Mohave County miner., 1899-05-06

INTO that country over 100 have Loaf Their
lives from accident, disease, ost and
scurvy, and o her disea-es hroughr on 10y
the climate and h,rdships they were
com pelied to NJ dergu
The scurvy has been bad for several
months through the entire district. That
the death rate, large as it was, was not
much greater, is due to the assistance
rendered the whites by the IudIsns. In
our camp, out OF twenty Two men, four
teen Jf them were laid up aitn scnrvy ~
one time, and our camp vas simply an
average condition OF affairs existing In
o her camps scattered throughout the
disrrict
| "SInce We have returned we constantly
see articles in the local press purport'
10 come from miners on the Copp
River, who say gold is and has been
found there In answer 10 these per
sistent reports of gold found, we wish TO
say that, living as we did II that country
for seventeen months and sinking tesl
| hole afI er test hole, and seeing other par
ties do the same, neither they nor others
ever found an ounce of gold in the Copper
River district, nor did we ever see ANY
man that did. A the base OF an ex met
volcano. Mr. Dunn, had the most likely
| boxing piece Of ground In the en-, ire dis.
trct. We sank three test holes, one
down eighty feet, and The other tao from
sixty to seventy feet, and not a single
grain Of gold rewarded our lahors, and
the same story has been told by the
thousands who tried to fhd that hat
did not exa, 10 the disrric gold
81 know personally Of several cases
where men have returned from thai
counuy, and on the way down bought a
few hundred dollars worth of gold dust
in juneau or Sk,guty, and on The
strength Of the dust they bought have
tried, and IN some cases have been sue
cessfuI, in disposng OF the claims they
had located, on the strength Of their
statement that the gold they showed
came out Of their claims Such men are
liars and they ought to be arrested Tor
! fraud for the simple fact is that cut Of
| five thousand men who entered that
country in 1897 and 1898, and OF whom
only about four or fve hundred remain
of Ihat great host that went upso full Of
life and golden hopes fjr the future, not
a single man eyer dug single ounce of
gold out OF the ground of the Copper
River district.
81 make this statement in all candor,
not that wish to rjurs any section or
individual, bnG because | think in Justice
to humanity the plain truth ought to be
told, and hope by my telling il | may
save many who may be mislead by the
lying misrepresentation OF interested
parties who, for few patry dollars,
would induce man to sell out his house
and home, and send him 10 one OF the
hardest countries in the world, am
willing TO stand by everything have
said about The country, and our exper
ience in it, and may add that our ex.
perience is simply that Of every other
man who has been in the country, and
the whole fraud, for fraud it is from be-
ginning to end, ought to be exposed in
the press OF the nation.
''Ii the amount of money which has
been wasted in that country during the
past two years had been expended in de.
velopng the mines and industries OF
Washington, Oregon or California, or any
other state, those states today would be
richer 10y over 5,OO0,O00$, and 5000 men,
instead of being financially broke and
disabled. would be enjoying health and
prosperity, for it Is q tue statement that
one poor fellow made just before he died
on the glacier, when he turned to bis
chum and said write home and tell
them that any man living south of the
4Sth parallel Of latitude who gets only Is
a day for his labor is a prince, a king,
yea, even an emperor, to any man 10
this wretched country who gets 20, ,0O0$ a
year.
"For myself, can say that l would
rather work for so cent day for the rest
of my life In any country like California
than for any sum one could give me in
the bleak and frozen northand; and
since man has only got one life to live,
l hau Lot
man Is a fool to go chasing after the