Legends and Stories of Lost Mines: Famous Lost Mines and the Fate of Their Discoverers (1904)
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Legends and Stories of Lost Mines: Famous Lost Mines and the Fate of Their Discoverers (1904)
Samuel Milligan Frazier was a successful prospector and miner who wrote "Secrets of the rocks; or,The story of the hills and the gulches," 1904.
Frazier writes: "California, Arizona, old and New Mexico, Colorado, the Black Hills in Dakota and Wyoming, Montana, Idaho—in fact all places accessible and inaccessible— have their legends of rich gold deposits. There is probably not a square mile of territory in all these regions that has not at some time been prospected by both professional and amateur, mines discovered and lodes located whose existense to-day are only known or remembered in legend or story.
"Up in the Teton range, Idaho, in the Snake river country, according to the testimony of an old miner, there is a mountain of gold. Proof of the existence of some enormous body of the yellow metal is found in the great quantity of flour gold impregnating the waters of the district. But the source of this golden flood has never been found by other than he who made the startling announcement."
This book includes information on the Lost Dutchman's Mine, "Old Madden Mine," "The Lost Pegleg Mine," "Lost Belle McKeever Mine," "Gold Tank mine," Fryer Hill mine, Great Standard mine, "the Lost Cabin Mine," hidden treasure of Alder gulch, Meadow Lake, the famous Homestake, Drum Lummond mine, Last Chance gulch, Comstock lode, Spanish mine, Christmas Gift mine, and the Klondike.
Prospectors "Doughnut Bill," "Old Eureka," Kelse Austin, Lloyd Magruder, "Nine-Mile" Clark, George Rankinson, Henry Plummer, Bart Beckley, Joe Sweeney, Chris Keyes, Jim Coleman, John Quincy Adams, and Jack McDonald are discussed.
"The greatest mines of earth are yet to be opened in this far-western land of wonders. Mountains of gold and silver ore, beside which all the famed riches of Ophir and Ind, of Golconda and the Comstock, will some day sink to insignificance, yet rear their proud heads heavenward, untouched by pick or spade. The veritable treasure vaults of the genii yet await the enterprise and muscle of the sturdy prospectors, who are destined to fire the avarice and the envy of the world with their' Midas-surpassing wealth. From Alaska to Nicaragua the whole vast area of Rocky mountains and Cordilleras is an almost unbroken ore and mineral bed. Although since the days of the Montezumas and the Incas, thousands of millions have been taken from it, not one ten-thousandth part of it has ever felt the tap of the miner's drill. The surface dirt is hardly broken—the glittering hoards are scarcely touched. As great bonanza fortunes yet remain to be won. And booms bigger than any we have seen are yet to come!"
Originally published 1904; reformatted for the Kindle; may contain occasional imperfection; original spellings have been kept in place.