Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1910-11-29
NUGGETS OF GOLD.
Some Of the Largest Ever Struck
Were Found BY Chance.

love of the dramatic and the sensa-
tional more fully than in the gold
fields.
Take, for instance. the story of the
discovery of the world famous
Blanche Barkley" nugget in the early
days of Australian gold mining, which
sent a 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
Kingower, about forty miles from Ben
digo, without discovering as much OF
the precious metal as would pay their
living expenses, when one August day,
to tell the story in Napier's own
words: I'VE had dug down about
fourteen feet to the pipe clay stratum
and were shuffling around in the bot
tom Of the shaft more dead than alive
from the heat Old Ambrose lit his
pipe and leaned against the side OF the
hole to rest Just then I struck some
thing with my pick. / turned 1t up
so the light could strike it, and, by
Jimmy, it was a chunk, Of gold as big
as a hubbard squash!" The nugget
sold for $4,000.
Among the thousands who flocked to
the Victorian gold fields in the early
ffties 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 a few months they would be
able to retire to their native Cornwall
rich men, but their expectations were
doomed to cruel disappointment. Not
only months, but many years, passed
and found them still as far removed
from fortune as at the beginning, and
by 1867 fifteen years after they began
their search Of gold, they were re-
duced to 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 he wandered
downcast and heavy hearted, be no.
ticed a gleam of yellow in rut made
by a peddler's cart. Lifting his pick
with a few frantic blows he brought to
light an enormous nugget which, with
all his strength, he could barely raise
an inch from the ground. The nugget
which afterward came to be known as
the Welcome Stranger" actually
weighed two hundredweight and was
sold for nearly s50,000.
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 his attention was arrested by a
yellow rock projecting a few inches
above the soil. In his excitement at
the discovery he ran to fetch his mas
ter. The rock was unearthed and
proved to be a nugget Of two hun
dredweight, from which 160 pounds of
pure gold were extracted.
A few years later another monster
nugget made it's appearance at Balla-
rat A party Of miners had worked a
claim to a depth of sixty yards when
one of them struck with his pickaX a
hard, irregularly shaped mass, which
on being unearthed proved to be a
block of almost pure gold twenty
inches long, a foot wide and seven
inches deep. It's weight was almost
one hundredweight and a quarter and
it's value s46,625.
1t was the periodical discovery at
Ballarat 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 10
rival that of the discovery o. two huge
nuggets within few days in the same
claim. The story runs that four min
ers had worked their claim down to
about sixty feet when one of them
brought to light a nugget weighing
| nearly one hundredweight and worth
s27,5OO. In their joy at such rich
treasure trove the men abandoned the
| diggings and took their nugget with
| them to England. They had scarcely
| left Ballarat when their successors in
the claim, with almost the first stroke
of pick, turned over another nugget
| heavier than the first and valued al
more than $4,000.
OF all the romantic stories told of
| IN
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
hardships and half dead from starva-
ton, they were on the point of aban-
doning the quest in despair when fate
| administered 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 a 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 it came to be known the whole
world over, weighed ISL pounds,
ounces and was the nucleus of a for
tune of million dollars which Martin
accumulated in later years.-Cassell's
| Saturday Journal
BIRDS AT NIGHT.