Gold in the Hills at the Foot of Mount St. Helens

Chehalis, Feb. 24 — Special. The mineral fields of the eastern end of this county are again beginning to attract attention. The gold prospects of the Corpus district, at the foot of Mount St. Helens, are showing some satisfactory assays. Major Copley, Dr. Levenson and others who have been working constantly in the district for over two years have had several assays made which ran from $300 to $500 per ton in gold, besides considerable silver. The mines are almost inaccessible, hence but little has been heard of them. The gentlemen mentioned are so confident, however, of the value of the mines, that they have made a contract with H. O. Kinkaid, a freighter, to bring down all the ore he can handle at $100 per ton as soon as the snow is off — to take in a drove of pack horses and bring the ore to the railroad here, from whence it will be sent to the Tacoma smelter by rail. All reports from the eastern end of the county are to the effect that it is a region wonderfully rich in minerals. It is known that anthracite coal of the best quality exists there in great abundance. The Packwood mine has been investigated by several parties, and has always been reported favorably, but although the owner, an old man, has waited thirty years, confident that he had a property of immense wealth, he has waited in vain for capital to interest itself. A party in charge of an expert sent out by an Eastern syndicate left here this week to examine the mine. Although the public has heard little of that part of the state of Washington, its resources have attracted more than passing attention in the East. During the last three years a coal and timber expert from Minneapolis, in the pay of New York parties, has spent most of his time cruising and exploring the eastern end of this county.