tement; shares
went up almost out of sight. Twelve hundred dollars in coin for one
share (par $100) was laughed at. About this time a quiet honest Dutchman
of the vicinity passing along by the "mine" one evening with his cart,
innocently and unconsciously picked up the whole at one single load and
carried it home. Prompt was the discovery of the "sell" by the
stockholders, and voluble and intense, it is said, their profane
expressions of dissatisfaction. But the original discoverers of the mine
vigorously protested that they were "sold" themselves, and that it was
only a case of common misfortune. It is however reported that a number
of persons in Monterey, _after_ the explosion of the speculation,
remembered all about the coal-wagon part of the business, which they
said, the excitement of the "company" had put entirely out of their
heads.

An equally unfounded but not quite so barefaced humbug came off a good
many years ago in the good old city of Hartford, in Connecticut,
according to the account given me by an old gentleman now deceased, who
was one of the parties interested. This was a coal mine in the State
House yard. It sounds like talking about getting sunbeams out of
cucumbers--but something of the sort certainly took place.

Coal is found among rocks of certain kinds, and not elsewhere. Among
strata of granite or basalt for instance, nobody expects to find coal.
But along with a certain kind of sandstone it may reasonably be
expected. Now the Hartford wiseacres found that tremendously far down
under their city, there was _a_ sort of sandstone, and they were sure
that it was _the_ sort. So they gathered together some money,--there is
a vast deal of _that_ in Hartford, coal or no coal--organized a company,
employed a Mining Superintendent, set up a boring apparatus, and down
went their hole into the ground--an orifice some four or six inches
across. Through the surface stratum of earth it went, and bang it came
against the sandstone. They pounded away, with good courage, and got
some fifties or hundreds of feet further. Indefinable sensations were
aroused in their minds at one time by the coming up among the products
of boring, of some chips of wood. Now wood, shortly coal, they thought.
They might, I imagine, have brought up some pieces of boiled potato or
even of fresh shad, provided it had fallen down first. They dug on
until they got tired, and then they stopped. If they had gone down ten
thousand feet the