THE SANDS OF GOLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 85, 30 September 1911, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE SANDS OF GOLD

" TREASURE ISLAND" STORY IN REAL LIFE. ROMANTIC STORY OF AN ESSEX RECTOR'S DISCOVERY. From the remote village of Tolleshiiiit D'Aroy, Essex, comes a story as romantic as Stevenson's "Treasure Island" —a tale of a newly-discovered gold field in the. far desolation of the Arctic Circle, and of a great coalfield from which Europe may draw its fuel long after its own coal, lias been exhausted. There, are three principal characters in this new "Treasure Island" story of real life. One is the Rev. Mr. Gardner, rector of Goldhanger, a sleepy little village of Essex whose greatest excitements have been a wedding, a birth and a death. The second is Mr. J. 11. Salter, of Tollesliunt D'Arey, three miles from the rectory of Goldhangcr. The third is Mr. Ernest Mansfield, a musician, a man of letters, a great traveller, and a mining engineer, who is tlie neighbor and friend of the rector and the doctor. Surely Stevenson or Quiller-C'oneh would have chosen just such men as these to be the characters in a story of gold and dead men's bones in a far-off island! After their day's work it was the habit of these three cronies to meet in one or other of their houses, and to talk of their experiences in the world of fact and ideas, over a glass of wine. Both Mr. Mansfield and ' Dr. Salter are men who have limited and explored in wild places, and the conversation of Mr. Mansfield was especially interesting, because, as a mining engineer, and one of the early pioneers [ of Klondike, lie had searched for gold in many parts. Always his conversa- I tion came back to Gold, Gold, Gold, and j the possibility of new discoveries. He held firmly to the theory that there were great gold deposits in the Arctic regions at present untouched by men. The Rev. Mr. Gardner was secretly fired ) by his words, and one day he said, "I am going to Spitsbergen. Perhaps while I am there I may put your tlieoTy to the test." So, acting upon the expert advice of his engineering friend, the Rev, Mr. Gardner brought back from his voyage pieces of quartz and rock, and specimens of sand and mud and shingle, from the Arctic coast. To him they were meaningless. He smiled as lie thought of his strange baggage. Hut one night there was a thrilling sense of , mystery and excitement when the three friends gathered in the sitting-room of the rectory. Mr. Mansfield pored over these pebbles and bits of rock, held them np to the light and examined them closely. "Well?" said his friends, '•(."old," he said, "or I'm a Dutchman." The specimens were sent to London to be tested. The report that came back confirmed Mr. Mansfield's opinion. The sand brought, back by the clergyman was what is known as "pay gravel," washing down of a gold deposit. The three friends formed a private syndicate, ami Mr. Mansfield went out to Spit'/.bergen to prospect more closely and take out a claim. He found that a party I of Americans were in advance of him, but they entered into an amicable arrangement, and the party proceeded further up the desolute course, where they have pegged out their own claim and have now established a small township engaged in coal-digging, with good results. The details of what Mr. Mansfield found must be still kept a secret, says Dr. Salter, although it can no longer he hidden that there are the most astonishing indication of gold and an inexhaustible coal supply in this unexplored territory of the Frozen Nortli. One ' great difficulty now faced the village pioneers. From whom were they to get the full right to take possession of minerals in this region? No flag of any nation flics over its barren rock. It is a "No Man's Land." Dr. Salter approached the Foreign Office and obtained certain advice, upon which he is now acting. The syndicate have fitted out several ships, which have already made their way to the Arctic regions, and recently an iron-built vessel steamed out of the Thames bound for Spit/.bergen, with a crew of English. Scottish and Norwegian sailors and miners. "They are tough men," says Dr. Salter, "carefully chosen and examined by myself—sturdy fellows with no nonsense about them and fit for a hard life. We have now a very flourishing little mining colony on our Arctic claim, strong enough to defend themselves in case of need and ready to enforce that mining law which means death to anybody who tries to 'jump' a claim. The ships have taken out a great supply of provisions—and you have no idea how much is re<|iiired to sustain a body of men utterly isolated from the world, and depending for their lives upon what they have carried with them. .They have built houses taken out in pieces, and under the strict discipline of mining engineers and officers they are leading a. hard, lonely life, with plenty of toil and 110 other society but their own. Around them they hear the barking voices of the seals who lie upon the rock ledges, polar bears prowl over this barren region, and no human being outside their own cam]) disturbs the utter solitude. They keep close to their huts, for the Norwegians especially are, superstitious and are afraid of the ghosts which they believe haunt these desert regions." One, day these pioneers in search of

Arctic gold made a gruesome discovery. There 011 the naked rocks lav three skeletons. Their bones were bleached and stripped clean of llesh. There was no sign to show the race or character or history of the men who had perished in this Arctic solitude. Perhaps in the living flesh these men had come in that search fnr gold which has strewn many far regions and desert islands with skeletons. Three, friends hound together bv some great adventure, they lay now together in the fellowship of death, mourned. perhaps, in some English village. Spitsbergen is a group of rockv and icy islands, with some hundreds of rock islets, fnr north of the northernmost cape of Europe (Norway!, and partly within the Arctic Circle. They have never been permanently inhabited; only used as bases for exploring or fishing expeditions. Tf gold is to be found in quantities. 110 doubt the resources of the temperate zone will make even the everlasting ice plateaus and glacier-rasp-ed valleys of Spitsbergen endurable.