these forks that the recent strikes have been made.

On August 15 "Jack" Shedd, the original discoverer of the Robinson mine
in Colorado, was prospecting on the south branch of the north fork of
the Perche River, when he made the first great strike in the district.
On the summit of a heavily timbered ridge he found some small pieces of
native silver, and then a lump of ore containing very pure silver in the
form of sulphides, weighing 150 pounds, and afterward proved to be worth
on the average $11 a pound. All this was mere float, simply lying on the
surface of the ground. Afterward another block was found, weighing 87
pounds, of horn silver, with specimens nearly 75 per cent. silver. The
strike was kept a secret for a few days. Said a mining man: "I went up
to help bring the big lump down. We took it by a camp of prospectors who
were lying about entirely ignorant of any find. When they saw it they
instantly saddled their horses, galloped off, and I believe they
prospected all night." A like excitement was created when the news of
this and one or two similar finds reached Lake Valley. Next morning
every waiter was gone from the little hotel, and a dozen men had left
the Sierra mines, to try their fortunes at prospecting.

As the news spread men poured into the Perche district from no one knows
where, some armed with only a piece of salt pork, a little meal, and a
prospecting pick; some mounted on mules, others on foot; old men and men
half-crippled were among the number, but all bitten by the monomania
which possesses every prospector. Now there are probably 2,000 men in
the Perche district, and the number of prospects located must far exceed
1,000. Three miners from there with whom I was talking recently owned
forty-seven mines among them, and while one acknowledged that hardly one
prospect in a hundred turns out a prize, the other millionaire in embryo
remarked that he wouldn't take $50,000 for one of his mines. So it goes,