Discovery of gold. Turn the stream out of the lake, and build portable
engine to separate the gold.
I started with the canoe to the mouth of Stillwater Cove, having first
attended to my numerous flocks, and put on board two of my best guns,
with some lead bullets and shot, and provisions for some time, and
also carrying with me my two inseparable friends, the pet goats. When
I arrived, at the mouth of the cove, I entered the concealed harbor,
and got out the steam yacht and commenced putting her in order. I
soon had a fire built under the boilers, and in an hour's time was
all ready to set out. Leaving the canoe behind me, I pushed out of
the cove into Perseverance Bay, and made my way to the west about for
Mirror Bay. I arrived safely and in good season, and landed to examine
my treasure-ground, and found the grass growing over it nicely, and it
seemed well concealed. Going on board again, I pointed the yacht up the
river towards the lake. I had heretofore always stopped before reaching
the latter, for fear of striking the bottom on account of shoal water,
but I now made up my mind to proceed in a cautious manner into the
lake itself, if possible. I thought that there was water enough if
I could keep clear of any boulders or rocks that might possibly be
concealed beneath the water. The yacht did not draw over three feet,
and I felt confident that she could carry that draft to the lake if she
could be kept clear from any unknown obstructions. So I steamed along
very carefully and slowly, and often left the helm to rush forward and
look over the bows, and, oftener yet, stopped the boat completely and
examined ahead before proceeding. In this manner I advanced towards the
lake slowly but surely, taking land marks as I went on to enable me
to return without injuring my craft by running her upon any submerged
danger. At last the lake opened before me, and with a few careful turns
of the propeller, I soon floated upon its surface safe and sound.
The moment the yacht came in sight, numbers of swans and other fowl
commenced to rise from different parts of the lake, and take their
departure to more quiet and distant places. I knew, however, that I had
not disturbed them greatly, and that they would return during the day,
flock after flock. I kept on across the lake to the mouth of a little
brook pouring into it, not over fifteen feet wide, and, entering this,
I ran on for about a hundred yards, till the water commenced to shoal
and to be filled with numerous rocks. Here I moored the yacht carefully
to the bank and went on shore. I had no occasion to build any fire or
erect any habitation. The steam yacht served me for home, kitchen,
bedroom, and parlor, and I had on board of her everything that possibly
could be asked for. Tethering out my two pet goats, I took with me
two of my guns and quite a lot of ammunition, and the small landing
skiff, and made my way back again to the lake. I carried with me also
some twelve or fifteen nice decoy ducks, that I had made of wood and
dyed with black and red colors, similar to the ducks that frequented
the lake. These I anchored at an easy gunshot from the shore, and then,
landing, took out my guns and ammunition, which I carefully placed on
the sand, and, shouldering the boat, carried it into the bushes near
by and concealed it carefully. I then went to work with a hatchet and
cut down some of the small cedar and fir trees with which the back part
of the shore of sand was lined, and soon had them driven into the sand
near the edge of the water, and converted into a blind, from which I
could shoot into the flocks of ducks and geese that might come to my
decoys without being seen by them. Even whilst I was at work, several
flocks were almost willing to alight, hovering over my decoys, but
finally departing as they saw me at work. When I had everything to suit
me, I retired into my blind and waited for a chance for a good shot. I
used to shoot well with a percussion gun in younger days, but I had too
little lead now, and too little practice, to try and kill these birds
on the wing with a flint-lock gun, and my only chance was to wait till
a whole flock settled down, when I intended, by a discharge of one gun
whilst they were in the water, and another as they arose, to get as
many as possible; and that it may not be thought that I must have had
a great stomach for ducks, I would say that I intended to pick and
preserve these birds in saltpetre and salt, to use during the winter
seasons, and to make of their feathers a nice soft mattress.
I had not long to wait before a small flock settled to my decoys, and,
after sailing about a little, became disgusted and made off before I
could fire. But after them came a larger lot that settled boldly down,
and as I had found out that they would not long remain ignorant of the
cheats that had enticed them, I let drive at once into their midst
with one gun, and gave them the other as they rose to fly away. As the
result of my fire, I counted eleven large ducks dead upon the water and
three badly wounded, which I soon despatched by hastening to the shore
with my light landing boat and killing them with a boat-hook, and,
picking up my dead, brought onto the shore fourteen nice fat ducks. I
then drew up my boat and waited for more shots, but the discharge had
made the others somewhat wary; but finally my patience was rewarded
with two other good shots during the day, in which I bagged three geese
and seven more ducks. With this game I made my way back to the yacht,
highly pleased with my day's sport. I had noticed, both to-day and in
my former trips to the lake, that the species of duck that I had shot
were divers, and seemed to get their food by seeking at the bottom of
the lake for it, and particularly at this place where the spring water
poured into it from this brook or inlet, which evidently arose in a
mountain back of me, and, fed by springs, enlarged so as to pour into
the lake quite a volume of pure water. As I had to name everything upon
the island, I called this brook Singing Water Brook, on account of the
low musical murmur that was wafted to my ears from the miniature falls
and rocks over which it bounded, gurgled, and found its way, further
in the interior, where, from the sound, it evidently was more rapid in
its descent from higher ground, but distant enough not to be noisy, but
musical, in its progress towards the lake.
I first went to work and picked my whole twenty-one ducks and the three
geese, carefully saving all the feathers. I then proceeded to open them
preparatory to salting them away in casks which were on board of the
yacht, that I had brought for that purpose. I had opened and dressed, I
should think, some five or six, when I became curious to know what food
they fed upon, and to know if it was to obtain it that they kept diving
below the surface. To settle this problem I grasped with my left hand
the gizzard of the duck that I had just dressed, and, observing that it
was well inflated, I drew my knife across it to expose its contents. It
seemed to contain the usual amount of sand and gravel, and a sort of
semi-digested food that I was unable to determine as to whether it was
fish, flesh, fowl, or good red herring. As I was picking the mass to
pieces with my hands, I laid open to view quite a large pebble, fully
as large as a pea, that was as yellow as gold. I pounced upon it, for I
had seen too much virgin gold in California and Australia not to know
it. I had it not one moment in my hand before my sight and its weight
convinced me that it was indeed, in verity, a pure golden nugget.
Could it be possible? I had heard before of gold being taken from the
crops of chickens bought in Siam and on the coasts of Africa, but I
never before had credited the stories; but here before my eyes, in
all its unmistakable purity, lay a piece of virgin gold. Then it was
this that my ducks were gathering with their other food, mistaking it
probably for some kind of grain. To work, therefore, I went upon all of
the gizzards of my slain, and my search was rewarded by the finding of
seven pieces more, two much larger than the first specimen obtained,
fully as large as beans, and the others much smaller. When I had buried
my treasure, I had kept out, to have on hand at the Hermitage, several
of the ingots of gold and two or three of the bars of silver; why,
I do not know, but it was human to have a little amount of gold and
silver near at hand,--for what I cannot say; but it was natural, and
probably arose from former education and habit. I was not yet perfectly
content with the evidences of my senses or the malleability of the
metal before me, which I tested by beating one of the pieces with a
hammer; but before I would wholly give myself up to the belief that my
discovery was really gold, I intended to make a certain and positive
test. Stories ran through my head of vessels in olden times, which made
voyages to the East Indies, returning home with what they considered
gold ore in ballast, which only turned out upon arrival to be simply
mica or silica. Whalers also, as I had heard, had given up whole
voyages and filled their casks in different parts of the world with
worthless earth, thinking that they had become possessed of the wealth
of the universe. I was not to be deceived in this manner. I determined,
as I have said, to make a final and complete test before I gave myself
up to the excitement that would undoubtedly attend my magnificent
discovery, if true. For this purpose I left all my ducks and geese,
except two for cooking purposes, and made my way as rapidly as possible
back to the steam yacht, and, although it was nearly sunset, got under
way and started back to the Hermitage with my precious pebbles or
nuggets with me. I arrived safely by the aid of a magnificent moon,
and ran into Stillwater Cove and up to the Hermitage, when I moored
the yacht and went on shore and into my bed; but a restless night I
made of it, and early morning saw me at work in the foundry at my
proposed test. In the first place I went to work and made a nice pair
of balances of steel, with little pans on each side to contain the
substance to be weighed. I then went to work and made a mould of iron,
by boring out a small oval hole with my steel drills in the face of two
pieces of steel, which I hinged together exactly like a bullet mould,
only much smaller.
After having everything arranged I set to work and smelted a portion
of one of my golden ingots, and whilst in this fused state I moulded
several golden bullets in my mould, some ten or twelve in number. I
then put the remainder of the gold away, cleaned out the crucible
perfectly, and put my nuggets in it and smelted them, and with them
made also eleven impressions of my mould in the shape of bullets. I
kept these far from the others, so as not to get things mixed. I then
placed one of the true bullets of gold in one pan of the balance, and
added small clippings of iron in the other pan, till it was exactly
balanced. I then took it out and replaced it by one of the bullets made
from the metal I had found. The problem was solved,--they were exactly
of a weight, or, rather, so nearly so that a minute atom of iron dust
added to the pan preserved the balance, for my metal bullet, proved by
the very slightest degree to be the heavier. Yes, this was gold,--gold
beyond peradventure; but, to satisfy my mind, I weighed and weighed
them by one and by twos, and by fours and by fives; always with the
same result, scarcely a hair's breadth between them. Practically, they
were exact. I knew that no other metal could approach gold in weight
so as to deceive me beyond this test. I was living on an island that
was a vast gold mine, or at least contained it in large quantities;
for it would be impossible for me to have found seven nuggets in a few
ducks unless the bottom of the lake was strewed with them at or near
the mouth of Singing Water Brook, which must have poured them into the
lake for ages, carrying them along from their first resting-place, the
mountain, to the westward from which it took its rise. Convinced that
my discovery was real and true, I gave myself up to all manner of day
dreams, and it was a week before I made up my mind to return to the
lake and explore further. At times I gave up the idea of gathering
any of this gold that I now knew lay at the bottom of the lake, and
at others the desire to be possessed of it all swayed me also. But,
finally, dreaming gave way to my natural temperament, and I made all
preparations possible to secure my prize. Should I pen in a portion of
the lake opposite the mouth of Singing Water Brook, turn the latter
aside, lay bare the bottom of the lake and sift and examine the sand?
Alas, this would take great time and pains, and I was afraid also that
the water would be forced back, after I had pumped it out, though
the sand of which the bottom was formed. Should I lower the outlet
of the lake so as to draw off the water in a degree? This was not
very feasible, as it was already quite deep, and it would take great
time and application to deepen it enough to draw off the water of the
lake to any extent. No, I had another plan than this, which I finally
decided upon, and that was to use the submarine boat. Having fixed
upon the means, I hastened to put them into execution. I made all my
preparations, and, taking the submarine boat in tow of the steam yacht,
made my way back to Mirror Lake. I had some trouble in getting the
former into the lake, but finally succeeded after considerable labor. I
had provided myself with some utensils, to pan out the sand with, and
also a rocker, that I had built to be placed on shore, and worked by a
belt from a driving-wheel of the steam engine of the yacht, which I had
attached to it for that purpose only, intending to use it by anchoring
the yacht, disconnecting the propeller gear, and leading the belt from
the rocker on shore to the engine room of the yacht, and thence to the
driving-wheel attached. Let it suffice to say here that during my long
stay at Mirror Lake I made weekly trips to the Hermitage and attended
to my flocks, but gave up all idea of making butter, and only brought a
few of my female goats to this side to give me milk.
Having gotten the submarine boat into the lake, I made a descent in
it and examined the bottom. It was almost wholly of pure sand. The
water varied from a depth of a few feet near the margin to about three
fathoms near the centre. I saw several kinds of fish but none of large
size. Having made this examination, I commenced upon the work before me
of finding the gold. I went quite near to the mouth of Singing Water
Brook, and descended and filled the tops of the tanks with sand from
the bottom, failing to find any nuggets with the eye; but I afterwards
found several in different trips, but never many or of very large size.
Having loaded the boat, I arose to the surface, and beached her near
the mouth of the brook, and landed my sand in baskets upon the shore. I
then went to work with the pan and washed it in the mouth of the brook,
and as the result of this one trip gathered together more gold-dust
and small nuggets than I could hold in one hand. This was placer mining
with a vengeance, the cream of all mining while it lasts. But I felt
that I was going back-handed to work; so the next day, instead of
coming on shore with my sand, I took the pan into the submarine boat,
and as I pulled it up with a sort of long-handled shovel, washed it
then and there in the water of the lake inside the submarine boat;
but this again was, during a long day, tiring to my brain, as I had
to keep renewing the air by rowing the boat ashore, for it was too
shallow to use the air-boat, and I had long ago given up the idea of
using the spray-wheel except in case of actual necessity, the air-boat
superseding it.
Here I was in the ninth year of my captivity, working hard in my own
gold-field. I worked nearly six months of this year, at all spare
moments, in this manner, occasionally shovelling sand into the rocker
on shore, which I procured from the edges of the lake near the mouth of
the brook, just under water, and extracting the gold-dust by means of
a belt from the steam yacht. I was quite successful with this method
also, but the largest quantity of the dust had evidently been for ages
swept into the lake opposite the mouth of Singing Water Brook. I also
ascended the brook several times during these months, till it led me
to a mountain of some eminence, where it ended in little branches that
tumbled down its side.
I got "signs" of gold often,--in fact almost always at the eddies of
this brook, and even in its branches,--but never in as large quantities
as in the sand at the mouth, although I obtained one very large nugget
in the sands of a quiet pool fully half a mile from the lake. I also
ascertained that the mountain was composed mostly of quartz,--which
miners term the mother of gold,--and all the little pebbles that I
picked up in the running brooks were of this description, several of
them being prettily marked with little veins of gold. There was no
doubt whence the gold came; it had been pouring down from this mountain
side in these small trickling streams for centuries, veining the pieces
of quartz that contained it till the latter, by friction and water,
deposited itself in the shape of sand, and the released gold as dust
or nuggets, at the mouth of the brook, having been, perhaps, centuries
making the descent from the mountain side to the lake, a distance
perhaps of one mile. I knew perfectly well that the mountain contained
the inexhaustible mine from which this precious dust escaped, but I
also knew that without quicksilver it was beyond my reach to gather it.
For in quartz-mining I should need iron stamps, fuel, steam-engine,
amalgamator, rocking-table, etc., all of which I could supply, perhaps,
except the quicksilver; but this troubled me very little, for I knew
that there was more gold at the mouth of the lake than I could gather
in perhaps a lifetime, unless I could invent some way to come at it
more convenient than the ways that I was now employing. I had often,
at the end of a day's work, at this time, nearly as much gold-dust as I
could hold in my two hands, much more than one handful, and in value,
of which I could only guess, at least $200 to $250. After getting quite
a quantity together,--say a week's work,--I used to transport it to the
Hermitage, take it to the workshop, smelt it, and preserve the button
by burying it within the enclosure of the Hermitage.
I had at the end of some six months become greedy and was not satisfied
with my daily gains, but longed to extend my operations. During these
months I had not been idle, but had studied upon the problem of how to
get at the bottom of the lake. I was thinking about this one day, when
nearly half-way between the lake and the mountain side, passing the
brook once in a while and looking into its waters for quartz-pebbles
marked with gold. At once it struck me, why not turn the brook from
the lake towards the sea, in a new direction. I struck my head with
my fist to think what a fool I had been for so many months; why,
here, even where I stood, was a natural valley on my left, that would
convey the water to the sea. I dashed down my pan and worked my way
seaward. Why here was even a little mountain brook already tending in
that direction, and, following it about two miles, I saw it pierce the
sand of the seaside, at least two feet wide, and discharge its tiny
current into the ocean. I was crazy with excitement. I dashed back
again to the point where I had left my pan, and, picking it up, made
for the lake. When I arrived, I went to the inlet and examined it.
I felt that I had the whole matter under my thumb, and without much
labor, too; for if I should turn the direction of Singing Water Brook
so that it would not pour into Mirror Lake, the latter at its outlet
would be exactly as low as the bottom, over which a rapid current was
now flowing, but which would, by this process, be in one sense brought
to the surface; and, as it appeared, I could work upon it, and cut it
down, and as I cut it down so would the lake be drawn off, till, if cut
little by little, a passage-way which I could timber up to the depth
of eighteen feet, all the water of the lake would be drawn off, and
the whole bottom exposed to my view, and the golden accumulation of
untold ages beneath my feet to pick and choose from. It was feasible,
fool that I was, not to have thought of it before. The very next day,
armed with axes, tools, and shovels, which I had to make two trips to
convey, I found myself at the place on the brook where the natural
valley leading towards the sea seemed to meet it, and where a little
further on to the seaward I had found the miniature brook, trickling
its way to the southward. At the point that I commenced work the brook
was not over ten or twelve feet wide, rapid to be sure, but with not a
very great descent just at this point. I commenced in the first place
by cutting and opening on its southerly bank, towards the sea and into
the valley. I did not cut the bank away so as to let the water in
yet to its new channel, but worked a little distance from it. For two
whole weeks I dug at this, making a good bed for the brook to rush
into in its new passage that I intended to give it to the sea. Having
this to suit me, I commenced cutting down trees to fall across the
brook as it now ran, and these I filled in with pebbles and stones.
It was hard work, but at the end of three weeks I had made such a dam
across the original brook that I opened the passage for the water into
the new one, and kept on strengthening the former till all the water
in a day or two bounded down its new course to the sea as if it had
always run in that direction. I restrained my curiosity, however, to
look for gold in the now dried up bed of the brook, but felled more
trees, and put in more stones, and banked up with more earth, till I
felt convinced that even in a storm the brook would no longer seek an
outlet in the direction of the lake over such a barrier, and with the
bed of its new course so well dug out by itself even now, helped as
it had been by my labor of two weeks, before allowing it to seek it.
Finally I felt my work complete, and, breaking up my camp that I had
so long made in the woods, I went back to the lake, looking once in
a while into the now empty brook. I should have said that of course,
before I undertook this work, I had taken the yacht and submarine boat
out of the way,--the submarine boat to its old resting-place at Still
Water Cove, and the yacht at anchor in Mirror Bay near the shore. I
had been living a hard, rude life in the woods, and had only come out
once to go to the Hermitage for food and to attend to my flocks; and I
hurried down now to look at the lake, which I knew would be lowered to
exactly the former depth of the water at the outlet, some four or five
feet. As I came in view of it I saw at once the effects of my work; it
looked already woefully shrunken and belittled, but I did not stop to
look at it, or for nuggets either. I felt convinced that I had passed
many in the bed of the deserted brook, but at present I was intent upon
my work of changing the face of nature. In two trips I had all my traps
and tools conveyed to the outlet, and it was here that I established my
new camp. I had to go to the saw-mill and get some plank, and by the
aid of the goats and wagon finally, after bringing them around in the
yacht, got them to the outlet where I needed them. I commenced digging
in its bed, and the water soon began to pour out, as I did not have to
dig a great distance, as the decline was quite sharp. I found that I
should not need my boards till I had gotten considerably down, if even
then, for my work consisted only in shovelling the bed of the late
stream out upon each side and in making a channel lower than the water
still remaining in the lake. Suffice it to say that in three months I
had the lake drawn off, so as to expose a very large margin of the late
bottom. It would take too long to relate how I travelled over these
exposed sands and the deserted bed of Singing Water Brook; it will be
sufficient to say that my findings were immense, and in the bed of the
brook I found several nuggets in what had before been eddies, weighing
as high as two or three pounds, as near as I could judge. I soon,
however, got tired of tramping over the sand to try and find nuggets by
the eye, and arranged to go to work in a more thorough and satisfactory
manner. To do this, I left my gold-fields for several months, and
went to work at my forge to turn out a portable steam-engine, with
a rocker or sand-washer attached. When this was finished I took it,
in pieces, to the bed of the lake and erected it on wheels. It was
arranged with sections of pipe and hose so as to be placed near the
sand that was to be washed, and the water pumped for that purpose from
that still remaining in the lake, and which I had left for this very
purpose, intending to draw it off and expose more bottom by opening
the outlet whenever I should have been over the sands now exposed to
view. It was well also that I should have had to make this engine, for
the fishes contained in the lake had commenced to die, and the air was
impregnated with their effluvia, and the surface was covered with their
dead bodies. When I got to work with my rocker and engine it seemed as
if the sands were inexhaustible. I often gathered, as far as I could
judge, in one day's work, the sum of at least $500, and some days I
must have gathered hard upon $1,000, not to mention the nuggets large
enough to pick up with my hand, that I was continually coming upon.
But at last I got absolutely tired of gathering this golden harvest,
and abandoned it for other occupations, having already more than I
knew what to do with, and of not one dollar's value to me unless I
could escape or be rescued. After my fierce excitement was over in this
direction, I returned to the old problem of escape.