A HILL OF SILVER.

Temuka Leader, Issue 382, 3 May 1881, Page 2

A HILL OF SILVER.

While a whaler daring the last fishing season was lying in a small bay at the mouth of one of the nvers which empty into the ocfan on the const of Alaska, a great many of the natives came on board to trade for sea biscuit, of which they are very fond, and finally induced the captain to go up and fish for salmon, of which the river was said to be alive. A boat was fitted out, manned by fouu - mea and the captain, and they went up. the river 15 miles where they went ashore at the base of hill about 500 feet high, up which tha captain, and the chief of the natives climbed, while the crew and natives fi-hed. 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 knock off a piece, but could not do it, a» ft seemed to bend,, not break, under repeated blows with the head of the boat-axe.. He then struck it with the blade of the axe, anrt chopped it off and took it in his hand.. The surface where the axe had cleaved its way through the rock,, was as soft nearly as lead, although it did not shine. He thought then that 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 tu thiscity. The piece which the captain, chopped off the top of the hill with the axe, has essayed 6000 dols. per ton ia silver, and the loose rocks picked up went as high as 275 dols silver per ton.. A company of Oaklanders, to whom the rocks weie submitted,, have chartered the whaler and the crew to make a trip ia the spring to the scene of this remarkable discovery, and a, working pasty wilL be left at the location to dig out a cargo.. —San Francisco Evening Post.