The Caldwell Tribune

Lightship's Mudhook Covered with Yellow Metal When Hove To.

A rush of gold-seekers to the Straits of Magellan and to Tierra del Fuego is told of in a letter received at the office of the fifth lighthouse district from Capt. Thomas Orlando Moon of this city, who is an officer of lightship No. 76, that, with her sister lightship No. 83, is on a voyage from New York to San Francisco that holds the world's record for lightship voyages, according to the Baltimore American.

Captain Moon was impressed with the proximity of gold in the region by a singular experience that befell his vessel one night. To heave home an anchor and find it gold-plated was the essence of this experience, and it so excited several men that they immediately proposed to bide their time and then organize an expedition to get the precious metal. News of this and other experiences has already reached towns on the Pacific coast and a rush of fortune hunters has already begun, and Captain Moon believes that if the preliminary and rather crude mining should show any encouragement Tierra del Fuego will become a center of world interest, and that that long uninhabited and desolate region will, like the Klondike, become a thriving community.

The lightship took a course through Smith's channel in the straits and one night was anchored in Columbian cove in nineteen fathoms of water, with the ship's stern within fifty feet of the rocky promontory. So deep was the water in the region that it was necessary to put the vessel close to the rocks in order to get bottom for the anchor.

When the anchor was hove to the bow next morning it was completely covered with a yellow metallic stain. Among the crew was a miner working his way to Dawson City, and a man of many years' experience in the gold fields of the world. He gave the stain on the anchor close and critical inspection and announced positively that the anchor was covered with gold stain, and that it had all night been hooked in a stratum of gold. The miner said that with proper tools men could make fortunes getting out the gold that must be in large quantities to show such unique evidence. The miner immediately changed his plan about going to Dawson and said that he would stop in San Francisco to try and get some one to grubstake him and start an expedition to Terra del Fuego for gold.

In his letter it is apparent that Captain Moon is also slightly touched with the gold fever, and it would not be surprising to hear that the veteran mariner has joined the expedition. Captain Moon's letter is dated from Callao, Peru, and tells in charming sailor fashion of the wonders of the passage through the straits. The lightship spent six days in the straits and traversed Smith's channel.

It was Captain Moon's first trip through Smith's channel, as on his previous voyage he had negotiated Cape Horn by way of the straits and Cape Pillars. Every night the vessel anchored and the sturdy captain felt a touch of sentiment when he reflected on the vastness of the universe and the smallness of man. These thoughts were encouraged by the enormous mountains rising boldly out of the sea and the magnificent scenery that they produced. With peaks ice and snow capped, the mountains were verdant for about two-thirds of their height from the sea.

There was no house nor sign of dwellers in this vast loneliness, with exception of occasional glimpses of a canoe with four or five huge Patagonian savages, who would appear in a most mysterious manner from the many caverns that lined the beach. Seamen implicitly believe the tales of cannibalism extant against these gigantic savages and they regard them with no friendly eye.

The balance of Captain Moon's letter tells further interesting but not romantic details of the voyage.