The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1910-09-17
NUGGETS OF COLD
Some Of the Largest Ever Struck
Were Found by Chance.
THE OLIVER MARTIN CHUNK.

Unearthed tne welcome Stranger"
Nowhere does fortune indulge her
love Of the dramatic and the sensa-
tional more fully than in the gold
fields.
Take. Tor instance, the story Of
the discovery of the world famous
Blanche Barley. nugget IN the early
days OF Australian gold mining. which
sent thrill around the world. sam
uel Napier, a sailor, with his brother
Charles and one Robert Ambrose. their
cook and general handy man, had been
! digging for gold for six months at
Hangover. about forty miles from Ben
digo. without discovering as much OF
the precious metal rs would pay their
living expenses, when one August day,
to tell the story ia Napier's own words:
I'VE had dug down about fourteen
feet to the pipe clay stratum and were
shuilling around in the bottom Of the
shaft more dead than alive from the
heat Old Ambrose 10 his pipe and
leaned against the side Of the hole to
rest Just then | struck something
with my pick. / turned II up SO the
light could strike it. and. by Jimmy,
Il was chunk OF gold as big as a
hubbard SQUASH The nugget sold for
$4,000.
Among the thousands who focked to
the Victorian gold fields in the early
fifties were two Cornish miners. John
Deason and Richard Oates. who staked
claim near the village OF Moliaque.
They set to work with vigor, confident
that In few months they would be
able to retire to their native Cornwall
rich men. but their expectations were
doomed TO cruel disappointment. Not
only mouths, but many years. passed
aud found them still as far removed
from fortune as at the beginning, and
by 1869, hfteen years after they began
their search for gold, they were re-
duced 70 the last straits. Starvation
stared them IN the face.
In despair the miner seized his pick
and wandered away to the outskirts Of
the gold field. and as be wandered,
downcast and heavy hearted. he no
ticed CLEAN Of yellow in a rut made
by a peddlers cart Lifting his pick,
with q few frantic blows be brought 70
Hight an enormous nugget. which, with
all his strength. he could barely raise
an inch from the ground. The nugget,
which WINS soon known the world over
MS the Welcome Stranger" actually
weighed two hundredweight and was
sold for nearly $4,000.
And these were but few OF the
many similar blocks Of gold discovered
in Australia under equally dramatic
conditions While a native shepherd
named Kerr was tending his sheep one
day hts attention was arrested by a
yellow rock projecting a few inches
above the soil In bis excitement at
the discovery he ran to fetch his mas
ter The rock was unearthed and
proved TO be nugget Of two hundred
weight, from which 160 pounds Of pure
gold were extracted
a. few years later another monster I
nugget made its appearance at Balla-
rat A party OF miners had worked
claim to depth of sixty yards when
one Of them struck with his pickax
hard, irregularly shaped mass, which
on being unearthed proved to be a
block Of almost pure gold twenty
inches long, a foot wide aud seven /
inches deep. It's weight was almost
one hundredweight and quarter and
its value S46.625
II was the periodical discovery at 1
BalIarat OF these monster nuggets (
which first fired the blood Of the en-
tire world in the faraway fifties. But
even Ballarat has no other romance to 4
rival that OF the discovery of two huge
nuggets within few days in the same
claim. The story runs that four miners (
had worked their claim down to about (
sixty feet when one Of them brought
to light nugget weighing nearly \
one hundredweight and worth scr, 800,
In their joy at such rich treasure
trove the men abandoned the dig !
gings and took their nugget with them
TO England. They had scarcely left 1
Ballarat when their successors In the
claim, with almost the first stroke of a
pick, turned over another nugget heav-
Ter than the first and valued at more
than $4,000
OF all the romantic stories told OF
gold discoveries in California not one
Is more remarkable than that Of which
Oliver. Martin was the hero. For
months Martin and a companion
named Flower had been prospecting
for gold to no purpose. Worn out by
and half dead from starva-
ton, they were on the point of aban-
doning the quest in despair when fate
her last crushing blow.
They were overtaken by a terrible
storm, in which Flower was drowned
Martin. weak though he was, set to
work to dig his fallen comrades grave
at the foot of tree and had dug
down barely two feet when his spade
struck hard. unyielding substance,
which, to his amazement and delight,
proved to be an enormous nugget, the
largest ever found on the American
continent The Oliver Martin Chunk"
as 1t came to be known the whole
world oyer, weighed 151 pounds
ounces and was the nucleus OF a for
tune Of a million dollars which Martin
in later years. Cassell's
Saturday Journal