The sun., 1910-02-13

Money fer ANY One Mn0 Can F1oAt Q
Company on q Southeast WIND.

There 10 a lake OF enormous wealth in
the north country said a prospector
know il. A dozen other men know It.
We look At it with longing eyes. but it'l
never be exploited.
ITS this way: Metals are blood
brothers. They come In groups; lead
silver and gold. iron. cobalt and nickel
osmium. iridium aud platinum. Where
you find one metal OF group look for
the others.
We'll. sir. the obalt camp was dis
covered not far from Sudbury, where
for iron and cobalt. the metal. in the
territory lying between the two fields,
expecting to find something.
I'VE went from lake to lake, section to
section, steadily chipping rock. examin-
ing the granite laurentide formation for
evidences OF old geological flaws. which
are the outlet for metals from the bowels
OF the earth. We found nothing worth
while and started for home.
Wed run down a river and strike q
little lake. Then we'd portage across the
raw rock to the next lake and river. We
struck a lake one afternoon, and spent
all day working down It in a gale with
our canoes or lee shore. dancing in the
choppy. nasty water. finally hitting good
camp site late in the afternoon.
Il got OF. hardly able to stretch my
legs. and saw long line OF queer. black
sand. just at the extreme limit OF the
wash from the lake. It caught my eye
because the rest OF the sand was ordinary
white. yellowish stuff.
The lake was beginning to calm down
just at dark. and went out with piece OF
tin and pickle bottle and shovelled up ths
thin, black film. guess the bottle must
have been half or three-quarters full
when the guide yelled to me to come to
supper. / dropped the tin. took up the
bottle and hurried to camp.
Didn't notice that pickle bottle again
till weeks after. Then analysed the black
sand. 1t turned out to be 90 per cent
iron and about o per cent. platinum,
with 1 per cent. Of nickel. iridium and
other stun didn't bother with
MY pickle bottle had slS5 worth OF
platinum in il. And did beat it back
for that lake, You bet did. had
Pullman berth inside of an hour. Two
days later was up at the lake. where We d
pitched camp that day.
The beach was bare and whites not
q thing but the yellow white everyday
sand. Not sign Of the black sand I
was looking for.
Il prospected that beach till was tired,
climbing over rocks and through old
brambles and scrub underground in the
primeval forest along the shore. which was
mostly rocky. with short stretches only
Of sandy beach here and there. Did
this for three or four days, sleeping in
settlers log cabins. told EN- that I'D
lost a skiif from my camp on the other
side Of the lake and was trying to locate
it,
Finally 1 decided to pump some OF
the local men in a roundabout way, and
one day pet an old fellow and said to
him. I saw a very funny beach over az
that sandy point near what YOU call
Four Mile Bay. There was a big black
band of something running alonE the
white sand. IL there a scum or anything
that gets blown of the lake surface on
to the sand from some swamp
Those settlers can tell pretty nearly
every stone along the shore. they know
the country so well He opened out on
me by telling that he hadn't noticed any
southeast wind that day. and then he
| told me that it was a very peculiar lake.
Every time there is a gale from the south
| east the beaches on the north shore OF
the lake are covered with quantities Of a
black sand.
This sand lies on the beach for per-
haps a week, gradually washing back
into the lake, for it in very heavy, but
finally leaving the ordinary sand as it
| was before. There was a tremendous
gale one spring about eight years before.
with three days Of terrific high winds.
and when it-subsided the beach at this
sandy point was black with this queer
sand. piled up a foot deep in places.
1T took months to wash back into the
lake, and the old chap never knew OF so
much black sand having ever been thrown
up before by storm. Perhaps twice
year a gale blows up more or less OF
the sand on the beach, but it is soon gone
again.
THE old settler went on to tell me what
a peculiar lake il was. II is always icy
cold. IL has no shadows except here and
there and in a few little bays. In the
main body OF the lake the ground goes
down steeply from the waters edge and
this ground Is solid laurentide formation
rock. Fifty yards from the shore you
can't find bottom.
The lake looks to me like an old vol
canic crater. know one thing. though.
You can't get at the iron platinum sand
to dredge Il and you can't float a COM
pany on the basis OF southeast wind
storms every once in while.T