The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1933-09-22

uIn africa IN FldyIlme.
some present-day family fortunes.
Part of this Europe had mined. part
she had plundered from other lands
Cadmus, a Phoenician, opened a gold
mine in Thrase about 1894 B. c., and
carried thither the alphabet and 9TH
er germs OF civilization" Jason, on
his piratical gold quest to Argos In
1868 B. c., gave the name Argonauts
TO goldseekers. Croesus gained wealth
from ancient placer mines of Smyrna;
so did Midas of the legendary golden
touch, who turned his own daughter
into gold.
Darius of Persia looted Asia Minor,
Greece, and Egypt, and levied gold and
silver tribute Part of this Alexander
retrieved when he in turn plundered
Babylon aud other lands of enormous
sums.
Holes dug by Harun-al- Rashid when
he worked the gold veins of what now
is Hejaz were recently seen. Diodorus
tells in dramatic detail how naked
slaves, with candles tied on top of
their heads, worked the hot tunnels
of Egyptian gold mines in the cruel
days Of the Pharaohs
Some Of early Europe's gold came
from Siberia Gmelin, the German
traveller, says the tunnels were so
small that men had TO crawl on their
bellies TO get at the quartz, from
which they picked gold flaments with
tools pointed with boars' fangs.
Egyptian kings worked their gold
mines with slaves, and Carthage not
only enslaved people in what is now
Spain, but also brought hordes of At
rican slaves to help work these mines
From the Imperial Roman era to
Columbus, Europe's limited gold pro-
duction forced nations to war and pill
lage. Some of her gold so gained was
drained off in trade to India and the
Orient.
India Hoards Gold.
India, in time, became the worlds
greatest gold hOarder. The treasure
sink of the world" she has been called.
Just how much gold is still hidden in
the secret vaults of her princes, no
body knows; from 1873 TO 1880. how
ever, the records show that India i'm
ported about S2,SOOOOO,OOO in gold.
Even after America was discovered,
Europe, though her own gold supply
was increased, continued TO obtain less
by mining than by conquest and plum
der. Cortez and Pizarro robbed in the
New world as Scipio and Alexander
had done in the Old.
Few books record the fact, yet ia
pan in the Seventeenth century sup
piled Europe with an important stock
of gold. The Portuguese and Dutch
managed this, beginning generations
before the American Commodore Per-
~ opened Japan's ports TO world
trade.
Fernao Mendes Pinto, pirate from
the Portuguese colony at Ningpo,
China, was driven upon the japanese
coast during storm in 1915. When
he returned to Ningpo with tales of
much gold in Japan, other Portuguese
fitted out ships and began trading.
Though Japan then coined mo gold
as money, her people amassed it as
wealth and traded it freely for weapons.
drugs, and dress stuffs brought by the
Portuguese and later the Dutch. When
the stock began TO wane, the Portu-
guese Matched plot to overthrow the
ChoOr1r RI 81,
enslaved natives; this project led final
ly to their expulsion.
The Portuguese, however. had &C
tually contrived to have the mines
worked, and thus secured treasure
which was shipped to Europe.
Nothing stirs mans Imagination
more than tales of huge nuggets.
Small ones have appeared in the craws
of chickens and turkeys; children at
play have found others. A fourteen
year-old California boy named Perkins,
playing with toy water wheel in a
Calaveras county creek, picked up a
nugget worth $500.
Near Dutch Flat, in the same state,
an old miner. Dan Hill, stopped to
wash his hands in brook and saw in
the water a chunk Of gold as big as
his head. he got $4,000 for it.
North Carolina Nuggets.
North Carolina does not come to
mind first as a gold state. Yet rec
ords in the United States mint show
that IL mined gold as early as 1893.
From its old Reed mine, in Cabarrus
nuggets that ranged from bean-size
I'D TO gold chunks Of IS pounds. A
Montgomery county mine belonged to
Thomas Fancy, a deer hunter, whose
favorite pastime was ito go hunting
with bullets run from pure gold" Old
residents thereabout tell Of buck
killed long after Faney's death, In the
shoulder of which was found a piece
of gold 1t was assumed that this was
one of Faney's bullets, with which he
had wounded the deer some time while
hunting.
A seven-pound nugget found in
South Africa was shaped like a human
hand, fingers and all Near Dolores,
Mexico. an Indian found a nugget
which was a perfect corn husk in
shape.
The Ural mountains of Russia have
yielded nuggets up to 80 pounds and
over. Three convicts found one worth
$4,000. 1t is written that the Tsar
freed the eonvicts but kept the goldl
In New South Wales was found a
record nugget. measuring feet q
inches long. which sold for s14SOO0.
The true standard Of value" said
Sir Isaac Newton. consists In def
mite quantity of gold bullion" But to-
day gold coins are seldom seen In
many lands they do not circulate at all