Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-10-02
A GREAT MET[OR|TE
Largest in the Country on
Exhibition at Portland.
GOOD MINERAL DISPLAY
EARLIEST WHITE VISITORS TO
THE PACIFIC COAST.
Interest in the History of the Oregon
Country Stimulated by the EXPOSE
tion-origin of the Word.
GOOD MINERAL DISPLAY
BIZ WILLIAM E. CURTIS.

The mineral department at the Lewis and
Clark exposition is especially strong and its
installation is unusually good. The mining
building is not so large as some of those we
have seen at previous expositions, being
only 100 by 200 feet in size, with a one-story
annex extending sixty feet, and the exhibits
are limited to the Pacific coast and the
northern states of the Rocky mountains.
Washington, Utah and California exhibit
their ores in their own buildings. The CEN
ter of the general building is occupied by
great collection of American gems. In
one corner of the structure a miniature
smelter is shown in operation, and in an
other corner enormous monitors are throw
ing powerful streams of water upon an inn
provised mountain side in order to give
; "tenderfeet" a good idea of placer mining.
Largest Meteorite in the Country.
Opposite the main entrance is the largest
meteorite ever discovered in the United
States. and the third largest known. There
is a large one In Mexico, and Peary brought
still larger one from Greenland. Thisone
weighs twenty tons. and is 80 per cent pure
iron and per cent nickel. 1t has an inter-
esting history.
A prospector named Hughes found it in a
forest near Willamette in 1902. He acct
ueHldiiy tapped one OF the rams with his
. hammer. and, thinking he had discovered a
bed of ore, dug around it. When he realized
what 1t was he went home, got wagon
and his boy, and secretly, with great skill
ana perseverance, transported this twenty
tons of metal about thirty miles to his own
land. Most of the moving was done by
night, and how 1t was accomplished by one
man and boy and In an ordinary wagon
is dlmcult to understand. But the secret
gradually leaked out and the Portland
Land Company, which owns the forest
where 1t was found, demanded possession
Hughes refused to surrender the meteorite
ana went to court, where the company
proved by his own testimony that he took
1t from their land. The court appointed a
receiver who took charge of the curiosity.
ana De David p Day. the energetic chief
OF tne mineral division of the geological
survey, borrowed it for the exposition.
Robertus Love, the funny man of the Ore
CONAN, has expressed the opinion of the
meteorite concerning the transaction as fol-
lows: ~
II am the maddest meteorite
That ever meteorited
Out OF the infinite leagues of light
onto the earth benighted.
Out of the infinite, awful arc
Infinitesimal Ia spark
dropped through the doorous dreadful dark
ana here In Oregon lighted.
"Eons of ages ago 1 came
From fabulous fields etheric
Lit with lvid and Iusrous flame
A gobuie OF metal spheric;
Game with sudden and sweeping flash,
! f Ecu y, with tn swatting and swping smash,
Z Cllt In the face of the earth CASH
/ Giving old Pluto earache.
Long lay in my darkl:ng bed
Grinding of glaciers overhead.
IhrT,o6eing of Titan thunder
Finally wearing the world away
G saS me me a, glimpse of light of Day.,
Anu thep along came an Oregon Jay
Dumb with awe and wonder
Then was loaded upon van
l, from the vasts of yapor
Dragged about by the midget Man.
captive Ia curious caperD
Now In a pen | sta sight
All bereft of my ancient might
oa an Inc Willamette Meteoritev
mat was once heavenly taper!,'
wa me Day referred to Is DR.. David p. Day Of
A Beeswax Mine.
There are all kinds of queer things IN
here in Oregon. One never knows what ba
is going to see until he gets here. and IT
Is well to be prepared for surprises. Down
on the beach Of the Pacific ocean. near
the mouth of the NehaIem river. ia a
beeswax mine, and every now and then
somebody digs up a chunk and starts a
story which puzzles the antfouarians and
mineralogists and sets the old residents
scrapping. Some contend that II is min
eral wax. but if that is true a miracle must
nave peen performed, because it frequently
appears In blocks or cubes four or five
inches square. branded with the letters
Il H. s." Jesus Hominum Salvador
Jesus, Savior of Men) and Roman cross.
one chunk contained mass of cotton
waste. and in another the weli-preseryed
carcass of a honey bee has been found.
all Of which seems to upset the mineral
wax proposition and suggests that the
DeesWax was originally intended to be used
Tor candles and tapers for the Roman
Catholic Church. Hence the theory that IL
was part of cargo OF a vessel which
found her fate In the sands at the mouth
rfyynr Nk,oyA
story-that the wax was thrown overheard
from some vessel in distress. and, having
noated to the shore, was carried far up on
the beach by the tides and afterward bur-
led by the drifting sands.
The first authentic record of visit by
white men to the Oregonian coast was
made by Lieut.. Juan Perez. who sailed
from San Bias Mexico January * IRA
in the sloop-of-war Santiago. He coasted
northward as far the northernmost point
of Queen Charlotte Island, and then re-
turned to Monterey. Cal. Juan de Fucca,
Maldonado, and Admiral de Fonte claim TO
have made similar voyages up the north-
west coast previous to that date, and the
Indians have traditions that the shore was
visited by at least three other vessels, two
OF which went to wreck one at the mouth
OF the Columbia and the other near the
mouth of the Nehalem. The latter is SUM-
posed to have tettisoned the beeswax, eth
er purposely or accidentally. and has gone
into song and story. 1t has furnished the
plot of a novel and no end of controversies
and some authorities have identified If al
the Spanish. galleon San Jose, which left
LIE Paz. Lower California. June 10. 1769,
with supplies for the missions at San Diego
and other points along the coast Include
ed in her cargo was quantity of beeswax
for making candles, and she was never
heard of after leaving port. This furnishes
q pretty good case on circumstantial evil
dence.
The third ship behaved very queerly. ac-
cording to Indian tradition. She dropped
anchor and sent boat ashore containing
large chest. which was carried UP the
southwest slopes of Ecahnie mountain. The
Indians sent scouts to watch the party, and
they saw the chest buried In the ground.
Some of them contend that a man was
killed and buried with the chest. and that
a large boulder, upon which an inscription
ssas carved was rolled down the hill and
placed to locate the place of burial But
strange to say. the Indians did not dig up
the chest or interfere with the cache in any
manner. which seems to throw discredit
upon the entire story: nor has any one ever
been able to discover the inscribed boulder
OF ind chest or skeleton. although every
Inch of the soil on that mountain side has
been turned over again and again.
Investigating the Black Sands.
The annex to the mineral building is an
important, practical and entirely new ex-