232 Sport and Life. 



put in the summer prospecting. While slowly making their way 

 along the east shore of the lake the attention of the leader of 



O 



the little party, one R. E. Sprowle, an experienced miner, was 

 attracted to a large iron stain on the face of a cliff rising out of 

 the water. It formed the southern declivity of a rocky nose 

 sticking out into the lake. 



This rock rises to about 150 feet over the water, and is about 

 three-quarters of a mile long, the shore of the lake falling off into 

 profound depth. Kootenay Lake is one of the deepest on the 

 continent, and its shores shelve away so suddenly, that in many 

 places a 1000 foot line does not touch bottom close to the shore. 

 Iron stains of this sort in a limestone formation are a promising 

 indication, and it was decided to prospect the stain. They made 

 camp in a little cove in the centre of this promontory, a spot 

 which subsequently became the scene of the tragedy I am 

 about to relate. A closer examination of the spot* showed 

 that the rusty looking rock was the "capping" of an extra- 

 ordinarily wide ledge or vein of argentiferous galena or silver- 

 bearing lead. Further prospecting along the ledge showed that 

 the vein matter cropped up in parallel streaks almost twenty feet 

 wide along the whole length of the promontory, disclosing a 

 magnitude of deposit which, if it was a continuous one and not 

 merely a " blow-out," was almost unique in the history of mining. 

 As the men had no appliances for assaying the ore, for their object 

 in coming to Kootenay Lake was to prospect for placer (alluvial) 



* To be quite correct, I must mention that Sprowle's discovery was really a 

 re-discovery, for I subsequently found, while making some researches, that this 

 very same big iron stain on the cliff, which was visible for some distance off, had 

 attracted the attention of the famous naturalist David Douglas (after whom the 

 chief tree of British Columbia has been named). Douglas, who was the first 

 white man unconnected with the Hudson's Bay or North-West Fur Company 

 that travelled in British Columbia for scientific purposes, went through the 

 Kootenay country in 1825, and had sent a specimen or two of the glittering ore 

 home with his report. In 1831 these or other samples were assayed and their 

 low grade established, for though running as much as 70 and 80 per cent, in 

 lead, the ore of this famous ledge contains but 10 to 15 ounces of silver to the 

 ton. The claim had never been worked till Sprowle re-discovered it. 



