The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1904-04-11
MINING FOR MAST0D0NS
NOVEL SIGHT IN YUKON
First-Hand Description of Prehis-
toric Monster Recently I'm
earthed on Quartz Creek.
DEEP IN FROZEN GRAVEL

MONTREAL, April 1O.-A letter from
Dawson just received. says one of the
most novel and interesting sights to be
seen in the Yukon is the mining for
mastodons on Quartz creek, which at pres
ent is being done on claim No. 5 below
Amacks discovery on the creek claim. Will
son Foster, a quartz miner, is just back
from a sixty-mile jaunt TO see the famous
bones, and describes the find follows:
1--WE climbed down ladder in the shaft
thirty-eight feet deep and CROPPED way
through the drifts with lighted candles
for about 150 feet. when we came upon his
royal highness at the end of this drift. He
was facing with his head in horizontal
position at about three feet above the
floor of the tunnel and looked 20 me as if he
might have kneeled down on his front legs,
when he had, some thousands of years ago,
given up the ghost.
'One of his tusks was still frozen fast in
the roof of the tunnel, and the other
tusks and the fore part of the head were
suspended in the open space from which
the gravel had been removed after thaw
ing it out with ordinary steam points. The
tusks are about six feet long and seven
inches in diameter where they are firmly
embedded in the sockets of the skull
They are curved, upwards and taper gradu-
ally to their upper ends, which are about
two inches thick.
THE sensation of meeting this silent mon
ster of prehistoric origin in such place.
associated with gold in the frozen gravel,
is something novel, interesting and awe in
spring.
The skull is about five feet long, the i'm
mense eye sockets are perfect. and a large
cavity in the top of the skull marks the
former resting place OF his gigantic brain.
This cavity was also filled with frozen
gravel. which Charley Swanson dug out
with the end of his candle stick and E.S
fingers. Samples of this gravel will be
PANIED and the gold washed from the brain
of the mastedon will be exhibited TO hum
dreds of thousands of people from all parts
of the world who will visit the worlds fair
at st. Louis
son, Pearson & Vochelle, who are working
this claim for gold as well as mastodons
have. found parts of four gigantic ribs,
which were taken from the face of a drift
near the skull. Mr.. Swanson and myself
were in the drift nearly all day, while We
were thawing out the gravel so as to re-
move the skull from its suspended position
on the floor of the tunnel, while Vochelle
took of the boiler near the shaft. The
steam, laden with foul odors from the
phosphates of lime, permeated the entire
atmosphere, and we were compelled to in
hale this stencil while removing the thawed
gravel.
"Bowlders, muck and gravel rained down
from the ceiling upon our heads and bodies
continually, while our candles, which were
almost useless, We're frequently ex-
tinguished thereby, and even knocked out
of hands. The feeble glimmer of a
single candle would hardly penetrate the
steam-laden air for distance of a foot,
so we were continually cropping about in
the steam looking for one another TO get
a new light to enable the driving in of
the steam points in the gravel.
I'VE employed seven steam points at
the same time, and used the greatest care
i'm removing the thawed gravel to prevent
damaging this wonderful skeleton.
MIR. Pearson, one of the owners of the
claim, met with serious accident in this
same drift, which laid him up for repairs
the day before my arrival, having been
struck by a falling bowlder on the left
ankle while working on the floor of the
drift in removing gravel from about the
skull of the nastodon.
ut is no wondCr that Fred Levy. who
first reported this discovery, imagined
that Swanson had found a complete mas
todon. 1t is said he looks twenty years
older since facing suddenly this monster
skull in the underground drift from which
he fed in horror. 1t seemed to Levy as if
the mastodon was coming into the drift
to impale him on his monster tusks, and
so he stood not upon the manner of his
THE CHASTITY, sunken eyes seemed to
gisten in the uncertain candle light. and
the gravel bed surrounding the gigantic
skull took the appearance of hair and wav-
ing name of a complete mastodon to his
perverted vision This accounts for his
fairy tale related in Dawson before re-
covering from the terrible shock.
1.-The peculiar odor escaping from this
skeleton passed through the tunnel and
out of the shaft, a distance of $50 feet, and
is even observed in the open air a long dis
lance from the mine, and led many to
| think that by removing enough gravel the
| entire skeleton will be found where the
monster is supposed TO have fallen down
| and died.
THE under Jaw is missing and but two
| teeth remain in the upper jaw of the skull.
! and these are in a splendid state of preser-
| vation.'