A Hill of Silver.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 2, Issue 369, 13 June 1881, Page 2

A Hill of Silver.

(San Francisco Evening News.) While a whaler during the last, fish- - ing season was lying in a small bay at the mouth of one of the rivers which empty into the ocean on the coast of' Alaska, a great many of-the natives came on board to trade for sea biscuit, of which they are very fohd, and finally induced the captain to go up the river and fish for salmcn, with which the river was said to be alive. A boat was fitted out, manned by four men and the captain, and they went up the river 15 miles, where they went ashore at the base of a hill about 500 feet high, up r which the captain and chief of the ' natives climbed, while the crew and natives fished. T,he summit of the .hill was nothing but an extinct crater, in which the captain noticed that the rocks resembled iron after it had been melted. He undertook to break off a piece, but could not do it, as it seemed to bend, not break, under repeated blows with the head of a boat-axe. He then struck it with the blade of the axe, . and chopped it off and took it in his hand. The surface where the axe had cleaved its way through the rock, he ... saw was as soft nearly as lead, although it did not shine. He thought thenthat it was a metal of some kind, and kept it. Specimens of a similar' character were picked up by others of the crew, and taken to this city. The piece which the captain' chopped off the top of the hill with the axe has assayed 6,000 dots, per ton in silver, and the loose rocks picked up went as high as 275 dols. silver per ton. A company of Oaklanders, to whom the rocks were submitted, have chartered the whaler and the crew to make a trip in the spring to the scene of this remarkable discovery, and a working party will be left at the location to dig out a cargo - * '