
| finders have opened its treasurers to the
| light and dropped its wealth from the
clouds TO the Golfers of earth. a story WIN
be told Of the riches of the Cascade Ranrs
as the people of other times tod the taIa
of Goloonda's glory and sti3 further back
the poets sang Of the water Of Pactulus