El Dorado

El Dorado (pronounced [el doao], English: /l drdo/; Spanish for "the golden one"),
originally El Hombre Dorado (the golden man), or El Rey Dorado (the golden king), was the term
used by the Spanish Empire to describe a mythical tribal chief (zipa) of the Muisca native people
of Colombia, who, as an initiation rite, covered himself with gold dust and submerged in Lake
Guatavita. The legends surrounding El Dorado changed over time, as it went from being a man,
to a city, to a kingdom, and then finally an empire.

A second location for El Dorado was inferred from rumors, which inspired several unsuccessful
expeditions in the late 1500s in search of a city called Mana on the shores of Lake Parime. Two
of the most famous of these expeditions were led by Sir Walter Raleigh. In pursuit of the legend,
Spanish conquistadors and numerous others searched Colombia, Venezuela, and parts of
Guyana and northern Brazil for the city and its fabulous king. In the course of these explorations,
much of northern South America, including the Amazon River, was mapped. By the beginning of
the 19th century most people dismissed the existence of the city as a myth.[1]

The Muisca occupied the highlands of Cundinamarca and Boyac departments of Colombia in
two migrations from outlying lowland areas, one starting ~1270 BCE, and a second between 800
BCE and 500 BCE. At those times, other more ancient civilizations also flourished in the
highlands. The Muisca Confederation was as advanced as the Aztec, Maya and Inca civilizations.
[2]

In the mythology of the Muisca, Mnya the Gold or golden color, represents the energy contained
in the trinity of Chiminigagua, which constitutes the creative power of everything that exists.[3]
Chiminigagua is related to Bachu, Cuza, Chibchacum, Bochica, and Nencatacoa.

The tribal ceremony[edit]

The original narrative can be found in the rambling chronicle El Carnero of Juan Rodriguez Freyle.
According to Freyle, zipa of the Muisca, in a ritual at Lake Guatavita near present-day Bogot,
was said to be covered with gold dust, which he then washed off in the lake while his attendants
threw trinkets made of gold, emeralds, and precious stones into the lake.

In 1638, Freyle wrote this account of the ceremony, addressed to the cacique or governor of
Guatavita:[Note 1][4]
The ceremony took place on the appointment of a new ruler. Before taking office, he spent some
time secluded in a cave, without women, forbidden to eat salt, or to go out during daylight. The
first journey he had to make was to go to the great lagoon of Guatavita, to make offerings and
sacrifices to the demon which they worshipped as their god and lord. During the ceremony
which took place at the lagoon, they made a raft of rushes, embellishing and decorating it with
the most attractive things they had. They put on it four lighted braziers in which they burned
much moque, which is the incense of these natives, and also resin and many other perfumes.
The lagoon was large and deep, so that a ship with high sides could sail on it, all loaded with an
infinity of men and women dressed in fine plumes, golden plaques and crowns.... As soon as
those on the raft began to burn incense, they also lit braziers on the shore, so that the smoke hid
the light of day.

At this time, they stripped the heir to his skin, and anointed him with a sticky earth on which
they placed gold dust so that he was completely covered with this metal. They placed him on the
raft ... and at his feet they placed a great heap of gold and emeralds for him to offer to his god. In
the raft with him went four principal subject chiefs, decked in plumes, crowns, bracelets,
pendants and ear rings all of gold. They, too, were naked, and each one carried his offering ....
when the raft reached the centre of the lagoon, they raised a banner as a signal for silence.

The gilded Indian then ... [threw] out all the pile of gold into the middle of the lake, and the
chiefs who had accompanied him did the same on their own accounts. ... After this they lowered
the flag, which had remained up during the whole time of offering, and, as the raft moved
towards the shore, the shouting began again, with pipes, flutes and large teams of singers and
dancers. With this ceremony the new ruler was received, and was recognised as lord and king.

This is the ceremony that became the famous El Dorado, which has taken so many lives and
fortunes.

There is also an account by poet-priest and historian of the Conquest Juan de Castellanos, who
had served under Jimnez de Quesada in his campaign against the Muisca, written in the mid-
16th century but not published until 1850:[5]

The Quest of El Dorado

 An alien Indian, hailing from afar,

Who in the town of Quito did abide. And neighbor claimed to be of Bogata, There having come, I
know not by what way, Did with him speak and solemnly announce A country rich in emeralds
and gold.

Also, among the things which them engaged, A certain king he told of who, disrobed, Upon a
lake was wont, aboard a raft, To make oblations, as himself had seen, His regal form overspread
with fragrant oil On which was laid a coat of powdered gold From sole of foot unto his highest
brow, Resplendent as the beaming of the sun.

Arrivals without end, he further said, Were there to make rich votive offerings Of golden trinkets
and of emeralds rare And divers other of their ornaments; And worthy credence these things he
affirmed; The soldiers, light of heart and well content, Then dubbed him El Dorado, and the
name By countless ways was spread throughout the world.

According to Spanish historian Gonzalo Fernndez de Oviedo (14781557):

He went about all covered with powdered gold, as casually as if it were powdered salt. For it
seemed to him that to wear any other finery was less beautiful, and that to put on ornaments or
arms made of gold worked by hammering, stamping, or by other means, was a vulgar and
common thing.

In the Muisca territories, there were a number of natural locations considered sacred, including
lakes, rivers, forests and large rocks. People gathered here to perform rituals and sacrifices
mostly with gold and emeralds. Important lakes were Lake Guatavita, Lake Iguaque, Lake
Fquene, Lake Tota, the Siecha Lakes, Lake Teusac and Lake Ubaque.[2]

From ritual to myth and metaphor[edit]

El Dorado is applied to a legendary story in which precious stones were found in fabulous
abundance along with gold coins. The concept of El Dorado underwent several transformations,
and eventually accounts of the previous myth were also combined with those of a legendary lost
city. The resulting El Dorado myth enticed European explorers for two centuries. Among the
earliest stories was the one told on his deathbed by Juan Martinez, a captain of munitions for
Spanish adventurer Diego de Ordaz, who claimed to have visited the city of Manoa. Martinez
had allowed a store of gunpowder to catch fire and was condemned to death, however his
friends let him escape downriver in a canoe. Martinez then met with some local people who
took him to the city:

The canoa was carried down the stream, and certain of the Guianians met it the same evening;
and, having not at any time seen any Christian nor any man of that colour, they carried Martinez
into the land to be wondered at, and so from town to town, until he came to the great city of
Manoa, the seat and residence of Inga the emperor. The emperor, after he had beheld him,
knew him to be a Christian, and caused him to be lodged in his palace, and well entertained. He
was brought thither all the way blindfold, led by the Indians, until he came to the entrance of
Manoa itself, and was fourteen or fifteen days in the passage. He avowed at his death that he
entered the city at noon, and then they uncovered his face; and that he traveled all that day till
night through the city, and the next day from sun rising to sun setting, ere he came to the palace
of Inga. After that Martinez had lived seven months in Manoa, and began to understand the
language of the country, Inga asked him whether he desired to return into his own country, or
would willingly abide with him. But Martinez, not desirous to stay, obtained the favour of Inga to
depart.[6]

The fable of Juan Martinez was founded on the adventures of Juan Martin de Albujar, well
known to the Spanish historians of the Conquest; and who, in the expedition of Pedro de Silva
(1570), fell into the hands of the Caribs of the Lower Orinoco.[1]

During the 16th and 17th centuries, Europeans, still fascinated by the New World, believed that
a hidden city of immense wealth existed. Numerous expeditions were mounted to search for this
treasure, all which ended in failure. The illustration of El Dorado's location on maps only made
matters worse, as it made some people think that the city of El Dorado's existence had been
confirmed. The mythical city of El Dorado on Lake Parime was marked on numerous maps until
its existence was disproved by Alexander von Humboldt during his Latin America expedition
(17991804).

Meanwhile, the name of El Dorado came to be used metaphorically of any place where wealth
could be rapidly acquired. It was given to El Dorado County, California, and to towns and cities in
various states. It has also been anglicized to the single word Eldorado, and is sometimes used in
product titles to suggest great wealth and fortune, such as the Cadillac Eldorado line of luxury
automobiles.

Nieuwe caerte van het Wonderbaer ende Goudrjcke Landt Guiana by Jodocus Hondius (1598)
shows the city of Manoa on the northeastern shore of Lake Parime

El Dorado is also sometimes used as a metaphor to represent an ultimate prize or "Holy Grail"
that one might spend one's life seeking. It could represent true love, heaven, happiness, or
success. It is used sometimes as a figure of speech to represent something much sought after
that may not even exist, or, at least, may not ever be found. Such use is evident in Edgar Alan
Poe's poem "El Dorado". In this context, El Dorado bears similarity to other myths such as the
Fountain of Youth and Shangri-la. The other side of the ideal quest metaphor may be
represented by Helldorado, a satirical nickname given to Tombstone, Arizona (United States) in
the 1880s by a disgruntled miner who complained that many of his profession had traveled far
to find El Dorado, only to wind up washing dishes in restaurants.[citation needed] The South
African city Johannesburg is commonly interpreted as a modern-day El Dorado, due to the
extremely large gold deposit found along the Witwatersrand on which it is situated.

Gold and greed[edit]

Spanish conquistadores had noticed the native people's fine artifacts of gold and silver long
before any legend of "golden men" or "lost cities" had appeared. The prevalence of such
valuable artifacts, and the natives' apparent ignorance of their value, inspired speculation as to a
plentiful source for them.

Prior to the time of Spanish conquest of the Muisca and discovery of Lake Guatavita, a handful of
expeditions had set out to explore the lowlands to the east of the Andes in search of gold,
cinnamon, precious stones, and anything else of value. During the Klein-Venedig period in
Venezuela (15281546), agents of the German Welser banking family (which had received a
concession from Charles I of Spain) launched repeated expeditions into the interior of the
country in search of gold, starting with Ambrosius Ehinger's first expedition in July of 1529.
[citation needed]

Spanish explorer Diego de Ordaz, then governor of the eastern part of Venezuela known as Paria
(named after Paria Peninsula), was the first European to explore the Orinoco river in 153132 in
search of gold. A veteran of Hernn Corts's campaign in Mexico, Ordaz followed the Orinoco
beyond the mouth of the Meta River but was blocked by the rapids at Atures. After his return he
died, possibly poisoned, on a voyage back to Spain.[7] After the death of Ordaz while returning
from his expedition, the Crown appointed a new Governor of Paria, Jernimo de Ortal, who
diligently explored the interior along the Meta River between 1532 and 1537. In 1535, he
ordered captain Alonso de Herrera to move inland by the waters of the Uyapari River (today the
town of Barrancas del Orinoco). Herrera, who had accompanied Ordaz three years before,
explored the Meta River but was killed by the indigenous Achagua near its banks, while waiting
out the winter rains in Casanare.

The search for El Dorado[edit]

The earliest reference to the name El Dorado was in 1535 or 1536, before Spanish contact with
the Muisca people.

Inspection of the Welser army by Georg von Speyer (right) and Philipp von Hutten (center) at
Sanlcar de Barrameda.

Between 1531 and 1538, the German conquistadors Nikolaus Federmann and Georg von Speyer
searched the Venezuelan lowlands, Colombian plateaus, Orinoco Basin and Llanos Orientales for
El Dorado.[8] Subsequently Philipp von Hutten accompanied Von Speyer on a journey (153638)
in which they reached the headwaters of the Rio Japura, near the equator. In 1541 Hutten led an
exploring party of about 150 men, mostly horsemen, from Coro on the coast of Venezuela in
search of the Golden City. After several years of wandering, harassed by the natives and
weakened by hunger and fever, he crossed the Rio Bermejo, and went on with a small group of
around 40 men on horseback into Los Llanos, where they engaged in battle with a large number
of Omaguas and Hutten was severely wounded. He led those of his followers who survived back
to Coro in 1546.[9] On Hutten's return, he and a traveling companion, Bartholomeus VI. Welser,
were executed in El Tocuyo by the Spanish authorities.

In 1535, Captains Anasco and Ampudia were dispatched by Spanish conquistador Sebastin de
Belalczar, one of Francisco Pizarro's chief lieutenants, to discover the valley of Dorado in pursuit
of the splendid riches of the Zaque, or chieftain of Cundinamarca, described by a wandering
Indian of Tacumga.
In 1536 Gonzalo Daz de Pineda had led an expedition to the lowlands to the east of Quito and
had found cinnamon trees but no rich empire.

Quesada brothers' expeditions[edit]

Main article: Spanish conquest of the Muisca

In 1536, stories of El Dorado drew the Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada and
his army of 800 men away from their mission to find an overland route to Peru and up into the
Andean homeland of the Muisca for the first time. The southern Muisca settlements and their
treasures quickly fell to the conquistadors in 1537 and 1538. On the Bogot savanna, the Spanish
received reports about El Dorado from captured natives, and of the initiation rite of the new
zipa, which used to take place in Lake Guatavita.[specify] The Spanish captured large amounts of
gold from the Muisca, which led them to spread the word that El Dorado was near.

After his brother Gonzalo had left for Spain in May 1539, Spanish conquistador Hernn Prez de
Quesada set out a new expedition in September of 1540, leaving with 270 Spanish soldiers and
countless indigenous porters to explore the Llanos Orientales. One of his main captains on this
journey was Baltasar Maldonado. Their expedition was unsuccessful and after reaching Quito,
the troops returned to Santafe de Bogot.[7]

Pizarro and Orellana's discovery of the Amazon[edit]

See also: Amazon River History

In 1540, Gonzalo Pizarro, the younger half-brother of Francisco Pizarro, the Spanish conquistador
who toppled the Incan Empire in Peru, was made the governor of the province of Quito in
northern Ecuador. Shortly after taking lead in Quito, Gonzalo learned from many of the natives of
a valley far to the east rich in both cinnamon and gold. He banded together 340 soldiers and
about 4000 natives in 1541 and led them eastward down the Rio Coca and Rio Napo. Francisco
de Orellana accompanied Pizarro on the expedition as his lieutenant. Gonzalo quit after many of
the soldiers and natives had died from hunger, disease, and periodic attacks by hostile natives.
He ordered Orellana to continue downstream, where he eventually made it to the Atlantic
Ocean. The expedition found neither cinnamon nor gold, but Orellana is credited with
discovering the Amazon River (so named because of a tribe of female warriors that attacked
Orellana's men while on their voyage).

Expeditions of Pedro de Ursa and Lope de Aguirre[edit]

In 1560, Basque conquistadors Pedro de Ursa and Lope de Aguirre journeyed down the
Maran and Amazon Rivers, in search of El Dorado, with 300 Spaniards and hundreds of
natives;[10] the actual goal of Ursa was to send idle veterans from the Spanish conquest of the
Inca Empire away, to keep them from trouble-making, using the El Dorado myth as a lure. A year
later, Aguirre participated in the overthrow and killing of Ursa and his successor, Fernando de
Guzmn, whom he ultimately succeeded.[11][12] He and his men reached the Atlantic (probably
by the Orinoco River), destroying native villages on the way.[13]

Lake Guatavita gold[edit]

While the existence of a sacred lake in the Eastern Ranges of the Andes, associated with Indian
rituals involving gold, was known to the Spaniards possibly as early as 1531, its location was only
discovered in 1537 by conquistador Gonzalo Jimnez de Quesada while on an expedition to the
highlands of the Eastern Ranges of the Andes in search of gold.[14]

Conquistadores Lzaro Fonte and Hernn Perez de Quesada attempted (unsuccessfully) to drain
the lake in 1545 using a "bucket chain" of labourers. After 3 months, the water level had been
reduced by 3 metres, and only a small amount of gold was recovered, with a value of 30004000
pesos (approx. US$100,000 today; a peso or piece of eight of the 15th century weighs 0.88 oz of
93% pure silver).[citation needed]

A later more industrious attempt was made in 1580, by Bogot business entrepreneur Antonio
de Seplveda. A notch was cut deep into the rim of the lake, which managed to reduce the water
level by 20 metres, before collapsing and killing many of the labourers. A share of the findings
consisting of various golden ornaments, jewellery and armourwas sent to King Philip II of
Spain. Seplveda's discovery came to approximately 12,000 pesos. He died a poor man, and is
buried at the church in the small town of Guatavita.

In 1801, Alexander von Humboldt made a visit to Guatavita, and on his return to Paris, calculated
from the findings of Seplveda's efforts that Guatavita could offer up as much as $300 million
worth of gold.[1]

In 1898, the Company for the Exploitation of the Lagoon of Guatavita was formed and taken over
by Contractors Ltd. of London, in a deal brokered by British expatriate Hartley Knowles. The lake
was drained by a tunnel that emerged in the centre of the lake. The water was drained to a
depth of about 4 feet of mud and slime.[citation needed] This made it impossible to explore, and
when the mud had dried in the sun, it had set like concrete. Artifacts worth only about 500
were found, and auctioned at Sotheby's of London. Some of these were donated to the British
Museum.[15] The company filed for bankruptcy and ceased activities in 1929.

In 1965, the Colombian government designated the lake as a protected area. Private salvage
operations, including attempts to drain the lake, are now illegal.[citation needed]

Governor Antonio de Berrio's expeditions[edit]

The Spanish Governor of Trinidad, Antonio de Berrio (nephew of Gonzalo Jimnez de Quesada),
made three failed expeditions to look for El Dorado. Between 1583 and 1589 he carried out his
first two expeditions, going through the wild regions of the Colombian plains and the Upper
Orinoco. In 1590 he began his third expedition, ascending the Orinoco to reach the Caron River
with his own expeditionaries and another 470 men under command of Domingo de Vera.[16] In
March of 1591, while he was waiting for supplies on Margarita Island, his entire force was taken
captive by Sir Walter Raleigh, who proceeded up the Orinoco in search of El Dorado, with Berrio
as a guide. Berrio took them to the territories he had previously explored by himself years
before. After several months Raleigh's expedition returned to Trinidad, and he released Berrio at
the end of June 1595 on the coast of Cuman in exchange for some English prisoners.[17] His
son Fernando de Berro y Oura (15771622) also made numerous expeditions in search of El
Dorado.

Trinidad and Tobago stamp featuring the Discovery of Lake Asphalt by Raleigh, 1595

Sir Walter Raleigh[edit]

Lake Parime (Parime Lacus) on a map by Hessel Gerritsz (1625). Situated at the west coast of the
lake, the city of Mana or El Dorado.

Further information: Raleigh's El Dorado Expedition

Sir Walter Raleigh's 1595 journey with Antonio de Berrio had aimed to reach Lake Parime in the
highlands of Guyana (the supposed location of El Dorado at the time). He was encouraged by the
account of Juan Martinez, believed to be Juan Martin de Albujar, who had taken part in Pedro de
Silva's expedition of the area in 1570, only to fall into the hands of the Caribs of the Lower
Orinoco. Martinez claimed that he was taken to the golden city in blindfold, was entertained by
the natives, and then left the city and couldn't remember how to return.[18] Raleigh had set
many goals for his expedition, and believed he had a genuine chance at finding the so-called city
of gold. First, he wanted to find the mythical city of El Dorado, which he suspected to be an
actual Indian city named Mana. Second, he hoped to establish an English presence in the
Southern Hemisphere that could compete with that of the Spanish. His third goal was to create
an English settlement in the land called Guyana, and to try to reduce commerce between the
natives and Spaniards.

In 1596 Raleigh sent his lieutenant, Lawrence Kemys, back to Guyana in the area of the Orinoco
River, to gather more information about the lake and the golden city.[19] During his exploration
of the coast between the Amazon and the Orinoco, Kemys mapped the location of Amerindian
tribes and prepared geographical, geological and botanical reports of the country. Kemys
described the coast of Guiana in detail in his Relation of the Second Voyage to Guiana (1596)[20]
and wrote that indigenous people of Guiana traveled inland by canoe and land passages towards
a large body of water on the shores of which he supposed was located Manoa, Golden City of El
Dorado.

Though Sir Walter Raleigh never found El Dorado, he was convinced that there was some
fantastic city whose riches could be discovered. Finding gold on the riverbanks and in villages
only strengthened his resolve.[21] In 1617, he returned to the New World on a second
expedition, this time with Kemys and his son, Watt Raleigh, to continue his quest for El Dorado.
However, Sir Walter Raleigh, by now an old man, stayed behind in a camp on the island of
Trinidad. Watt Raleigh was killed in a battle with Spaniards and Kemys subsequently committed
suicide.[20] Upon Raleigh's return to England, King James ordered him to be beheaded for
disobeying orders to avoid conflict with the Spanish.[22] He was executed in 1618.

Post-Elizabethan expeditions[edit]

In early 1611 Sir Thomas Roe, on a mission to the West Indies for Henry Frederick, Prince of
Wales, sailed his 200-ton ship, the Lion's Claw, some 320 kilometres (200 mi) up the Amazon,[23]
then took a party of canoes up the Waipoco (probably the Oyapock River) in search of Lake
Parime, negotiating thirty-two rapids and traveling about one hundred miles before they ran out
of food and had to turn back.[24][25][26][27]

In 1637-38, two monks, Acana and Fritz, undertook several journeys to the lands of the Manoas,
indigenous peoples living in western Guyana and what is now Roraima in northeastern Brazil.
Although they found no evidence of El Dorado, their published accounts were intended to
inspire further exploration.[28]

In November 1739, Nicholas Horstman, a German surgeon commissioned by the Dutch Governor
of Guiana, traveled up the Essequibo River accompanied by two Dutch soldiers and four Indian
guides. In April 1741 one of the Indian guides returned reporting that in 1740 Horstman had
crossed over to the Rio Branco and descended it to its confluence with the Rio Negro. Horstman
discovered Lake Amucu on the North Rupununi but found neither gold nor any evidence of a
city.[29]

In 1740, Don Manuel Centurion, Governor of Santo Tom de Guayana de Angostura del Orinoco
in Venezuela, hearing a report from an Indian about Lake Parima, embarked on a journey up the
Caura River and the Paragua River, causing the deaths of several hundred persons. His survey of
the local geography, however, provided the basis for other expeditions starting in 1775.[1]

From 1775 to 1780, Nicholas Rodriguez and Antonio Santos, two entrepreneurs employed by the
Spanish Governors, set out on foot and Santos, proceeding by the Caron River, the Paragua
River, and the Pacaraima Mountains, reached the Uraricoera River and Rio Branco, but found
nothing.[30]

Between 1799 and 1804, Alexander von Humboldt conducted an extensive and scientific survey
of the Guyana river basins and lakes, concluding that a seasonally-flooded confluence of rivers
may be what inspired the notion of a mythical Lake Parime, and of the supposed golden city on
the shore, nothing was found.[1] Further exploration by Charles Waterton (1812)[31] and Robert
Schomburgk (1840)[32] confirmed Humboldt's findings.

Gold strikes and the extractive wealth of the rainforest[edit]

By the mid-1570s, the Spanish silver strike at Potos in Upper Peru (modern Bolivia) was
producing unprecedented real wealth.

In 1603, Queen Elizabeth I of England died, bringing to an end the era of Elizabethan
adventurism. A bit later, in 1618, Sir Walter Raleigh, the great inspirer, was beheaded for
insubordination and treason.
In 1695, bandeirantes in the south struck gold along a tributary of the So Francisco River in the
highlands of State of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The prospect of real gold overshadowed the illusory
promise of "gold men" and "lost cities" in the vast interior of the north.

It appears today that the Muisca obtained their gold in trade, and while they possessed large
quantities of it over time, no great store of the metal was ever accumulated.[citation needed]

Recent research[edit]

See also: List of Muisca research institutes

In 19871988, an expedition led by John Hemming of the Royal Geographical Society of London
failed to uncover any evidence of the ancient city of Manoa on the island of Marac in north-
central Roraima. Members of the expedition were accused of looting historic artifacts[33] but an
official report of the expedition described it as "an ecological survey."[34]

Evidence for the existence of Lake Parime[edit]

Main article: Lake Parime

Although it was dismissed in the 19th century as a myth, some evidence for the existence of a
lake in northern Brazil has been uncovered. In 1977 Brazilian geologists Gert Woeltje and
Frederico Guimares Cruz along with Roland Stevenson,[35] found that on all the surrounding
hillsides a horizontal line appears at a uniform level approximately 120 metres (390 ft) above sea
level.[36] This line registers the water level of an extinct lake which existed until relatively recent
times. Researchers who studied it found that the lake's previous diameter measured 400
kilometres (250 mi) and its area was about 80,000 square kilometres (31,000 sq mi). About 700
years ago this giant lake began to drain due to tectonic movement. In June 1690, a massive
earthquake opened a bedrock fault, forming a rift or a graben that permitted the water to flow
into the Rio Branco.[37] By the early 19th century it had dried up completely.[38]

Roraima's well-known Pedra Pintada is the site of numerous pictographs dating to the pre-
Columbian era. Designs on the sheer exterior face of the rock were most likely painted by people
standing in canoes on the surface of the now-vanished lake.[39] Gold, which was reported to be
washed up on the shores of the lake, was most likely carried by streams and rivers out of the
mountains where it can be found today.[40]