Show M NES GOLO FIELDS hiie indie atlon the baat branch 0 alie swift river the extent of the gold bearing area of tho fields that were discovered recently in maine is a matter of conjecture the prospecting having been only along the swift river and its branches principally the east branch and the inquiries on the subject have been so numerous that the portland argus has published a description of the operations and indications from a correspondent at byron the operations on the east branch have extended three miles for two miles from its mouth the river rushes through a narrow gorge the moun bains closing in and leaving only narrow banks the bedrock is usually in sight on each side and in the hard packed gravel that covers it in places the masses of boulders bowl ders and broken bedrock on the shores and the crevices of the ledges considerable gold has been found for the next two miles the mountains fall away from the divor and the valley opens out to a width of half a mile the basin is a network net work of gravel bars of modified glacial drift and old chaam in the soft bod j ock many of them being deeper than alie present bed of the river the river has a fall of or feet through the baaij which has been purchased by one company beyond the basin the mountains come together again and the bedrock bed rock comes to the surface the top soil in the fields and woods carries considerable gold dust the bedrock bed rock and gravel gold ranges in sizes from clover seed to pieces worth 10 to 15 the land along the river is owned by lumber compan lei and a few farmers and email sections can not bo bought the men who have worked the golds will not talk much about the quantity of gold that has been mined the finest gold that has been obtained by washing is in the form of slender threads and sprays and the larger pieces indicate the effect of intense heat three theories are advanced in regard to the fields one is that glacial drift carried the gold there another is that the quartz veins that cross the valley have been worn away and the third is that the quartz formations were melted by intense heat |