Medford Historical Society Papers, Volume 15.

[p. 67] to light within the bounds of the town? And yet an enterprising genius has brought to light in the vicinity of Spot Pond veritable silver mines, in which there is a stratum of bright possibilities, if nothing more. The resolute miner has faith in his mines and holds out the brightest kind of promise. We hope he will not be disappointed.

The recent writer, to whom we have alluded, tells that boys overturned the engine into the shaft, and the debris of crushed rock had filled it somewhat. To satisfy our curiosity, and equipped with the park commissioners' map, we recently repaired to the ‘old silver mine.’ We found ‘a hole in the ground,’ or rather in the ledge, rectangular in shape, about eight by ten feet, and perhaps nine in depth. We noted the mound of debris piled beside it, now overgrown, as nature has been kindly at work. We wondered if the Mercury man's ‘bright stratum of possibilities’ still remains in the lateral seventy-five foot tunnel the other mentioned, or whether, indeed, that tunnel was purely mythical.

Remembering the ‘Folly's flower’ of our school book, we picked a bunch of columbine for a boutonniere as a memory of this old Medford enterprise, wise or otherwise. All the silver we saw was the dime we exchanged for nickels to pay our carfares.

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Lead mining at Wellington.

The latest Medford mining operation seems to be of the placer-hydraulic variety, for lead instead of silver. The product secured by the use of simple apparatus requires no smelting, and is readily marketable at war prices. On the Wellington marshes amateur sportsmen have for years practiced marksmanship with clay pigeons, and have thus ‘salted’ this latest Medford mine with the baser metal of bird shot.

Recently, according to accounts given, numerous children, and some women, have been engaged (when the tide allowed) in digging over the marsh mud and washing out the metal. Fabulous reports are given of the