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Show Stories of Lost Mines. How the Mormons Located a Silver Mine in Death Valley. (Exchange.) Almost every day we read of some lost mine, and in each instance a certain cer-tain amount of romance appears to attach at-tach to each and every one of them. J ine following is an account or the Lest Confidence mine, and other matters mat-ters pertaining thereto: "There is the old Lost Confidence mine in Death valley. There are as ( many weird tales told of this mine as of the famous Peg Leg in Arizona. It is worth while going a little into the history of it. In I860 or about the time of the famous Mormon war one of the leaders of the Saints had a dream wherein he was told to go westward west-ward until he came, to a heart graven on the mountain side above a spring. There he should settle with his brother Mormons and found a colony. It was further demonstrated to his satisfaction satisfac-tion that the angels of the Lord would guide him to his destination. He started, start-ed, saw the arrowhead in the San Bernardino Ber-nardino mountains, . and founded the town which today bears that name. He allayed the inquiries of his conscience as to the difference between an arrowhead arrow-head and a heart by the statement, which an old Indian chief made to him, I th it this had formerly been a heart., j but that the Great Spirit, in anger at j I some misdeed of his red children, had j changed it to an arrowhead. Evidently Evident-ly the god of Mormon and the titular deity of the Digger Indian were not of the same mind. But be that as it may, j a later party of Mormon emigrants discovered dis-covered the Confidence mine. It has the peculiar distinction of being the only mine in the world whose entrance is below sea level. It is also eight miles from water and fuel is not abundant. abund-ant. For these last two reasons the I mine has never been profitably worked, though the ore runs well up in the I hundreds of dollars per ton in silver, j with about $10 in gold. Since its abandonment aban-donment bv the Mormons who used it. ( not so much as a mine, but as a place j for the manufacture of bullets and a ! sort of retreat during the war men-. men-. tiond above it has been held by a band of half-breeds and nomad whites, at whos? hands every white man who has gone into the valley after this , mine during the last decade, has met a j violent death. There is little more to tell concerning this mine, save that thee arc thousands of acres of rich nitre hills near by, which are infinitely more valuable than all the silver mines ; of the valley." t |