Beschreibung:

Title: Typed letter, signed to prominent California entrepreneur Asbury Harpending Author: Skyrme, William Place: Chaparral South America Publisher: Date: April 1, 1884 Description: 2 pp. To A[sbury] Harpending Esq. in New York. After three months of “thoroughly prospecting” a gold mine in the mountains of Colombia, Skyrme assures Harpending, its owner, that it was “one of the richest gravel mines I have ever seen. It is a Bonanza Mine and will go into the millions…It contains gold in paying quantities from surface to bed rock…The gold is heavy, bright and well worn, will be easily saved..The climate is healthy and the mine can run every day in the year…” He adds considerable detail about water could be brought in for hydraulic mining. The recipient of this glowing report was a prominent California entrepreneur, well-known for his 1913 autobiography, published in San Francisco, The Great Diamond Hoax and Other Stirring Incidents in the Life of Asbury Harpending, which details the spectacular 1872 fraud which was prelude to the financial ruin of banker William Ralston Harpending’s memoir of how he became a multi-millionaire ends with the collapse of the “diamond bubble”, after which he decided to leave California for Wall Street. But he adds a few pages of sequel about the venture described in this letter – when “money-making intoxication” moved him to sink all his wealth into Colombian mining, including the “fabulous” gold mine hailed by Skyrme, which promised “inexhaustible” gold – until water brought in by a 23-mile long ditch collapsed the mountain above the mine and “millions of tons slid down”, burying the mine forever. “My fortune”, Harpending wrote in his book 30 years later, “was not lost. It is still intact, buried in the mountains” of Colombia. “I have no doubt that some adventurous speculator of the future, under happier conditions, will dig it out.” Lot Amendments Condition: A few tiny holes and small tears to pages, much light soiling; very good. Item number: 230413