The Alaska citizen., 1912-10-28
TALES OF A PROSPECTOR
"A RIVER OF SHINING GOLD"



 i It was shortly after the geologist had lectured on the way the gold came to be found in channels He was 1 speaking of the changing of the for nations by old father time. and 1 held his audiences attention until the end of his story A few days later "Icy" Saunders came down to the Forks. He had come down for the lecture which was an un- usual thing for the roughnecks in | the hills. and to see him in town i so soon again was most eXtraordin- ary. Hey" was one of those fel 1 lows who stayed in the hills about fifty-one weeks out of the fifty-twO 1 in a year He loved them. Hunt l ing, prospecting, taking out d little gold here. cutting a little wood there he always managed to stay out of the reach of civilization He was ia time Dr. Brooks was. that is over i fourteen years ago. Well, anyway, we were all surprised when the old sourdough showed up again so soon. We figured that something serious must have happened. He had eith 1 CT struck it rich. or he was sick He didn't look sick. and so We all settled back to hear his story of rich strike. and to uake ready to go back with him to the scene of of the find.
 By gosh I thought l had ii for sure. fellows" said the old fellow. as he settled back in his chair and | lit his pipe. T was pretty damned | interested in what that expert said the other night, about the formation of the earth, and the way gold came to be found in veins like it is. Seems to me. could not quite get 1t straight It left sort of hay i'm pression If what he said was true l sort a figured that man. if he got down deep enough. would get right l into a regular river of the yellow stuff and I made up my mind I'd try it if ever l got the chance. Well. l I got back to the shack and started to figure the thing out You know there's a fellow up in Dawson coun- try. doctor, who thinks that there second bedrock He is back in the Black Hills aworkin' a crew of men digging down deeper and deep CT into the bowls of the earth. He believes that when he hits the sec that was covered up by one of them a transformations that expert spoke about. Well. just figured I would go him one better Ii there was second bedrock that was rich, why wouldn't there he third? If all the gold comes from the middle of the globe, why wouldn't 1t be richer the deeper down fellow went? If
 there was third bedrock, what about a fourth? I couldn't just fig
 ure out how I was goin' to get down
 as far as wanted tA though, cause
 if I got too deep coaldn't windlass
 the stuff to the surface. That's
 what I was up against. Course, just sat down to figure the thing in my own way. I've been a minin and a prospecting now for about
 forty years. I saw Colorado and Mon-
 tana in their palmy days. and was
 in every camp in Alaska before the
 big strikes. before the chechakos
 came in and put the country on the
 bum. aint away up on minln
 machinery that they have invented,
 but when it comes to the way we
 got the metal out of the ground be-
 fore all these dredges and the like
 came into existence, there aint an
 awful lot that I don't know about.
 We'll. I got to studyin' the thing
 out.
 "O' course you all know how to '.I get to tne iiFsl peuioSh' ihNio an man here who don't know that. . We'll. got to the second bedrock easy enough. And then the trubl' 1 commenced. kept goin' deeper
 and deeper There's a fellow up in
 the hills near me, and l got him
 to work the windlass while l worked ,l.f ? pie O hundred feet I guess, and II l was gettin' pretty tough work. But l we kept on, I talked the othe7