The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-09-18
DR.. PETERS AND KING SOLO
MONS MINES.
dondon AIail.)

This is a story quite on the modern
literary lines. for it ends with a note
of Interrogation.
1t begins with the scene of DR.. Carl
Peters, the German explorer. rummag-
ing about in an old German castle d
few years back
In this ancient Teutonic schloss DR..
Peters came upon a musty volume, to-
gether with a quaint old map, pub
lished in France in 1719 or whereabouts.
This work and map, according to one
of DR.. Carl Peters associates, dealt
with the dOingS of the Portuguese 200
years earlier in the country bordering
key to the whereabouts of gold mines
in the heart of Africa The course of
the Zambesi was shown on the map
roughly, but accurately, and on the
south bank of the river appeared
Mount Fura. Now, concerning Mount
Fura, q, thirst for science and a thirst
for gold had already bred in the good
doctor certain suspicious
So he set to work, it is recorded, in
systematic fashion to get all the works
he could find on the subject. He is
credited with possessing a wonderful
memory and of being capable of recol-
lecting minute details for years after
ward. Some of the old writings thus
hunted I'D Went back to the seven
tenth century, and for two years was
chronicler, through the dim and dust
Strewn realms of centuries old book
land.
The recent works were studied, too,
and at the end of two years, in July,
1898. the German traveller promoted in
London a company-the DR.. Carl Pc
tiers Estates and Exploration company,
limited-fOr the purpose of purchasing
properties and rights which had been
acquired by him in Southeastern and
81.
Dr. Peters of a well equipped and
carefully selected expedition to the dis
trict where he hoped to discover Mount
Fura, and to test his surmiSes about
that mysterious locality
The vendors took $1,000 Ell shares in
part payment, and the expenses of this
expedition and sufficient working CAPT
tai would be provided, said the pros
pectus, by the issue of $1,000 shares
Well the expedition, with DR.. Peters
at its head, and the clews afforded by
the old writings and the old map in
mountain of Fura by the middle of
1899, and DIR. Peters was convinced his
cherished hopes were well founded.
Those hopes were nothing more or less
than that Fura was Ophir, the Biblical
land of gold, the source of Solomon s
fabulous riches.
FUra, the good doctor contended, was
the native corruption of the word Afur.
by which name the Arabs of the six
teenth century knew the district. Afur
was the Sabaean, or South Arabian,
form of the Hebrew name Ophir. As
DR.. Peters afterward assured a repre-
sentative of Reuters agency, for the
information of the world at large, he
had ample proof that the Fura which
his expedition had discovered and ex-
plored in the summer of 1899 was the
Ophir of the Old Testament--the Ophir
whose incalculabIe wealth is referred
to in the First Book of Kings, in both
Books of Chronicles, in Job, in the
Psalms and in Isaiah
A chief. the doctor said, gave him
valuable information regarding the po-
siNion of ancient ruins and workings.
which he at once investigated Going
TO the spot indicated he found ancient
ruins Of undoubted Semitic type. Fura
itself he found TO possess a forna ton
of quartzitic slate and diorlte, between
which gold reefs We're running The
ancient workings which he found were
not only surface workings. but there
were also. he declared. shafts and
roads hewn into the rock
How the shareholders must have pal
plated when they read in a report Or.
Peters presented to the directors that
when the Portuguese arrived in East
Africa about the year 1900 the Ara lbs
called the district Afur, and told the
portuguese 1t was the OPhir of the Old
Testament For a glance at Chron-
icles. chapter xiv, verse 4, would show
them that David gave to overlap the
walls of the temple 1000 talents of the
gold Of Ophir. and upon the AUTHORITY
of f. w. Madden, NJ. r. A. S., author
of History of Jewish Coinage e.c
they would know that a talent of gold
was worth $4,000
Here, then, was Els, O00, 900 worth nj
gold from Ophtrs and the inexhaust-