Bret Harte Union High School - Sierra Vista Yearbook (Angels Camp, CA)

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Tales of Town and Trail ss is ss Billy, here's a vein of quartz, there is room enough to find it. Take your pick and start in by digging out those blocks of quartz. As you dig them out break them with your sledge hammer into pieces about the size of a walnutg while doing this keep a sharp eye out for the gold that might be in them. Put some of the broken rock into your pan and wash it in the ditch. If you fail to get a color in your first pan, don't let it discourage you, get another pan'. By noon I had pounded out quite a bit of rock and washed about a half dozen pans and all I had to show for my work was sore muscles, blistered hands and my fingers all cut by the rock. When I reached the cabin, covered with dirt and reeking with sweat, Dick greeted me With, 'What luck?' Showing him my hands, I told him of my half day's labor. 'You certainly have got your hands into a pretty fix. Wash the dirt out of the cuts and I'l1 put something on them'. I rested until the next morning and when I went to work I wore a pair of gloves. When I reached the claim I hit the rocks just hard enough to crack them. I had been working about an hour when I pried out an extra large one, and, coming down on it with a mighty whack, it came apart with a sort of whine and there it lay before me, held together by strands of coarse gold. I was so excited that I picked up that boulder and carried it the Five miles to the cabin. When I burst in at the door, I startled Dick out of a nap by yelling at him, 'Hey, pardner, how's this for a prospect? When Dick's eyes caught the gleam of the yellow metal his excitement nearly equaled mine. My 'clean up' from this rock amounted to a little over seven hun- dred dollars. I found nothing for three months, so I finally aban- doned the Van Houghten and moved to another locality on the Hill, and at jim's suggestion went to tracing gold on the surface. jim gave me instructions on how to look for gold on the surface and then left for Sonora. At about three in the afternoon I got a few colors and decided to wait until Jim got back to help me with what I thought was a real discovery. When jim saw what I had called gold he exploded with, 'Well, I'll be darned! Three Hy specks', and with- out another word walked away. Thus went my discovery . One might conclude that experiences similar to that of Mr. Gillis are common to pocket miners. -VEOLA THORPE '34. -M39 19-M 1...

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