THE LAST GOLD MINE OF LOS ANGELOS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 368, 20 April 1910, Page 8

THE LAST GOLD MINE OF LOS ANGELOS.

To the Editor. Sir, —Apropos of the disappointment and chagrin of the Reefton miners at the work at Los Angelos (California) and their wish to return to New Zealand, alluded to in the issue of the "News" of the 18th inst., a curious old story of a famous lost gold mine said to 'he somewhere in the neighborhood of Los Angelos, was given in the Strand Magazine some years ago and quoted by the Australian World's News. It is conceived to lie in a direct line from a place called Yuma, on the Colorado river, and Jibout twenty-five miles or so from Los Angelos. It seems, so the story goes, that a wooden-legged man essayed the trip on foot from Yuma to Los Amgelos. Thinking to make a short cut he left the "beaten way," striking across country, of course losing himself. However, climbing a convenient hill—one lie described of three—he picked up his landmarks, then noticing some oddlooking bronze colored stone on the hillside, which was covered with a similar class of stones and (boulders, and being a collector of fossil and geological curios, he filled his pockets with specimens, ! Descending, ihe reached Los Angelos in perfect safety. Shortly afterward, showing his pebbles to a friend, the friend exclaimed, "Toby, man, they are gold." Gold!" shrieked the aghast collector "and there were tons of .it!" He then' fainted. On coming to himself a bit he was too delirious to give a succinct description of the locality of the find, and all attempts of parties to discover it failed. In the meantime the woodenlegged prospector died, the secret of his mine dying with him. The specimens were kept in some museum at Los Anigelos. Shortly after this another prospector came in with some of the very same nuggets, evidently, by comparison, from the same deposit. He said ihe <rot them from the top of a hill, "one°of three,' and he could easily find it again. Next day he and two others went off in search. They were heard of no more; whether perishing for want of water, 'killed by bears, or what their end might have been was never known. Finally a native woman, an Indian squaw, came along very much ornamented with similar stones. Oh, yes, she know the hill well enough; plenty big nuggets. Nothing would induce her to disclose the ■locality. In the night she disappeared an d was not seen again. Fiction or no fiction, the mine is undiscovered still, though known as the "Peg-leg" mine. This must have been quite 50 vears a»o. —I am, etc., 'C.W.W?