The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-04-04
FORTUNES LOST By A SCRATCH.
Millions That Went to Other Men Be-
cause of an Accident.

cause of an Accident.
If F. w. Salzman had been three min
utes quicker he would have secured {
] SS5,OOO,0Oo diamond mine in South Africa
: If 1t had not been for bit of faulty
r track just outside Chicago it would have
( been Haydon Bennett who would have
made a fortune by organizing the stee
corporation and not j. Pierpont Morgan
If Burton NeVille's horse had not found.
; cred in the last mile of a race for a lane
neglsters office he would have won one
or the richest California gold mine claims
II Arnold Bryan's salvage steamer had
Slarted an hour sooner from Rio he would
nave been able to secure the treasure OF
a tabled Spanish. galleon at Trinidad.
Those were four golden opportunities
which could not wait. 1t was heart
breaking for the men who saw untold
wealth within their grasp and then saw
cluth 1t. 1t was heart-hreaking but there
was nothing to do but philosophize.
y
SalZman was surveying in Griqualand
When he missed his great opportunity.
The farm which he was tempted to buy
at tirst sight was as dismal piece of
south African ground as ever man looked
upon, but there was that in It's appear
ance which made the surveyor believe 1t
was valuable.
De Beers. the owner of the farm. was
| so tired OF hopeless and fruitless toll that
| he offered to sell it for change of cloth
ing. Salzman looked at it again and re-
fused A suit of clothes seemed to be too
| great price to pay for heap of rocks
in land where rocks were plentiful.
He went back to Cape Town, but kept
| thinking about that farm which he could
nave bought for suit of clothes. Fin
ally he decided to go back and purchase
| 1t. He had been hearing strange tales
of the finding of enormous wealth in dia-
monds on just such rocky land, and 1t
| was worth try, anyhow
He made the trek in hurry, but Just
| as ne got TO De Beer's gate a stranger
drove up ahead of him and entered
When Salzman entered the house he
three minutes before him had Just com
pleted the deal for the purchase. Three
weeks later 1t was learned that the De
Beers farm had proved itself an mex
haustible mine of diamonds.
y
few minutes breakdown caused the
missing of a fortune so large that, though
another man has it now, nobody knows
quite. how big it is. 1t was missed by
Haydon Bennett He was Mr.. Morgan's
competitor for the formation of the
was only by matter of minutes that he
did not get the control of the most gil
gantic of all fortunes.
"a ae wa was ,9tl competing with Mrr.. Morgan
ana was little in advance of him in the
negotiatfons. When the great project
was all but ripe he took a special train
rom from san francisco for New York, and
came near creating a record There is
not much doubt that he would have
brought off the big stroke and gained the
mastery, though nobody knows what Mr.
Morgan may have had up his sleeve.
however, stretch of faulty track out
sloe chicago brought the special train to
a standstill by derailing it, though with
out any fatality. 1t was half an hour
PEI psdore the journey could be continued
the Trip into Chicago was finished by a |
single engine, which took the financier |
IN the cab. But Mr.. Morgan, who was |
alreaay at Chicago, made his arrange
nnentS py telegraph-he never seems to |
pc IN preakdowns of any kind-and won |
the coup. He is said to have acknowl- |
edged afterward that only his rivals |
breakdown gave him time.
= one OF the biggest fortunes missed, and |
oy minutes-almost seconds-only. was in
iae IN csifo,r gTieat race for the new concessions
land which has been partially prospected
is 10 be allotted in large claims" those /
VINO want to get hold of them have to
peg OUT their portions and then deposit
l@ISLr @ papers at registers office.
The result is a magnificently exciting
race, IN which good horses, fine horse
manshlp and endurance win. Those who
claims.
The best of all these claims-now the
pig Los Patos' mine-worth over $780,
wv year. was first discovered by Bur-
ton.
several others became aware of the
value ai3n OF the place, however, though
any IDEA how rich it really was On the
appointed day, when thirty claims were
90 60 pe aliotted, over forty riders appeared
Lor the forty-mile and back race. Any
numDer could compete for the same claim
after marking it out, and the race. as
usual, was to the swiftest. Mr. Neville,
being an old 'cow-puncher," was first
on the new grounds, marked his claim
and raced back. His horse foundered
ina ma came down when only a mile from
ne ne registry office on the return journey.
ana Though he started to run the rest ]
4 the journey young Californian named }
1aaVls, who had been crowded OUT of | }
)tner claims and had remarked NeyiIIe's }
,ame past him on horse that still held }
'ul ana registered the claims while his I
lval was running up in the distance
ess than two minutes too late
The only real chance of a fortune Z
lmong all the sunken treasure searches
ma nat SO much has been heard about was
I.ain t.a,l-l IN view, promising certainly many
thousands of pounds. This was the
'panlsh galleon at Trinidad, which was
sebeHrea sfeitnrad py accident six years ago in :
slng on the bottom, partly broken uu, ,
Two or three fathoms of water ana q J
man .,la case or gold pieces and silver ingots
bout $500 The rest of the pe ,.aoU,,rn mortn
'as more difficult to get up. and tbe findI (
I, an Englishman named Bryand the
,a wner OF the trading brig Barmecide, =
elt en Ia, at once to Rio and fitted out a small
,ee'iisI ,e, asah with proper apparatus and div
q dresses; This took a couple of
lSpntns, and on the way back to fRe snot
mere mere she galleon lay the steamer en- en-
1uiiitefeq uiiq terrific storm from the east
ortheast-a rare quarter in the Iafit1Ge
get hurricane from The vessaI
eariy aalS Ioundered, but when the storm
eared ,,.a away and the island was reached :
was round that the sunken wreck had II
sal? all but a few remnants the the
lrrlcane u and resulting tidal wave have
g dragged it out into deep water and J,