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emerged from the cavern and traveled over the ice of Stuart lake towards his settlement. His people saw him coming and mistook them at first for three swans, for their clothing, like that of all dwarfs, was decorated-with white dentalia shells."

 

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#54 --- The-following news article appeared on pages 16-17 of the February 4th, 1973 issue of the NATIONAL ENQUIRER:

    "An immense cavern system - containing an underground river with gold in it, strange footprints, white frogs, and rocks like cannonballs - has been discovered in Canada by an amateur explorer. Authorities have closed off the area, located in the Cariboo country of British Columbia, some 300 miles northwest of Vancouver, to protect it from gold prospectors and the curious.

    "Paul Griffiths, a 21-year-old student at the University of Victoria, B.C., who explores caves as a hobby, first stumbled on the entrance to the cavern in June 1971 while following a dry riverbed in the primitive, largely unexplored, regions.

    "'It was absolutely fantastic,' Griffiths explained to The ENQUIRER at his home in Victoria.

    "'There was a shaft going straight down which I later found to be 150 feet deep when I descended it by rope.

    "'It was unbelievable, almost indescribable, down there.

    "'The river whose dry bed I'd been following had gone underground and, in one area of the cavern, welled up into a vast underground lake with a strange, fountain-like effect in the center.'

    "Griffiths and a companion - who joined him - found black sand at the river's edge and began panning for gold (Note the similarity with the 'Kokoweef' caverns of California - Branton). Within 4 hours they took out a gold nugget and two ounces of flake gold. 'If gold was what we wanted, we could have taken lots more from the cave,' Griffiths said. 'There is plenty there.'