SEARCH FOR LOST MINE

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 25 July 1935, Page 7

SEARCH FOR LOST MINE

A All I) LAPLAND SN OWS. SICK MINER’S SECRET.' (From Our Own Correspondent—By Air Mail.) • LONDON, July 6. A young Alanchester shop assistant, James Ingram, is leaving, Jiis counter to search for. a, lost- gold mine .somewhere in the mountains of Finnish: Lapland, near the shore of the Polar Sea. If legend is correct, a river bank littered with golden nuggets awaits

him. . Guarded by the monks of an ancient. Russian monastery, the- location of the mine has remained a secret for nearly four centuries. Last year Mr Ingram, becoming bored with life, set out alone with Only £8- to tramp across Finland and Lapland from the Baltic Sea toi the Arctic Ocean. His experiences amply justify the statement that adventure comes to the adventuious. They included being arrested tor wearing a red shirt at a. remote outpost on the Finnish-Riussian frontier, while a bear hunt in the frontier foiests led to liis becoming lost and nearly losing his life by starvation - . While prospecting for gold in centiul Xkl]>land, Mr Ingram and his Finnish partner nursed aj sick miner, and fiom him learned the story of the lost mine. Four hundred years ago a Russian adventurer named Trifona founded a monastery on the shore of the 1 olar Sea, the most northerly religious establishment in the world. The monks mined for gold in the . mountain streams, but when tlie monastery was destroyed by Swedish raiders all trace of it was lost to the invaders. But the secret of the gold mine was kept by certain: Lapps. In return for the kindness of the young men nursing him through his illness, the mmer passed on the secret to them.