Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 September 1897 — FORTUNES IN SILVER. [ARTICLE]

FORTUNES IN SILVER.

< R salon of Alaska Where the White Metal Abounds. On the head water of the Oopper River, Alaska, about 200 mile* tam the sea eonst, where but one wttota man has ever succeeded In reaching, dwells a strange and peculiarly my*terlous race of Indiana. In recent yean, through some traders, they have acquired possession of a few guns, and now when they dome down to the trading posts at the head of Oook’s inlot, they often bring bullets moulded out of stiver and other metals. The Indians have a great many primitive weapons and cooking utensils, all of which are rudely though skillfully made out of pure copper. They havo frequently Informed the white traders that silver and copper abound tn immense quantities at the base of a peek back of Spirit mountain, which is now reckoned as being the highest mountain in North America by surveyors and engineers who have viewed it from a distance.

The winter to the only time the Indians visit the coast for trading purposes. In the summer the post on the Kueek River is abandoned on account of the rapacious appetite of the mosquitoes, it being Impossible for a ht> man being to survive their attach* Several Instances are known where they have killed and devoured Indian dogs.

The only reason, apparently, why American prospectors have not visited the upper Oopper River country to its almost complete Inaccessibility. Several parties have attempted to ascend the river, but from the nature of the stream, being excessively swift and turbulent, one might as well try to climb Niagara Falls. The river Is lined on each side tar miles and miles with nothing but gla- ' clers, whose walls are perpendicular from the summit to an unknown depth below the water and whose every side Is seamed with crevices so deep as to be almost fathomless. The Juneau Mining Record says that » party will try to find this new Hldorado this fall-