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Show SICK-A-BED SOLILOQUIES. Lying on one's back for sottio weeks may havo this advantage tho only one I havo been able to pick out so far; It effectually shuts a fellow off from lying otherwise. Indeed, It Is questionable whether this Is so much an advantage after all; in tho case of one who has followed newspaperlng continually, law frequently and mining min-ing occasionally, may It not he a caso of adding misfortune to misfortune? A fellow with an active temperament and a vivid Imagination to bo all at once put out of commission as to both Is, ono would think, liable to produce pro-duce congestlvo short-circuiting, but no matter so far as tho writer of these lines Is concerned, for he has run the gauntlot of those generally successful census dlmlnlshors, grip and diabetes, and will seo tho angels later. This occupancy of a couch, day In and day out, Sundays and holidays Included, In-cluded, gives you a flno opportunity to think in spite of tho discomforts, pains and penalties. And you don't havo to wrestle so hard with your gray matter to make It produce as when It surmounts your whole physical physi-cal being and spiritual enclosure. In fact, you don't have to labor at all1 just let your thought foundry rest and spontaneous generation of Ideas soon takes place. All of which Is not exactly what I started out to unfold. Ono of tho things that was on tho programme for presentation was tho thought duly hatched out as previously suggested, that the remark of that Scriptural character about all men being liars was simply a truism so far as this day and ago are concerned. It does not follow oven then, though, that they are all alike, not by a groat deal. Somo are skillful while others aro clumsy, somo are voluminous while others are scattering, somo aro born that way, others acquire the habit and others still have It thrust upon them. Thero are a few who havo acquired tho art by means of all three of these methods; they constitute the 33 degree class and are distributed variously. var-iously. Tho most Innocent and least harmful harm-ful Intentionally of nil estrays from tho path of living facts Is tho fron-tlersmnn fron-tlersmnn in various callings but who Is stocked up with mining stories and has had enough actual touch with tho business to make him the ready receptacle of all tho stock fake stories going, and which he passes off on listeners ns willing as himself to hoar, always taking tak-ing care that tho recital loses nothing In the process of continued repetition. Tho Inventors of the Breyfoglo yarn, which told of tho discovery In Death Valley or thereabouts of a ledgothat contained a cement carrying moro gold In great gobs than anything else, and which became a kind of geological , Lorelei In luring great numbers of men to destruction, have doubtless passed along to their reward, such as It Is, as tho story Is Itself quite vonera-ble; vonera-ble; but tho following it has had and ho yet will nrob- ably live long after Lydla H Plnkham and Uncle Tom's Cnbln aro H forgotten. The same ns to tho Peglog H mine, tho Gunlock mine, and a large array of others. Tho fact that groat H finds havo recently been made in the region whero tho phantoms were lo- cated has naturally added to tho con- fldence of tho believers therein and the golden Idyls havo naturally taken on a now loaso of life. ' Undoubtedly some of tho finds of precious metals and stones havo been H under such circumstances of Ignorance or privation as prevented them from becoming known to the world at largo, H but they must havo been very rare. Sometimes, also, other circumstances havo been the moans of keeping goo- logical wealth concealed from the gaze of mankind for long periods of time, and such may nover be found, which means that they will nover figure .in the "lost" columns;, to this may be. added tho other fact that very few of tho "found" ones ever do. A great mine onco found Is like tho Nevndlan definition for an honest man hp Is one that stayd bought; the inlno stays found. ' Tho lato William Van Dyko, of this city, had little if any experience Innnl-nlng Innnl-nlng affairs. Yet he was a leading figure In nn event which, had ho been as well posted ns ho' became later In life, might havo made him a minor and a Bucccsful one too. In 1SG1 ho was ono of a party of young married men called by Brlgham Young on a mission to what Is now tho eastern part of Nevada, but was then n thousand miles from anywhere In tho lonesomest and dreariest part of Utah, which Is putting the caso pretty strong; but tho location Itself was a semi-Paradise compared to tho desert wastes they had to traverse In order to reach it. Thero aro springs here and thero, but so effectually aro thoy concealed that a person not knowing their location might perish with thirst as several havo done within a stone's throw of them, ns tho Van Dyko party would havo dono but for tho aid of friendly Indians. The party constructed a fort, planted trees and shrubs and In a general gen-eral way began at onco making preparations pre-parations for a permanent home. (Tho mission wns recalled a year or two later). Ono day three or four of the men, Van Dyke Included went out along tho adjacent mountains In search of stray horses, and while resting rest-ing in a ravine which cut down through tho foothills ono of tho party mechanically kicked a boulder with the heel of his boot, the rock breaking to pieces. Their attention was then drawn to somo shining particles among tho pieces and examination showed them to be what was either gold or a good Imitation. Tho pieces wero kept and In more recent years Van Dyke Imparted the story of his experiences In tho desert to the undersigned, together to-gether with a piece of tho rock about as largo as a pigeon's egg. It proved to be rose quartz In tho last stages of decomposition, fragments being easily broken off with tho thumb and finger, and fully one-fourth of It wns gold In small particles. Ho could not be induced in-duced to undertake tho trip to whore tho oro was picked up, but ho gavo as good a description as possible .after so many Intervening years, and con-trubted con-trubted money for tho writer to go and "try his luck," doing tho same thing on a later occasion. I havo been out thero five times, not till tho Inst succeeding in finding ground which fit tho description given. It Is in a region re-gion which has produced considerable gold and at a time when Southern Nevada Ne-vada was not known to havo such a thing, or much of anything else of consequence. Tho nugget found by the missionaries was doubtles broken off from a ledge and floated by melting snows and occasional rains down to whero thoy found It and where It had no doubt lain for aces. The ledtro thcr It came from is there yet; at least I didn't bring it away and haven't heard of any ono else doing so, although several sev-eral havo gone in quest of It. It is useless for any ono to essay tho task unless ho is prepared for a campaign and then no doubt, like tho many other great finds occurring almost every day in Nevada, tho breeding place of whnt Van Dyko found could bo exposed ex-posed to the light of day. That It will bo worth while when it does take placo goes without saying. I havo not entered very fully Into particulars herein for the reason that this story which tolls of a deposit of wealth which was neither found nor lost and yet exists, and is no Ho at all, Is. already long enough. S. A. KENNEIt. |