Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 28 November 1948 — Page 36

Diamond: Jack,*Indiana gold miner, at home.

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i With chisel, he removes bed rock from stream bed.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES N°

main.

‘Panning jis tedious - but a particle of gold may re-

Colorful Hoosier Prospector Hoping for That ‘Big Strike’

By VICTOR PETERSON : DIAMOND JACK fondled a small pile of glittering dust in the palm of his hand. Nearly blind, he squinted

as he held the dust close to his eyes.

“I intend to die a rich man,” Diamond Jack prophesied. He fondled a small pile of glittering Indiana dust in his hand. This tiny portion of crude gold spurred his hope of making his “big strike” in the Hoosier hills. If he misses finding his fortune here, he’s heading back to California next spring.

Here is his story:

Diamond Jack has gold fever, an incurable disease. Each day is a promise of a gold strike and his hopes are high. This might be the day of the big strike in “them thar” Hoosier hills. The 60-year-old prospector, whose real name is Hugh Mar-

Indiana gold and diamonds are exposed in weathering and disintegration of granite boulders brought down by glaciers from Canada 50,000 to two million years ago. If Diamond Jack knows this, he doesn’t care. Every morning he leaves his tent camp along a side road near Centerton, Ind.

shall, dreams of riches from and heads into Morgan County Hoosier earth. Scientists say hills with wire brush, chisel, no.

scrapping cup, shovel, buckets, sluice and pans piled in a wheelbarrow.

» » » THERE'S gold in Indiana, but it exists in minute quanti-

ties. ra

FROM SUN UP to sun down he grovels in the hollows. He loads the rock, pebbles and silt into the barrow and wheels it over gravel roads to Sycamore Creek which is swift and deep enough for sluicing. About four trips a day are all he makes. The task is back-breaking and muscle-tiring. Since 1912 he has worked Indiana hills. This has been a good summer—he has found $25 in golden dust, the total since 1912 about $100. To make

ends meet, he saws wood at night by lamplight.

» » » HE ALSO carefully searches the earth for diamonds. He has found three in the tons and tons of soil he has moved. He uncovered the fabulous stones in 1912, 1913 and 1937. The last he sold to an Indianapolis scientist. It would cut to one and a third karats with a retail value of $133. It hasn't been cut. Cutting would cost as much or more than the value.

Songtime ® » BUT the years haven't always been lean for Diamond Jack. He began prospecting in California in 1908. He estimates his total take from Mother Earth at $70,000. “Nothing to show for it,” he said. “Been robbed three times.” He was 17 when he made his first and greatest strike. In five months he took $49,800 from California deposits. Then he headed for Chicago, deposited $18,000 in a bank. The rest,

Discovery in Alaska Seen as Aid to Study of Ancient Man

Artifacts of Prehistoric Eskimo Culture

Found in Semi-Underground Village

NEW YORK, Nov. 27 (UP)—Alaska, which the United States bought from Russia “for a song,” promises to give scientists the! answers to many mysteries of the early American man. The most recent find has been reported by Dr. Henry B. Collins Jr., archeologist of the Smithsonian Institution, who reported the| excavation of a prehistoric, partly subterranean Eskimo village’

in bills, he carried in a suitcase.

8 88 “I WAS staying at a rooming house. I planned to plunk it all on sugar stock. The day I got ready to go to the Board of Trade, two gunmen stepped from an alley near the rooming house and took it all. “I love gold for its beauty, not so much for its value. But I'm heading for California again next spring. “I intend to die a rich man,” Diamond Jack prophesied.

these ‘scrappings.

A fleck orgtwo of gold may be in

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fi aavelirond tota tcreek, Diamond; Jackiwheels his} load 3 for slicing.

out again’ Could be « temporary Office are ment to g artificial ti Mr. Ha are prone a little in tion blank pointed ou “Use into might say proceed to tirely poss

Christm

THER intoxicants wasted litt problem to at the rig again this “I star July,” sigl him if he t It's cor problems, take ever whipped. Unit st much tem] they'll nee the numbe last year, view office cant come partment :

postal wor Those 140 plicants, n ‘While |

Diamond Jack” moved tons of earth for the'gold dust in’ his hand.

How to right) i Clark, jus

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. cient cultures. | Judges in 1780 The village, according to Dr. * Collins, consisted of one-room Agreed to Str ike houses with walls of stone and]

Over Soaring HCL whale bones, and with whale bone

roofs. The dwellings, he said, were

BOSTON, Nov. 27 (UP)—The erected in excavations two to Justices of the Massachusetts Su- three feet deep in the permanentpreme Court threatened to strike ly frozen soil, with the roofs in 1780 because they considered ahove the surface. The scientists their pay inadequate in the face entered the dwellings through unof spiraling living costs. derground passageways. They An assistant supreme court surmise that through the long clerk has uncovered old records Arctic winter the ancient inhabshowing that the justices finally|itants must have lived buried unwere granted two “cost of living der the drifting snow.

bonuses” to add to their $500, The evidence of ancient cultures annual pay. —or artifacts—were arrow points, onl. harpoon heads, skin scrapers, and

THE BOOSTS were granted gther instruments made of stone, near’ the end of a six-month jyory, bone and antlers. | strike deadline the justices had) Dr. Collins said that by far the

Bel, greatest number of finds were] In stating their case for an In-ja;06 somewhat crudely fashioned crease, the justices said the prices|yynlements which are characterof “West Indian goods” were igi; of the so-called “Thule” culov. times higher than previous-| ire the prehistoric Eskimo cul- : {ture ancestral to the modern in I Oke ol me pager. Jems of West much of Greenland, the Canadian ndian {rade in ‘hose cays. Was ,yetie and Alaska.

To. The Thule culture is believed to have originated in Alaska and to College Bars Down have spread eastward along the BOYNE CITY, Mich, Nov. 27 Arctic coasts, probably about 800 state law prohibiting all racial and|Y®2rs ago. religious discrimination in the ad-| However, the Smithsonian sci-| mission of students to college entists found other implements, became effective in New York at/mixed with the Thule artifacts, | the beginning of the school year. that apparently were made by the| Jointly sponsored by a Democrat people who preceded the Thule] and. a Republican, it was called people. Some of the implements the first law of its kind in the may have been made by the earli- |

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