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Show GOLD DUG OUT BY HAND, j i Discovery of Breyfogle's Mine' by a Prospector. ; G3LD FOUND ON THE SURFACE IN LUMPS. Many Lives Have Ben Lost in the Search for the- Treasure. ' There in not a miner or old settler in ; the southern part of California who is not familiar with the story of the famous j breyt'ogle mine. It ranks with the Gun- sight, the Pegk-g and the Lost Cabin j legends. Like them it has cost dozens ; of liv-s, and so unsuccessful and fatal ' have been the many ejcpeditions made iu search of the mine that it has come to btj regarded by many as a myth. Briefly, for the information of those wtio have never heard the tale, the story yoes that away back in the early fifties a party, in which was a man named Brey fugle, st out for California by way uf Lliw southern Utah road, a route which lay through the southern portions of Utah and Nevada, skirted Death valley, i traversed the Mojave desert aod finally terminated in either the San Bernardino or Los Angeles valley. ! Breyfogle was something of a miner in his way, and while prospecting in a wild and forbidding region he found a i place where he could literally dig great nuggets of gold out of the decomposed i quartz or cement, as he called it, with ! his knife. As he described the place. ! there wan a large deposit of an exceedingly exceed-ingly rich character enough to make the whole party wealthy. He returned to camp, but the travelers were short of provisions and water, the Indians were troublesome and there was no time to waste in mining. They pushed on toward their destination, destina-tion, but between the Indians and thirst 1 only a few of them ever reached civiliza-I civiliza-I tion. Breyfogle told his story, exhibted the nuggets he had dug out and careful-j careful-j ly preserved, and then spent the rest of his life in a fruitless search for the de-, de-, posit. Others who heard tho story fol- lowed his example, and for npward of i forty years the Breyfogle mine has been a veritable will-o'-the-wisp, luring men ! to destruction in the terrible deserts of southeastern California and Bouthwest-ern Bouthwest-ern Nevada, i A LUCKY STRIKE. I George Montgomery, an experienced I miner well known in the Wood river re-! re-! gion of Idaho, was on a prospecting trip ! in the region to tho southeastward of I Death valley. It should be premised 1 that tho old Utah road after leaving Han I Bernardino city turns through theCajon pass and then strikes off in a northeast-; northeast-; erly direction across the Mojave desert, i passing Resting Springs, the Kingston mountains and then traversing the Pahr-I Pahr-I nmp valley. This valley lies just on the I boundary line between California and Nevada and has a general northwest-! northwest-! erly and southeasterly course, the Kingston Kings-ton mountains lying to the west and the Pah rump range to the east. While prospecting in the mountains last named and at the upper end of the valley Montgomery made a discovery which bears every indication of being the long sought Breyfogle mine, or at least one exactly similar. Bnt the location loca-tion answers to that given by Breyfogle, while the gold has been found just as he Baid so plentiful that it could be dug out in nuggets with a knife. One ledge located by Montgomery is eight feet wide, and has been traced by its outcroppings for a distance of 9,000 j feet. In the decomposed surface rock j the gold is found almost like plnms in a I pudding. Pieces of quartz picked out j are from a quarter to half bright yellow j gold, while with a hand mortar the I lucky discoverer pounded out in a short time a yeast powder can full of nuggots of various sizes. All along the ledge free gold is found in quantities that astonish as-tonish the oldest prospectors and which seem scarcely credible. After making several locations Mont-; Mont-; gomery spcad the news of his discovery, the result being that some thirty or forty miners are at work in the valley. Montgomery Mont-gomery himself packed up as large a quantity of the richest specimens as he could carry and made his way across the desert to Daggett, the nearest railroad point, 160 miles away. From there he came to San Francisco. FORTUNES FOR MANY. To the question whether he was looking look-ing for capital or a purchaser, Mr. Montgomery Mont-gomery returns an emphatic negative. The mines, he jays, are the richest he ever saw, and he is satisfied that he can realize a fortune by working them. There ought to be plenty of placer gold in the gulches leading from the ledges that have been discovered, bnt no effort has been made to find any. All the miners yet in the camp are busy on the quartz claims they have located. On one claim taken up by Montgomery a cross cut has been pushed for twenty feet across the vein without striking the hanging wall, and it is free milling ore all the ws.y. Besides the deposits of gold, some rich silver veins have been found, assays from which run over a hundred ounces to the ton. Lead and copper also abound, but at present gold is the sole object of Bearch. There is plenty of mesquite wood for fuel in the valley within thrrv or fonr miles of the newly discovered camp, while in the mountains, fifteen miles away, are forests which afford abundance abun-dance of timbering material. Water can be had at a moderate depth in Pahrump valley, while at Ash Meadows, fifteen miles away, are streams which could be utilized for power. In aoy event the Breyfogle mystery seems to have been solved, and perhaps this fact will give another stimulus to the search for the Gunsight and the Peg-leg Peg-leg mines. San Francisco Letter. |