The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-03-22

course they knew, but it might be some
blnq OF naeHe copper as 6oul n;e be
varied from the size of a pumpkin seed
to an egg.
pound of useless weight, and when the
party started aft all the metal was
the children were allowed to keep for
jackstones, and heavy iackstones they
were, too: Of course when Yreka was
reached the playthings were recognized
as gold Then there was a stampede
over the Oregon lava beds for the Blue
Bucket mine, but snow had fallen east of
the Cascade range and track was lost.
Two or three of the party spent their
lives looking for the lost placer ground
down to farming and succeeded at it.
Every few years some prospector takes
a notion to make his fortune by finding
the Blue Bucket mine, but no gold has
since ever been discovered in that whole
stretch of southern Oregon.
THE Lost Basin is a legendary quartz
proposition, hidden in beautiful basin
ern Idaho: A packer who was employed
by one of the expeditions that made a
preliminary survey of the Union Pacific
railway made. the discovery in the ro-
mantle way that is characteristic of the
finding of all these lost mines. Several
mules got away one night in the widest
part of the mountain range, and George
Harvey, that was the packers name. was
detailed to find them, having first been
ding and grub He was instructed to
hurry along as soon as he had found the
mules as the engineers IN charge OIL IN6
expedition had decided that as the coun-
try was impracticable for a railroad, they
would lose no time in pushing westward
to the main camp where the various sur
veying parties were to meet.
Harvey started back on the trail early
on the morning of the breaking up of the
camp and found the mules in a little
valley grazing. He secured them with
out trouble and decided to camp as night
had fallen. In the morning he looked
around. A peculiar rock formation, twen-
ty feet wide, protruding from the ground
edge of a stream, arrested his attention.
The rock soft and Harvey chopped
up a yard or more of the surface. A yell
low CLINT caught his eye, and he picked
up string of pure gold a foot long.
and weighing half a pound. There was
plenty more of the valuable metal in that
spot, and after chopping up the surface
at various places on the rock. Harvey
satisfied himself that he had discovered
a great free milling gold ledge, big
enough to make him millionaire several
times over.
s'Concealing several pounds of gold
about his person, he. moved out of the
valley, after impressing the narrow en-
trance upon his mind. He soon found the
surveying party had hurried along so fast
that they had left no marks, blazes on
trees or otherwise to indicate the way
they had taken, and as he had to de-
pend on the intelligence of his horse and
the mules to find the way he diSregarded
all the landmarks. He tinally arrived at
discovery, and working at his job until
the next summer.
Flnally ne maze a comment OF Ola
jim Henderson, whose eyes pulged out
when he saw the evidence in pure gold
of Harvey's discovery. Both men put
.4leIr savings together-they were afraid
to try to dispose of Harveys gold, as
then the secret would have been theirs
no longer-purchased an outfit and start
ed for the basin valley. Of course
they never found it. Rocks and peaks
and streams We're landmarks to Har-
vey. for he had neglected to notice them
on his former hurried trip to the main
camp. The two wandered through the
mountains all summer and came out as
winter set in. At the settlement where
the fiourishing town of Boise now is they
took others into their confidence, who
were convinced of the truth of Harvey, $
story by a sight of the gold which he still
kept Many an expedition was organized,
but the basin was lost for good, appar-
emily. Even today an occasional prospec-
tor makes search for the Lost Basin"