Volume 71 — GOLD: ITS NATURAL AND CIVIL HISTORY.[1][2]

GOLD: ITS NATURAL AND CIVIL HISTORY.^[1][2]

The progress of knowledge naturally leads to the discovery not only of new arts, and of new uses for artificial productions, but of new stores of natural wealth in the bowels of the earth itself, and of new methods of extracting and rendering them useful. This last point is amply illustrated by the history of the progressive discovery and development of our own most valuable mineral treasures—the coal and ironstone deposits—which add so much both to our natural resources and to our national strength.

But, independent of the advance of knowledge, the exploration and colonisation of new countries by a civilised race leads of necessity to the discovery of regions rich in mineral wealth, which were unknown before, and brings new metallic supplies into the markets of the world.

When Spain conquered Mexico first, and afterwards Peru and Chili, Europe became flooded with the precious metals to a degree unknown before in the history of modern nations. When Russia began to explore her provinces on the slopes of the Ural, gold-washings were discovered, which have, by their enormous yield, made up for the deficient supply which commotion and misrule in Central and Southern America had caused in European countries. The possession of California by an observant and curious people, of Anglo-Saxon breed, was almost immediately followed by those wonderful discoveries which have made the world ring, and have attracted adventurers from every region. And, lastly, the turning of keen eyes upon river beds in Australia—still less known and examined than almost any district of America without the Arctic circle—has brought to light those vast stores of gold which appear destined to lay the basis of a new empire in the Australian archipelago.

Nor have such discoveries been confined to the so-called precious metals. The advance of North American civilisation towards the head waters of the Missouri has made known abundant mines of lead, which the cost of transport chiefly prevents as yet from seriously competing with European produce along the Atlantic border. The joint march of Canada and the United States along the shores of Lake Superior, has laid open veins of copper of inexhaustible magnitude—on a scale, we may say, in size and richness commensurate with the other great natural features of the American continent;—while, of coal and ironstone, the Central States of the Union are so full, that imagination itself cannot conceive a time when they shall cease to be sufficient for the wants of the whole civilised world.

Men untrained themselves to observe, and ignorant that it is intellectual knowledge which opens and guides the eye, affect to wonder—often, indeed, do seriously wonder—that gold so plentifully scattered over the surface of a country as it is said to be in California and Australia, or sprinkling with its yellow sheen thick veins of snowy quartz, should, for a time so comparatively long, have escaped observation. “What surprises me,” says Captain Sutter, in whose mill-race the gold was first discovered, “is, that this country should have been visited by so many scientific men, and that not one of them should have ever stumbled upon these treasures; that scores of keen-eyed trappers should have crossed the valley in every direction, and tribes of Indians have dwelt in it for centuries, and yet this gold should never have been discovered. I myself have passed the very spot above a hundred times during the last ten years, but was just as blind as the rest of them, so I must not wonder at the discovery not having been made earlier.”^[3]

Such seeming blindness, indeed, is not really a matter of surprise. The ability to observe is an intellectual gift no less than the ability to reason; and, like the latter talent, the former also must be trained. It must be taught where to look, and what to look for; what the signs are of the presence of the thing we wish to find, and where they are likely to be met with.

It is not, in truth, a just reproach to unsuspecting men, that they have not seen what they never imagined the presence of. It would scarcely have been so, had they failed to see in a given place what they were told was likely to be found. Many of our readers are familiar with the existence of black lines in the solar spectrum; many may have seen them, and justly wondered. Some may even recollect, when, years ago, Frauenhofer first announced their existence, how opticians everywhere mounted their most homogeneous prisms, and gazed at the spectrum eager to see them, and how many looked in vain. Of course, the failure was ascribed to the imperfection of their prisms, and not to their own defective skill. One philosopher we remember, then already distinguished, and whom now all delight to honour, of whom it was told that having obtained one of the beautifully perfect prisms of Frauenhofer’s own manufacture, he was still unable to see the lines; but that another who had seen them came to his aid, instructed him how to look, and in an instant he not only clearly saw them, but exclaimed with wonder at his own blindness. Such were our own sensations also when first we saw them. Was it, then, a reproach to Sir Isaac Newton and his successors that these lines escaped them? The same reproach might be made to the predecessors of almost every discoverer in every walk of modern science. Many before him probably had looked from the same spot, with similar advantages for seeing, and had not seen. But they had gazed without any special object or previous instruction, and they had failed to discern what another coming after them, prepared to look for it, and knowing what it was like, and where likely to be, would have at once descried.

Hence the discovery of most of the rich mines in past times was the result of some unlooked-for accident happening generally to naturally-observant but ignorant men. Thus Jacob says of the mines in the Hartz—

“There are various conflicting opinions among the learned in antiquities respecting the discovery of the mineral wealth of the Hartz. The most probable accounts fix it in the tenth century; and the tradition is, that a hunter of the name of Ramm, when engaged in the chase, had fastened his horse to a tree, who, by pawing with his feet, had scraped away the soil, and thereby discovered some minerals; that specimens of them were sent to the Emperor Otho, to whom all minerals, as regalities of the Empire, belonged, and who sent expert miners to examine the district, from Franconia.”—(Jacob, i. p. 254.)

And again of the mines of Saxony—

“The mines of Saxony were first discovered in the tenth century, when the whole district in which they are situated was covered with wood and without inhabitants. Some carriers from Halle, on their way to Bohemia, whither they carried salt, observing metallic substances in the tracks made by the wheels, some of these were taken up and sent to Goslar to be examined, when they were found to consist of lead with a considerable quantity of silver. This led to the establishments for mining, which have continued, with some variations in their products, from the year 1169 to the present day.”—(Jacob, i. p. 252.)

And of the mines of Potosi—

“In the latter end of the year 1545 the mines of the Cerro de Potosi were accidentally discovered. According to the account of Herrera, the discovery was owing to an Indian hunter, Diego Hualca, who, in pulling up a shrub, observed filaments of pure silver about the roots. On examination the mass was found to be enormous, and a very great part of the population was thereby drawn to the spot and employed in extracting the metal. A city soon sprang up, though in a district of unusual sterility. The mountain was perforated on all sides, and the produce, in a few of the first years, exceeded whatever has been recorded of the richest mines in the world.”—(Jacob, ii. p. 57.)

And so with the discovery of the rich washings of California. As early as the time of Queen Anne, Captain Sheldrake, in command of an English privateer on the coast, discovered that the black sands of the rivers—such as the washers now find at the bottom of their rockers—yielded gold largely, and pronounced the whole country to be rich in gold. But it remained in the hands of the Indians and the Jesuit fathers till 1820, when California was made a territory of the Mexican commonwealth, and a small party of adventurers came in. Captain Sheldrake and his published opinions had then been long forgotten,^[4] and an accident made known again the golden sands in 1848, after the territory had been ceded to, and was already attracting adventurers from, the United States.

“The discoverer was Mr Marshall, who, in September 1847, had contracted with Captain Sutter to build a saw-mill near some pine woods on the American Fork, now a well-known feeder of the Sacramento river. In the spring of 1848 the saw-mill was nearly ready, the dam and race being constructed; but, when the water was set on to the wheel, the tail-race was found too narrow to let the water through quick enough. Mr Marshall, to save work, let the water right into the race with a strong stream, so as to sweep the race wider and deeper. This it did, and a great bank of gravel and mud was driven to the foot of the race. One day, Mr Marshall, on walking down the race to this bank, saw some glittering bits on the upper edge, and, having gathered a few, examined them and conjectured their value. He went down to Sutter’s Fort and told the captain, and they agreed to keep it a secret until a certain grist mill of the captain’s was finished. The news got about, however; a cunning Yankee carpenter having followed them in their visit to the mill-race, and found out the gold scales.

Forthwith the news spread. The first workmen were lucky, and in a few weeks some gold was sent to San Francisco, and speedily the town was emptied of people. In three months there were four thousand men at the diggings—Indians having been hired, eighty soldiers deserted from the American posts, and runaways getting up from the ships in the harbour. Such ships as got away carried news to Europe and the United States; and, by the beginning of 1849, both sides of the Atlantic were in agitation.”—(Wyld, pp. 34, 35.)

But when no accident has intervened to force the discovery upon the unsuspecting or unobservant, it has sometimes happened that great riches, unseen by others, have been discovered by persons who knew what to look for, what were the signs of the presence of the thing sought, and who had gone to particular places for the purpose of exploration. Such was the case in Australia.

The preliminary history of the Australian discovery is peculiar. From what he had seen of the Ural, and had learned of the composition of the chief meridian mountain ridge of Australia, Sir Roderick Murchison publicly announced, in 1845, his belief that Australia was a country in which gold was likely to be found—recommended that it should be sought for, and even memorialised the home government on the subject.^[5] But although this opinion and recommendation were inserted and commented upon in the colonial newspapers—although the Rev. W. B. Clarke published letters predicting, for reasons given, the discovery of gold deposits in California and Australia—although

“Sir Francis Forbes of Sydney subsequently published and circulated in New South Wales a paper, in which he affirmed in the strongest manner, on scientific data, the existence of gold formations in New Holland—although a colonial geologist had been sent out some years before and was settled at Sydney—and lastly, although one part of the prediction was soon so wonderfully fulfilled by the Californian discoveries—yet oven the discoveries in California did not arouse the New Hollanders to adequate researches, though reports were spread of wonderful discoveries in Victoria and South Australia, which were speedily discredited. It was reserved for a gentleman of New South Wales, Mr Edward Hammond Hargraves, to make the definite discoveries. He appears to have acted independently of all previous views on the subject; but having acquired experience in California, and being struck with the resemblance between the Californian formations and those of New Holland, he determined on a systematic search for gold, which he brought to a successful issue on the 12th of February of this year 1850, by the discovery of gold diggings in the Bathurst and Wellington districts, and which he prosecuted until he had ascertained the existence of gold sands in no less than twelve places.”—(Wyld, p. 30.)

When this was made known by Mr Hargraves in a formal report to the authorities at Sydney, in April 1850, they then (!) despatched the provincial geologist to examine the localities, and confirm the discoveries of Mr Hargraves! But the public did not wait for such confirmation. On the 1st of May the discoveries became known in Sydney. In thousands the people forsook the city, the villages, cattle stations, and farms, in the interior, for the neighbourhood of Bathurst, where the gold had been found. Summerhill Creek alone soon numbered its four thousand diggers, who thence speedily spread themselves along the other head waters of the Darling and Murrumbidgee—rivers flowing westward from the inland slope of the mountain ridge, (Blue Mountains and Liverpool range,) which runs nearly parallel to the south-eastern coast of Australia, and at the distance from it of about one hundred miles. Near Bathurst the summit of the ridge attains, in Mount Canobolus, a height of 4461 feet. In numerous places among the feeders of these streams, which themselves unite lower down to form the main channel of the Murray, gold was speedily found. It was successfully extracted also from the upper course of the Hunter River, and from the channel of Cox’s River—both descending from the eastern slope of the same ridge, within the province of New South Wales. In the province of Victoria, the feeders of the Glenelg and other rivers, which descend from the southern prolongation of the same chain—the Australian Pyrenees—have yielded large quantities of gold; and recently, Geelong and Melbourne have become the scene of an excitement scarcely inferior to that which has longer prevailed in the country round Bathurst. South Australia also, where the main river, Murray, passes through it to the sea at Adelaide, has been reported to contain the precious metal. So suddenly does the first spark of real fire spread into a great flame of discovery—so clearly can all eyes see, when taught how to look, what to look for, and in what circumstances.

But in New South Wales, and in the province of Victoria, the excitement, and the zeal and success in digging, have up to the latest advices been the greatest. In the beginning of June 1850, the Governor-General had already bestowed a grant of £500 upon Mr Hargraves, and an appointment of £350 a-year, as acknowledgments of his services—acknowledgments he well deserved, but which might have been saved honourably to the colony, and creditably to science, had the recommendation made five years before by geologists at home, and by scientific colonists, been attended to. In the same month the Sir Thomas Arbuthnot sailed from Sydney for England with £4000 worth of gold already among her cargo. The success of the explorers continues unchecked up to the latest arrivals from Australia. “When I left, on the 10th of August 1851,” says the captain of one of her Majesty’s ships of war, in a letter now before us, “there was then weekly coming into Sydney £13,000 of gold. One lump has been found one hundred and six pounds in weight.” He adds, and we believe many are of this opinion, “that it appears to be one immense gold field, and that California is already thrown into the shade.” The news of five months’ later date only give additional strength to all previous announcements, anticipations, and predictions.

Now, in reflecting on these remarkable and generally unexpected discoveries, an enlightened curiosity suggests such questions as these:—What are the conditions geographical, physical, or geological, on which the occurrence of gold deposits depends? Why has the ability to predict, as in the Australian case, remained so long unexercised, or been so lately acquired? What are the absolute extent, and probable productive durability, of the gold regions newly brought to light? What their extent and richness compared with those known at former periods, or with those which influence the market for precious metals now? What the influence they are likely to exercise on the social and financial relations of European countries? What the effect they will have on the growth and commerce of the States which border the Pacific, or which are washed by the Indian and Australian seas? In the present article we propose to answer a few of these questions.

And, first, as to the Geography of the question. There are no limits either in latitude or longitude, as used to be supposed, within which gold deposits are confined—none within which they are necessarily most abundant. In old times, the opinion was entertained that the precious metals favoured most the hot and equatorial regions of the earth. But the mines of Siberia, as far north as 69° of latitude, and the deposits of California, supposed to extend into Oregon, and even into Russian America, alone show the absurdity of this opinion.

Nor does the physical character of a country determine in any degree whether or not it shall be productive of gold. It may, like California, border the sea, or be far inland, like the Ural slopes, or the Steppes of the Kirghis; it may be flat, and of little elevation, or it may abound in streams, in lakes, and in mountains;—none of these conditions are necessarily connected with washings or veins of gold. It is true that mountain chains are usually seen at no great distance from localities rich in golden sands, and that metalliferous veins often cut through the mountains themselves. But these circumstances are independent of the mountains as mere physical features. It is not because there are mountains in a country that it is rich in gold, else gold mines would be far more frequent; and mountainous regions, like our own northern counties, would abound in mineral wealth. It is the nature of the rocks of which a country consists—its geological and chemical characters, in other words, which determine the presence or absence of the most coveted of metals. Humboldt, indeed, supposed, from his observations, that, to be productive of gold, the chain of mountains which skirt the country must have a meridional direction. But further research has shown that this is by no means a necessary condition, although hitherto, perhaps, more gold has been met with in the neighbourhood of chains which have a prevailing north or south direction than of any other. We may safely say, therefore, that there are no known physical laws or conditions, by the application or presence of which the existence of gold can with any degree of probability be predicted.

Let us study for a little, then, the geology of a region of gold.

First, Every general reader now-a-days is aware that the crust of our globe consists of a series of beds of rock, laid one over the other, like the leaves of a book; and that of these the lowest layers, like the courses of stone in the wall of a building, are the oldest, or were the first laid down. These rocky beds are divided into three groups, of which the lowest, or oldest, is called the primary; the next in order, the secondary; and the uppermost, or newest, the tertiary.

Second, That in certain parts of the world this outer crust of rocks is broken through by living volcanoes, which, with intermissions more or less frequent, belch forth flames and smoke, with occasional torrents of burning lava. That where, or when, the cause of such eruptions is not sufficiently powerful to produce living volcanoes, earthquakes are occasioned; cracks or fissures, more or less wide, are produced in the solid rocks; smoking fumeroles appear; and vapour-exhaling surfaces show that fires, though languid and dormant for the time, still exist beneath. That besides the rocks of lava they have poured out, these volcanic agencies change the surface of a country more widely still by the alterations they gradually effect upon the previously existing slaty, calcareous, or sandstone rocks; converting limestone into marble, and baking sandstone into more or less homogeneous quartz, and common slates or hardened clays into mica slates, gneiss, and granite-like rocks. That such volcanic agencies, producing similar phenomena, have existed in every geological epoch; and though the evidences of these are most extensive and distinct, perhaps, among the rocks of the oldest or primary period, that they are numerous and manifest also among those of the secondary and tertiary periods.

Third, That rocks of every age and kind, when exposed to the action of the air, the vicissitudes of the seasons, the beating of the rains, the force of flowing water, the dash of the inconstant sea, and other natural agencies, crumble down, wear away, or are torn asunder into fragments of every size. These either remain where they are formed, or are carried by winds and moving waters to distances, sometimes very great, but which are dependent on the force of the wind or water which impel them, and on the size or density of the fragments themselves. Thus are our shores daily worn away by the action of the sea, and the fragments distributed along its bottom by the tides and currents; and thus, from the far northern mountains of America, does the Missouri bring down detached fragments thousands of miles into the Gulf of Mexico, whence the Gulf Stream carries them even to the icy Spitzbergen.

Fourth, That over all the solid rocks, almost everywhere is spread a covering of this loose, and, for the most part, drifted matter, consisting of sands, gravels, and clays. These overspread not only valleys and plains, but hill-sides and slopes, and sometimes even mountain-tops, to a greater or less depth. There are comparatively few spots where these loose materials do not cover and conceal the native rocks; but in some localities, and especially in wide plains and deep river valleys, they are sometimes met with in accumulations of enormous depth. In our own island, a depth of two hundred feet of such superficial sands, gravels, and clays, is by no means unusual. They are often sorted into beds alternately coarse and fine, evidently by the action of moving water; and while the great bulk of the fragments of which our English gravels consist can generally be traced to native rocks at no great distance from the spots on which they rest, yet among them are to be found fragments also, which must have been brought from Norway, and other places, many hundred miles distant.

On the surface of these drifted masses we generally live, and from the soils they form we extract by tillage the means of life.

Fifth, That these, occasionally thick, beds of drifted matter—drift we shall for brevity call it—are in some places cut through by existing rivers, the beds of which run between high banks of clay, sand, or gravel, which the action of the stream has gradually worn and washed away. This is seen in many of our own river valleys; and it is especially visible along the great rivers of North America. The effect of this wearing action is to remove, mix up, and redistribute, towards the river’s mouth, the materials which have been scooped out by the cutting water, and thus to produce, on a small scale, along the river’s bed, what had long before been done in the large, when the entire bed of drift through which the river flows was itself spread over the plain or valley by more mighty waters.

These things being understood, a very wide geological examination of gold-bearing localities has shown—

First, That gold rarely occurs in available quantity in any of the stratified rocks, except in those which belong to the primary or oldest group, and in these only when or where they have been, more or less, disturbed or altered by ancient volcanic or volcanic-like action; by the intrusion, for example into cracks and hollows, of veins and masses of serpentine, granite, syenite, and other igneous rocks, in a melted or semi-fluid state.

Second, That among these primary stratified rocks a subdivision, to which the name of Silurian was given by Sir Roderick Murchison, has hitherto, as a whole, proved by far the richest in this kind of mineral wealth; though the slate-rocks below, and the sandstones and limestones above, in favourable circumstances, maybe equally gold-bearing.

Third, That the drifted sands and gravels, in which gold-washing is profitable, occur only in the proximity, more or less near, of such ancient and altered (so called metamorphic) rocks. They are, in fact, the fragments of such rocks broken up, pounded, and borne to their present sites by natural causes, operating long ages ago, but similar in kind to those which now degrade and carry away to lower levels the crumbling particles still torn off from our hardest mountains by the ceaseless tooth of time.

Numerous as have been the deposits of gold found in various ages and countries, they all confirm the general geological conclusions above stated. The main and most abundant sources of gold which were known to the ancients, occurred among the sands of rivers, and amid the gravels and shingles which formed their banks. Such were the gold-washings in the beds of the Phasis, the Pactolus, the Po, the Douro, the Tagus, and the mountain streams which descended from the alpine heights of Greece, of Italy, of America, of Asia Minor, and of many other countries. These rivers all descend from, or, early on their way, pass through or among, ancient rocks, generally old and altered Silurian strata, such as those we have spoken of, in which the gold originally existed, and from which the existing rivers, since they assumed their present channels, have in some few cases, and to a small amount, separated and brought it down. And if in any region, as in Nubia, Hungary, Bohemia, and Macedonia,^[6] the ancient or mediæval nations followed up their search to the sources of the rich rivers, and were successful in finding and extracting gold from the native rocks, later explorations, wherever made, have shown that these mines were situated among old and disturbed deposits of the primary and Silurian age.

The more modern discoveries in America, Siberia, and elsewhere, prove the same. So that, among geologists, it is at present received as an established fact, that the primary, the so called azoic and palæozoic rocks, are the only great repositories of native gold.

There are no known laws, either physical or chemical, by which the almost exclusive presence of gold in these ancient rocks can be accounted for or explained. A conjecture has been hazarded, however, to which we shall for a moment advert.

From the fissures and openings which abound in volcanic neighbourhoods, gases and vapours are now seen continually to arise. Whatever is capable of being volatilised—driven off in vapour, that is—by the existing heat, rises from beneath till it reaches the open air, or some comparatively cool spot below the surface, where it condenses and remains. Such was the case also in what we may call the primary days of geology.

Gold is one of the few metals which occur, for the most part, in the native or metallic and malleable state. But in this state it is not volatile, and could not have been driven up in vapour by ancient subterranean heat. But, as in the case of many other metals, the prevailing belief is, that it has been so volatilised—not in the metallic state, however, but in some form of chemical combination in which it is capable of being volatilised. No such combinations are yet known, though their existence is not inconsistent with—may in fact be inferred from—our actual knowledge.

It is further supposed that, at the period when the primary rocks were disturbed by intrusions of granites, porphyries, serpentines, greenstones, &c., which we have spoken of as volcanic-like phenomena, the elementary bodies, which, by their union with the gold, are capable of rendering it volatile, happened to exist more abundantly than at the period of any of those other disturbances by which the secondary and tertiary rocks were affected; and that this is the reason why signs of gold-bearing exhalations, and consequently gold-bearing veins, are rare in the rocks of the newer epochs.

According to this view of the introduction of gold into the fissures and veins of the earliest rocks, its presence is due to what we may call the fortuitous and concurrent presence in the under crust of other elementary substances along with the gold, which by uniting with it could make it volatile, rather than to the action or influence of any widely-operating chemical or physical law. The explanation itself, however, it will be remembered, is merely conjectural, and, we may add, neither satisfactory nor free from grave objections.

But from the geological facts we have above stated, several very interesting consequences follow, such as—

First, That wherever the rocks we have mentioned occur, and altered as we have described, the existence and discovery of gold are rendered probable. Physical conditions may not be equally propitious everywhere. Broad valleys and favourable river channels may not always coexist with primary rocks traversed by old volcanic disturbances; or the ancient sands and shingles with which the particles of abraded gold were originally mixed may, by equally ancient currents, have been scoured out of existing valleys, and swept far away. But these are matters of only secondary consideration, to be ascertained by that personal exploration which a previous knowledge of the geological structure will justify and encourage.

Whenever the geology of a new country becomes known, therefore, it becomes possible to predict the presence or absence of native gold, in available quantities, with such a degree of probability as to make public research a national, if not an individual duty. This led Sir Roderick Murchison to foretell the discovery of gold in Australia, as we have already explained; and similar knowledge places similar predictions within the power of other geologists.

We happen to have before us, at this present moment, a geological map of Nova Scotia. Two such maps have been published, one by Messrs Alger and Jackson, of Boston, and another by Dr Gesner, late colonial geologist for the province of New Brunswick. In these maps the north-western part of the province is skirted by a fringe of old primary rocks, partly metamorphic, and sometimes fossiliferous, and resting on a back ground of igneous rocks, which cover, according to Gesner, the largest portion of this end of the province. Were we inclined to try our hand at a geological prediction, we should counsel our friends in the vale of Annapolis to look out for yellow particles along the course of the Annapolis river, and especially at the mouths and up the beds of the cross streams that descend into the valley from the southern highlands.

Nature, indeed, has given the Nova Scotians in this Annapolis valley a miniature of the more famed valley of the Sacramento. Their north and south mountains represent respectively the coast range and the Sierra Nevada of the Sacramento Basin. The tributaries in both valleys descend chiefly from the hills on the left of the main rivers. The Sacramento and the Annapolis rivers both terminate in a lake or basin, and each finally escapes through a narrow chasm in the coast ridge by which its terminating basin communicates with the open sea. The Gut of Digby is, in the small, what the opening into the harbour of San Francisco now called the “Golden Gate” and the “Narrows” is in the large; and if the Sacramento has its plains of drifted sand and gravel, barren and unpropitious to the husbandman, the Annapolis river, besides its other poor lands, on which only the sweet fern luxuriates, has its celebrated Aylesford sand plain, or devil’s goose pasture—a broad flat “given up to the geese, who are so wretched that the foxes won’t eat them, they hurt their teeth so bad.” Then the south mountains, as we have said, consist of old primary rocks, such as may carry gold—disturbed, traversed by dykes, and changed or metamorphosed, as gold-bearing rocks usually are. Whether quartz veins abound in them we cannot tell; but the idle boys of Clare, Digby, Clements, Annapolis, Aylesford, and Horton, may as well keep their eyes about them, and the woodmen, as they hew and float down the pine logs for the supply of the Boston market. A few days spent with a “long Californian Tom,” in rocking the Aylesford and other sands and gravel-drifts of their beautiful valley, may not prove labour in vain. What if the rich alluvials of Horton and Cornwallis should hide beneath more glittering riches, and more suddenly enriching, than the famed crops of which they so justly boast? Geological considerations also suggest that the streams which descend from the northern slopes of the Cobequid Mountains should not be overlooked. It may well be that the name given to Cap d’Or by the early French settlers two hundred years ago, may have had its origin in the real, and not in the imaginary presence of glittering gold.

But to return from this digression. Second, The same facts which thus enable us to predict or to suggest inquiry, serve also to test the truth or falsehood of ancient traditions regarding the former fruitfulness in gold of countries which now possess only the fading memory of such natural but bygone wealth. Our geological maps direct us to European countries, in which all the necessary geological conditions coexist, and in which, were the world still young, a geologist would stake a fair reputation on the hazard of discovering gold. But the art of extracting gold from auriferous sands is simple, and easily practised. It is followed as successfully by the black barbarians of Africa as by the whitest savages of California. The longer a country has been inhabited, therefore, by a people among whom gold is valued, the less abundant the region is likely to be in profitable washings of gold. The more will it approach to the condition of Bohemia, where gold prevailed to a great extent, and was very productive in the middle ages, though it has been long worked out, and the very localities of its mines forgotten.^[7]

Were it to become, for example, a matter of doubtful tradition, which the historian was inclined to pass by, that in the reign of Queen Elizabeth three hundred men were employed near Elvan’s Foot—not far, we believe, from Wanlockhead in Scotland—at a place called the Gold Scour, in washing for the precious metal, who in a few summers collected as much as was valued at £100,000; or that in 1796, ten thousand pounds’ worth of gold was collected in the alluvial soil of a small district in Wicklow—the geologist would come to his aid and assure him that the natural history of the neighbourhood rendered the occurrence of gold probable, and the traditions, therefore, worthy of reliance.

Third, They explain, also, why it is that, where streams flowing from one slope of a chain or ridge of mountains are found to yield rich returns to the gold-seekers, those which descend from the opposite slope often prove wholly unproductive. In the Ural, rich mines occur almost solely on the eastern, or Siberian slope of the great chain. On the western, or European slope, a few inconsiderable mines only are worked. So, as yet, in the Sierra Nevada in California, the chief treasures occur in the feeders of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, which descend from its western side. The eastern slope, which falls towards the broad arid valley of the Mormons, is as yet unfamed, and may probably never prove rich in gold. These circumstances are accounted for by the fact that, in the Ural, the older rocks, of which we have spoken as being especially gold-bearing, form the eastern slope of the ridge only, the western flank of the range being covered for the most part by rocks of a more modern epoch. The same may be the case also with the Sierra Nevada where it is still unexplored; and the Utah Lake, though remote, by its saltness lends probability to this conjecture.

Fourth, and lastly, they make clear the distinction between the “dry and wet diggins” we read of in our Californian news—why in so many countries the beds of rivers have been deserted by the gold-finders, and why the river banks, and even distant dry and elevated spots, have proved more productive than the channel itself.^[8]

Let us attempt to realise for a moment the condition of a country like California, at the period, not geologically remote, when the gold-bearing drift was spread over its magnificent valley. The whole region was covered by the sea to an unknown depth. The snowy ridge, (Nevada,) and probably the coast ridge, also formed lines of rocky islands or peaks, which withstood the fury of the waves, and, if they were covered with ice, the wearing and degrading action also of the moving glaciers. The spoils of the crumbling rocks sank into the waters, and were distributed by tides and currents along the bottom of the valley. The narrow opening through the coast chain, by which the bay of San Francisco now communicates with the Northern Pacific, would, at the period we speak of, prevent the debris of the Nevada rocks from being washed out into the main basin of the Pacific, and this would enable the metallic, as well as the other spoils of these rocks, to accumulate in the bottom, and along the slopes of what is now the valley of California.

By a great physical change the country was lifted out of the sea, either at once or by successive stages, and it presented then the appearance of a valley long and wide, covered almost everywhere by a deep clothing of sands, gravels, and shingles, with which were intermingled—not without some degree of method, but at various depths, and in various proportions—the lumps and grains of metallic gold which had formerly existed in the rocks, of which the sands and shingles had formed a part.

And now the tiny streams, which had formerly terminated their short courses in the sea itself, flowed down the mountain slopes, united their waters in the bottom, and formed large rivers. These gradually cut their way into the superficial sands, washed them as the modern gold-washer does in his cradle, and collected, in certain parts of their beds, the heavier particles of gold which they happened to meet with in their descent. Hence the golden sands of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin, and of so many of the rivers celebrated in ancient story. But the beds of these rivers could never be the receptacle of all the gold of such a district. They derived nearly all their wealth from the sands and clays or gravels they had scooped out in forming their channels; and as these channels occupy only a small fraction of the surface of the bottoms and slopes of most river valleys, they could, or were likely to contain, only an equally small fraction of the mineral wealth of their several regions. The more ancient waters had distributed the gold throughout the whole drift of the country. The river, like a “long Tom,” had cradled a small part of it, and proved its richness. The rest of the drift, if rocked by art, would prove equally, it might be even more, productive.

It is in this old virgin drift, usually untouched by the river, that the so-called dry diggings are situated. The reader will readily understand that, while no estimate can be formed of the quantity of gold which an entire valley like that of the Sacramento and San Joaquin, or which wide sandy plains like those of Australia, may ultimately yield, yet it will require great sagacity to discover, it may even be that only accident and long lapse of time will reveal, in what spots and at what depths the gold is most abundantly accumulated, and where it will best pay the cost of extraction.

We do not now advert to any of the other points connected with the history of gold on which our geological facts throw light. These illustrations are sufficient to show how rich in practical inferences and suggestions geological and chemical science is, in this as in many other special branches of mineral inquiry.

Nor need we say much in answer to our question,—“Why the ability to predict, as in the Australian case,” or generally to draw such conclusions and offer such suggestions and explanations, has remained so long unanswered, or been so lately acquired? Geology and chemistry are both young sciences, almost unknown till within a few years, rapidly advancing, and every day applying themselves more widely and directly to those subjects which effect the material prosperity and individual comforts of mankind. Knowledge which was not possessed before our day, could obviously neither be applied at all by ancient nations, nor earlier by the moderns.

To the consideration of the absolute extent and probable productive durability of the gold regions newly brought to light—of their extent and richness compared with those known in former times—and of their probable effects on the social and financial relations of mankind, we shall now turn our attention.

In the preceding part we have explained the circumstances in which gold occurs—the geological conditions which appear to be necessary to its occurrence—and where, therefore, we may expect to find it. But no conditions chemical or geological at present known are able to indicate—a priori, and apart from personal examination and trial—in what quantity the precious metal is likely to occur, either in the living rocks of a gold-bearing district, or in the sands and gravels by which it may be covered. Yet, next to the fact of the existence of gold in a country, the quantity in which it is likely to occur, and the length of time during which a profitable yield may be obtained, are the questions which most interest, not only individuals on the spot, but all other countries to which the produce of its mines is usually sent, or from which adventurers are likely to proceed.

We have already remarked, that, in nearly all the gold regions which have been celebrated in past times, their mineral riches have been for the most part extracted from the drifted sands and gravels which overspread the surface. We have also drawn attention to the small amount of skill and intelligence which this extraction requires, and to the brief time in which such washings may be exhausted even by ignorant people. Most of our modern gold mines are situated in similar drifts. We may instance, from among the less generally known, those of Africa, from which are drawn the supplies that come to us yearly from the gold coast.

“Of all the African mines those of Bambouk are supposed to be the richest. They are about thirty miles south of the Senegal river; and the inhabitants are chiefly occupied in gold-washing during the eight months of dry weather. About two miles from Natakou is a small round-topped hill, about 300 feet high, the whole of which is an alluvial formation of sand and pulverised emery, with grains of iron ore and gold, in lumps, grains, and scales. This hill is worked throughout; and it is said the richest lumps are found deepest. There are 1200 pits or workings, some 40 feet deep—but mere holes unplanked. This basin includes at least 500 square miles. Forty miles north, at the foot of the Tabwara mountains, are the mines of Semayla, in a hill. This is of quartz slate; and the gold is got by pounding the rock in large mortars. In the river Semayla are alluvial deposits, containing emery impregnated with gold. The earth is washed by the women in calabashes. The mine of Nambia is in another part of the Tabwara mountains, in a hillock worked in pits. The whole gold district of Bambouk is supposed to extend over 10,000 square miles.

“Close to the Ashantee country is that of the Bunkatoos, who have rich gold workings, in pits at Bukanti and Kentosoe.”—(Wyld, p. 44.)

From this description we see that all the mines in the Senegal country are gold-washings, with the exception of those of Semayla, to which we shall hereafter allude. No skill is required to work them; and should European constitutions ever permit European nations to obtain an ascendancy in this part of Africa, such mines may be effectually exhausted before an opportunity is afforded for the application of European skill. And so in California and Australia, should the gold repositories be all of the same easily explored character, the metal may be suddenly worked out by the hordes of all classes who have been rushing in; and thus the influence of the mines may die away after a few brief years of extraordinary excitement.

When California first became famous, the popular inquiry everywhere was simply, what amount of immediate profit is likely to be realised by an industrious adventurer? What individual temptation, in other words, is there for me or my connections to join the crowd of eager emigrants?

Passing over the inflated and suspicious recitals which found their way into American and European journals, such statements as the following, from trustworthy sources, could not fail to have a most stimulating effect—

“To give you an instance, however, of the amount of metal in the soil—which I had from a miner on the spot, three Englishmen bought a claim, 30 feet by 100 feet, for fourteen hundred dollars. It had been twice before bought and sold for considerable sums, each party who sold it supposing it to be nearly exhausted. In three weeks the Englishmen paid their fourteen hundred dollars, and cleared thirteen dollars a-day besides for their trouble. This claim, which is not an unusually rich one, though it has perhaps been more successfully worked, has produced in eighteen months over twenty thousand dollars, or five thousand pounds’ worth of gold.”^[9]

Mr Coke is here describing the riches of a spot on the immediate banks of the river, where circumstances had caused a larger proportion than usual of that gold to be collected, or thrown together—which the river, in cutting out its gravelly channel, had separated or rocked out, as we have described in the previous part of this article. This rich spot, therefore, is by no means a fair sample of the country, though, from Mr Coke’s matter-of-fact language, many might be led to think so. Few spots so small in size could reasonably be expected to yield so rich a store of gold, though its accumulation in this spot certainly does imply that the quantity of gold diffused through the drift of the country may in reality be very great. It may be so, however, and yet not pay for the labour required to extract it.

That many rich prizes have been obtained by fortunate and steady men in these diggings, there can be no doubt; and yet, if we ask what benefit the emigrant diggers, as a whole, have obtained, the information we possess shows it to be far from encouraging. On this subject we find, in one of the books before us, the following information:—^[10]

“The inaccessibility of the placers, the diseases, the hardships, and the very moderate remuneration resulting to the great mass of the miners, were quite forgotten or omitted—in the communications and reports of a few only excepted.

“A few have made, and will hereafter make, fortunes there, and very many of those who remain long enough will accumulate something; but the great mass, all of whom expected to acquire large amounts of gold in a short time, must be comparatively disappointed. I visited California to dig gold, but chose to abandon that purpose rather than expose life and health in the mines; and as numbers were already seeking employment in San Francisco without success, and I had neither the means nor the inclination to speculate, I resolved to return to my family, and resume my business at home.”—(P. 207.)

Thousands, we believe, have followed Mr Johnson’s example; and thousands more would have lived longer and happier, had they been courageous enough, like him, to return home unsuccessful.

“The estimate in a former chapter of three or four dollars per day per man, as the average yield during my late visit to the gold regions, has been most extensively and generally confirmed since that period. Innumerable letters, and persons lately returned from the diggings, (including successful miners,) now fix the average at from three to four dollars per day for each digger during the season.”—(P. 243.)

“Thus far the number of successful men may have been one in every hundred. In this estimate those only should be considered successful who have realized and safely invested their fortunes. The thousands who thus far have made their fortunes, but are still immersed in speculations, do not belong as yet to the foregoing number.”—(P. 245.)

This is applying the just principle, “Nemo ante obitum beatus,” which is too generally forgotten when the first sudden shower of riches falls upon ourselves or our neighbours.

“Individual efforts, as a general rule, must prove abortive. So far as my knowledge enables me to judge, they already have. I do not know of a single instance of great success at the mines on the part of a single member of the passengers or ship’s company with whom I came round Cape Horn: of the former there were a hundred, and of the latter twenty. Many have returned home, who can tell the truth.”—(P. 249.)

This last extract does not contain Mr Johnson’s own experience, but that of a physician settled at San Francisco, from whose communication he quotes; and the same writer adds many distressing particulars, which we pass by, of the fearful misery to which those free men, of their own free will, from the thirst of gold, have cheerfully exposed themselves.

“Quid non mortalia pectora cogis

Auri sacra fames?”

The latest news from Australia contains a repetition of the Californian experience. A recent Australian and New Zealand Gazette speaks thus of the gold-hunters—

“In all parts of the colony, labour is quitting its legitimate employment for the lottery of gold-hunting; and, as a natural consequence, industrial produce is suffering. Abundant as is the metal, misery among its devotees is quite as abundant. The haggard look of the unsuccessful, returning disheartened in search of ordinary labour, is fully equalled by the squalor of the successful, who, the more they get, appear to labour the harder, amidst filth and deprivation of every kind, till their wasted frames vie with those of their less lucky neighbours. With all its results, gold-finding is both a body and soul debasing occupation; and even amongst so small a body of men, the vices and degradation of California are being enacted, in spite of all wholesome check imposed by the authorities.”

It is indeed a melancholy reflection that, wherever such mines of the precious metals have occurred, there misery of the most extreme kind has speedily been witnessed. The cruelties of the Spanish conquerors towards the Indian nations of Mexico and Peru, are familiar to all. They are now brought back fresh upon our memories by the new fortunes and prospects of the western shores of America. Yet of such cruelties the Spaniards were not the inventors. They only imitated in the New, what thousands of years before the same thirst for gold had led other conquerers to do in the Old World. Diodorus, after mentioning that, in the confines of Egypt and the neighbouring countries, there are parts full of gold mines, from which, by the labour of a vast multitude of people, much gold is dug, adds—

“The kings of Egypt condemn to these mines, not only notorious criminals, captives in war, persons falsely accused, and those with whom the king is offended, but also all their kindred and relations. These are sent to this work, either as a punishment, or that the profit and gain of the king may be increased by their labours. There are thus infinite numbers thrust into these mines, all bound in fetters, kept at work night and day, and so strictly guarded that there is no possibility of their effecting an escape. They are guarded by mercenary soldiers of various barbarous nations, whose language is foreign to them and to each other; so that there are no means either of forming conspiracies, or of corrupting those who are set to watch them. They are kept to incessant work by the overseer, who, besides, lashes them severely. Not the least care is taken of the bodies of these poor creatures; they have not a rag to cover their nakedness; and whosoever sees them must compassionate their melancholy and deplorable condition; for though they may be sick, or maimed, or lame, no rest, nor any intermission of labour, is allowed them. Neither the weakness of old age, nor the infirmity of females, excuses any from that work to which all are driven by blows and cudgels, till at length, borne down by the intolerable weight of their misery, many fall dead in the midst of their insufferable labours. Thus these miserable creatures, being destitute of all hope, expect their future days to be worse than the present, and long for death as more desirable than life.”^[11]

How truly might we apply to gold the words of Horace—

“Te semper anteit sæva necessitas,

Clavos trabaleis et cuneos manu,

Gestans ahena, nec severus

Uncus abest, liquidumque plumbum.”

There was both irony and wisdom in the counsel given by the Mormon leaders to their followers after their settlement on the Salt Lake. “The true use of gold is for paving streets, covering houses, making culinary dishes; and when the saints shall have preached the gospel, raised grain, and built up cities enough, the Lord will open up the way for a supply of gold to the perfect satisfaction of his people.” This kept the mass of their followers from moving to the diggings of Western California. They remained around the lake “to be healthy and happy, to raise grain and build cities.”^[12]

But the occurrence of individual disappointment, or misery in procuring it, will not prevent the gold itself from afterwards exercising its natural influence upon society when it has been brought into the markets of the world. When the riches of California began to arrive, therefore, graver minds, whose thoughts were turned to the future as much as to the present, inquired, first, how much gold are these new diggings sending into the markets?—and, second, how long is this yield likely to last?

1st, To the first of these questions—owing to the numerous channels along which the gold of California finds its way into commerce—it seems impossible to obtain more than an approximate answer. Mr Theodore Johnson (p. 246) estimates the produce for

1848, at 8 million dollars.

1849, from 22 to 37 million dollars.

Or in the latter year, from four to seven millions sterling. It would, of course, be more in 1850, as it is assumed to be by Mr Wyld, from whose pamphlet (p. 22) we copy the following table of the estimated total yield of gold and silver by all the known mines of the world, in the five years named in the first column:—

Gold. Silver. Total.

1800 £10,250,000

1840 £5,000,000 £6,750,000 11,750,000

1848 7,000,000 6,750,000 13,750,000

1850 17,500,000 7,500,000 25,000,000

1851 22,500,000 7,500,000 30,000,000

Supposing the Russian mines, from which upwards of four millions’ worth of the gold of 1848 was derived, to have remained equally productive in 1850 and 1851, this estimate assigns a yield of £10,000,000 worth of gold to California in 1850, and £15,000,000 to California and Australia together in 1851.

The New York Herald (October 31st, 1851) estimates the produce of the Californian mines alone, for the years 1850 and 1851, at

1850, 68,587,000 dollars, or £13,717,000

1851, 75,000,000 „ £15,000,000

These large returns may be exaggerations, but they profess to be based on the custom-house books, and may be quite as near the truth as the lower sums of Mr Wyld. But supposing either statement to contain only a tolerable guess at the truth, it may well induce us anxiously to inquire, in the second place, how long is such a supply to continue?

2d, Two different branches of scientific inquiry must be followed up in order to arrive at anything like a satisfactory answer to this second question. We must investigate both the probable durability of the surface diggings, and the probable occurrence of gold in the native rocks.

Now, the duration of profitable gold-washing in a region depends, first, on the extent of country over which the gold is spread, and the universality of its diffusion. Second, on the minimum proportion of gold in the sands which will pay for washing; and this, again, on the price of labour.

The valley of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, in California, is 500 miles long, by an average of 50 miles broad; comprehending an area, therefore, of 25,000 square miles.

We do not know as yet over how much of this the gold is distributed; nor whether, after the richest and most accessible spots have been hunted out, and apparently exhausted, the surface of the country generally will admit of being washed over with a profit. We cannot draw a conclusion in reference to this point from any of the statements yet published as to the productiveness of particular spots. But, at the same time, we ought to bear in mind that deserted spots may often be returned to several times, and may yield, to more careful treatment, and more skilful methods in after years, returns of gold not less considerable than those which were obtained by the first adventurers. Besides, if we are to believe Mr Theodore Johnson,

“There is no reason to doubt that the whole range of mountains extending from the cascades in Oregon to the Cordilleras in South America, contain greater or less deposits of the precious metals; and it is well known that Sonora, the northern state of Mexico, is equally rich in gold as the adjoining country of Alta California. The Mexicans have hitherto proved too feeble to resist the warlike Apaches in that region, consequently its treasure remains comparatively undisturbed.”—(P. 231.)

Passing by Mr Johnson’s opinion about the Oregon mountains, what he says of Sénora has probably a foundation in truth, and justifies us in expecting from that region a supply of gold which may make up for any falling off in the produce of the diggings of California for many years to come.

The question as to the minimum proportion of gold in the sands of California, or in those of Australia—the state of society, the workmen and the tools, in both countries being much the same—which can be extracted with a profit, or the minimum daily yield which will make it worth extracting, has scarcely as yet become a practical one.

As a matter of curiosity, however, connected with this subject, it is interesting to know what is the experience of other gold regions in these particulars.

In Bohemia, on the lower part of the river Iser, there were formerly gold-washings. “The sand does not now yield more than one grain of gold in a hundredweight; and it is supposed that so much is not regularly to be obtained. There are at present no people searching for gold, and there have been none for several centuries.”^[13] This, therefore, may be considered less than the minimum proportion which will enable washers to live even in that cheap country. In the famed gold country of Minas Geraes, in Brazil, where gangs of slaves are employed in washing, the net annual amount of gold extracted seems to be little more than £4 a-head; and in Columbia, where provisions are dearer, “a mine, which employs sixty slaves, and produces 20 lb. of gold of 18 carats annually, is considered a good estate.”^[14]

These also approach so near to the unprofitable point, that gold-washing, where possible, has long been gradually giving way, in that country, to the cultivation of sugar and other agricultural productions.

In regard to Siberia, Rose, in his account of his visit to the mines of the Ural and the Altai, gives the results of numerous determinations of the proportion of gold in the sands which are considered worth washing at the various places he visited. Thus on the Altai, at Katharinenburg, near Beresowsk, and at Neiwinskoi, near Neujansk, and at Wiluyskoi, near Nischni Tagilsk, the proportions of gold in 100 poods^[15] of sand, were respectively—

Katharinenburg, 1.1 to 2.5, or an average of 1.3 solotniks.

Neiwinskoi, ½ solotnik.

Wiluyskoi, 1½ solotnik.

These are respectively 72, 26, and 80 troy grains to the ton of sand; and although the proportion of 26 grains to the ton is little more than is found unworth the extraction from the sands of the Iser, and implies that nearly 19 tons of sand must be washed to obtain one troy ounce of gold, yet it is found that this washing can in Siberia be carried on with a profit.

In the gold-washings of the Eastern slopes of the Ural, near Miask, the average of fourteen mines in 1829 was about 1⅛ solotniks to the 100 poods, or 60 grains to the ton of sand. The productive layers varied in thickness, from 2 to 10 feet, and were covered by an equally variable thickness of sand and gravel, which was too poor in gold to pay for washing.^[16]

We have no data, as yet, from which to judge of the richness of the Californian and Australian sands, compared with those of Siberia. And, if we had, no safe conclusion could be drawn from them as to the prolonged productiveness of the mines, in consequence of another interesting circumstance, which the prosecution of the Uralian mines has brought to light. It is in every country the case that the richest sands are first washed out, and thus a gradual falling off in every locality takes place, till spot by spot the whole country is deserted by the washers. We give an example of this falling off in four of the Ural mines in five successive years. The yield of gold is in solotniks from the 100 poods of sand—

I. II. III. IV.

1825, 2.28 sol. 1.56 sol. 5.64 sol.

1826, 1.43 „ 0.83 „ 2.46 „ 7.28 sol.

1827, 0.64 „ 0.77 „ 1.43 „ 5.0 „

1828, 0.58 „ 0.29 „ 1.92 „ 3.52 „

As all the Ural diggings exhibit this kind of falling off, it has been anticipated, from time to time, that the general and total yield of gold by the Siberian mines would speedily diminish. But so far have these expectations been disappointed, that the produce has constantly increased from 1829 until now. On an average of the last five years, the quantity of gold yielded by the Russian, and chiefly by the Siberian mines, is now greater than that obtained from the South American gold mines in their richest days.^[17]

While, therefore, it is certain that the new American and Australian diggings will individually, or on each spot, become poorer year by year, yet, as in Siberia, the extension of the search, and the employment of improved methods, may not only keep up the yield for a long period of years, but may augment the yearly supply even beyond what it has yet been.

But while so much uncertainty attends the consideration of the extent, richness, and durability of mines situated in the gold-bearing sands and gravels, something more precise and definite can be arrived at in regard to the gold-bearing rocks. In nearly all the gold countries of past times, the chief extraction of the precious metal, as we have said, has been from the drifted sands. It is so also now in Siberia, and it was naturally expected that the same would be the case in California. And as other countries had for a time yielded largely, and then become exhausted, so it was predicted of this new region, and it was too hastily asserted that the increasing thousands of diggers who were employed upon its sands must render pre-eminently shortlived its gold-bearing capability. This opinion was based upon the two considerations—first, that there is no source of reproduction for these golden sands, inasmuch as it is only in very rare cases that existing rivers have brought down from native rocks the metallic particles which give their value to the sands and gravels through which they flow—and second, that no available quantity of gold was likely to be found in any living rocks.

But in respect of the living rocks, two circumstances have been found to coexist in California, which have not been observed in any region of gold-washings hitherto explored, and which are likely to have much effect on the special question we are now considering. These two circumstances are the occurrence of numerous and, it is said, extensive deposits of the precious metals in the solid quartz veins among the spurs of the Sierra Nevada, and of apparently inexhaustible beds of the ores of quicksilver.

The discovery of gold in the native rock was by no means a novelty. The ancient Egyptians possessed mines in the Sahara and other neighbouring mountains. “This soil,” says Diodorus, “is naturally black; but in the body of the earth there are many veins shining with white marble, (quartz?) and glittering with all sorts of bright metals, out of which those appointed to be overseers cause the gold to be dug by the labourers—a vast multitude of people.”^[18]

At Altenberg also, in Bohemia, in the middle ages, the mixed metals (gold and silver) were found in beds of gneiss;^[19] and, at present, in the Ural and Altai, a small portion of the gold obtained is extracted from quartz veins, which penetrate the granite and other rocks; but these and other cases, ancient and modern, though not forgotten, were not considered of consequence enough to justify the expectation of finding gold-bearing rocks of any consequence in California. It is to another circumstance that we owe the so early discovery of such rocks in this new country, and, as in so many other instances, to a class of men ignorant of what history relates in regard to other regions.

As early as 1824, the inner country of North Carolina was discovered to be productive of gold. The amount extracted in that year was only 6000 dollars, but it had reached in 1829 to 128,000 dollars. The washings were extended both east and west, and finally it was made out that a gold region girdles the northern part of Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia. This region is situated towards the foot of the mountains, and where the igneous rocks begin to disturb and penetrate the primary stratified deposits. As the sands became poorer in this region, the ardent miners had followed up their stream-washings to the parent rock, and in veins of rusty quartz had discovered grains and scales of native gold. To obtain these, like the Africans at Semayla, they blasted, crushed, and washed the rock.

Now, among the first who, fired by fresher hopes, pushed to the new treasure-house in California, came the experienced gold-seekers from the Carolinian borders. Following the gold trail into the gulches and ravines of the Snowy ridge, some of them were able to fix their trained eyes on quartz veins such as they had seen at home, and, scattered through the solid rock, to detect sparkling grains of gold which might long have escaped less practised observers. And through the same men, skilled in the fashion and use of the machinery found best and simplest for crushing and separating the gold, the necessary apparatus was speedily obtained and set to work to prove the richness of the new deposits. This richness may be judged of by the following statements:—

“Some of the chief quartz workings are in Nevada and Mariposa Counties, but the best known are on the rancho or large estate bought by Colonel Fremont from Alvarado, the Mexican governor. They are those of Mariposa, Agua Fria, Nouveau Monde, West Mariposa, and Ave Maria—the first leased by an American company, the third by a French, and the others by English companies. Some of the quartz has been assayed for £7000 in the ton of rock. A Mariposa specimen was in the Great Exhibition.

“The Agua Fria mine was surveyed and examined by Captain W. A. Jackson, the well-known engineer of Virginia, U.S., in October 1850, for which purpose openings were made by a cross-cut of sufficient depth to test the size of the vein and the richness of the ore. The vein appears to be of a nearly uniform thickness—of from three and a half to four and a half feet—and its direction a few points to the north of east; the inclination of the vein being 45°. Of the ore, some specimens were transmitted to the United States Mint in January 1851; and the report of the assays then made, showed that 277 lb. of ore produced 173 oz. of gold—value 3222 dollars, or upwards of £650 sterling; being at the rate of £5256 a ton.

“The contents of the vein running through the property, which is about 600 feet in length, and crops out on a hill rising about 150 to 200 feet above the level of the Agua Fria Creek, is estimated at about 18,000 tons of ore to the water level only; and how far it may descend below that, is not at present known.

“The West Mariposa mine, under Colonel Fremont’s lease, has a vein of quartz which runs the whole length of the allotment, averages six feet in thickness, and has been opened in several places. The assay of Messrs Johnson and Mathey states that a poor specimen of 11 oz. 9 dwt. 18 grains, produced of gold 2 dwt. 17 grains, which would give £1347 per ton; and a rich specimen, weighing 17 oz. 12 dwt. gave 3 oz. 15 dwt. 9 grains, being at the rate of £24,482 per ton.”—(Wyld, pp. 36–39.)

The nature and durability of the influence which the discovery and working of these rich veins is likely to have, depends upon their requiring capital, and upon their being in the hands of a limited number of adventurers. In consequence of this they cannot be suddenly exhausted, but may continue to yield a constant supply for an indefinite number of years.

In connection with the durability of this supply from the quartz veins—besides the unsettled question as to the actual number and extent of such veins which further exploration will make out—there is the additional question as to how deep these veins will prove rich in gold. Our readers are probably aware that what are called veins are walls, more or less upright, which rise up from an unknown depth through the beds of rock which we have described as overlying each other like the leaves of a book. This wall generally consists of a different material from that of which the rocks themselves consist, and, where a cliff occurs, penetrated by such veins, can readily be distinguished by its colour from the rocks through which it passes. Now, when these veins contain metallic minerals, it has been long observed that, in descending from the surface, the mineral value of the vein undergoes important alterations. Some are rich immediately under the surface of the ground; others do not become so till a considerable depth is reached; while in others, again, the kind of mineral changes altogether as we descend. In Hungary the richest minerals are met with at a depth of eighty or a hundred fathoms. In Transylvania, veins of gold, in descending, become degraded into veins of lead. In Cornwall, some of the copper veins increase in richness the greater the depth to which the mine is carried; while others, which have yielded copper near the surface, have gradually become rich in tin as the depth increased.^[20]

Now, in regard to the auriferous quartz veins, it is the result of past experience that they are often rich in the upper part, but become poorer as the explorations are deepened, and soon cease to pay the expense of working. In this respect it is just possible that the Californian veins may not agree with those of the Ural and of other regions, though this is a point which the lapse of years only can settle. Two things, however, are in favour of the greater yield of the Californian veins than those of other countries in past times—that they will be explored by a people who abound in capital, in engineering skill, and in energy, and that it is now ascertained that veins may be profitably rich in gold, though the particles are too small to be discerned by the naked eye. Thus, while all the explorations will be made with skill and economy, many veins will be mined into, which in other countries have been passed over with neglect; and the extraction of gold from all—but especially from the poorer sands and veins—will be aided by the second circumstance to which we have adverted as peculiar to California, the possession of vast stores of quicksilver.

“The most important, if not the most valuable, of the mineral products of this wonderful country, is its quicksilver. The localities of several mines of this metal are already known, but the richest yet discovered is the one called Forbes’s mines, about sixty miles from San Francisco, near San José. Originally discovered and denounced, according to the Mexican laws then in force, it fell under the commercial management of Forbes of Tepic, who also has some interest in it. The original owner of the property on which it is situated, endeavoured to set aside the validity of the denouncement; but whether on tenable grounds or otherwise, I know not. At this mine, by the employment of a small number of labourers, and two common iron kettles for smelting, they have already sold quicksilver to the amount of 200,000 dollars, and have now some two hundred tons of ore awaiting the smelting process. The cinnabar is said to yield from sixty to eighty per cent of pure metal, and there is no doubt that its average product reaches fifty per cent. The effect of these immensely rich deposits of quicksilver, upon the wealth and commerce of the world, can scarcely be too highly estimated, provided they are kept from the clutches of the great monopolists. Not only will its present usefulness in the arts be indefinitely extended and increased by new discoveries of science, but the extensive mines of gold and silver in Mexico, Chili, and Peru, hitherto unproductive, will now be made available by its application.”—(Johnson’s Sights in the Gold Region, p. 201.)

By mere washing with water, it is impossible to extract the finer particles and scales of gold either from the natural sand or from the pounded rock. But an admixture and agitation with quicksilver licks up and dissolves every shining speck, and carries it, with the fluid metal, to the bottom of the vessel. The amalgam, as it is called, of gold and quicksilver thus obtained, when distilled in a close vessel, yields up its quicksilver again with little loss, and leaves the pure gold behind. For the perfect extraction of the gold, therefore, from its ores, quicksilver is absolutely necessary, and it can be performed most cheaply where the latter metal is cheapest and most abundant. Hence the mineral conditions of California seem specially fitted to make it an exception to all gold countries heretofore investigated, or of which we have any detailed accounts. They promise it the ability to supply a large export of gold, probably long after the remunerative freshness of the diggings, properly so called, whether wet or dry, shall have been worn off.

But both the actual yearly produce of gold, and the probable permanence of the supply, have been greatly increased by the still more recent discoveries in Australia. A wider field has been opened up here for speculation and adventure than North-Western America in its best days ever presented. We have already adverted to the circumstances which preceded and attended the discovery of gold in this country, and new research seems daily to add to the number of districts over which the precious metal is spread. It is impossible, however, even to guess over how much of this vast country the gold field may extend, and of richness enough to make washing possible and profitable. The basin of the river Murray, in the feeders of which gold has been found in very many places, has a mean length from north to south of 1400 miles, and a breadth of 400—comprising an area of from 500,000 to 600,000 square miles. This is four times the area of California, and five times that of the British Islands; but whether the gold is generally diffused over this wide area, or whether it is confined to particular and limited localities, there has not as yet been time to ascertain.

It is chiefly in the head waters or feeders of the greater streams which flow through this vast basin that the metal has hitherto been met with; but the peculiar physical character of the creeks, and of the climate in these regions, suggests the probability that the search will be profitably extended downwards along the entire course of the larger rivers. Every reader of Australian tours and travels is aware of the deep and sudden floods to which the great rivers of the country are subject, and of the disastrous inundations to which the banks of the river Murray are liable. The lesser creeks or feeders of this river, in which the washings are now prosecuted, are liable to similar visitations. The Summerhill creek, for example, at its junction with the Lewis river, is described as fifty or sixty yards wide, and the “water as sometimes rising suddenly twenty feet.” Now, supposing the gold drift to have been originally confined to the districts through which the upper waters of these rivers flow, the effect of such floods, repeated year by year, must have been to wash out from their banks and bottoms, and to diffuse along the lower parts of their channels, or of the valleys they flooded, the lighter portions, at least, of metallic riches in which the upper country abounded. The larger particles or lumps may have remained higher up: but all that the force of a deep stream in its sudden flood could carry down, may be expected among the sands and gravels, and in the wider river beds, and occasionally flooded tracts of the lower country. In other words, there is reason to believe that from its head waters on the western slopes of the Australian Alps, to its mouth at Adelaide, the Murray will be found to some degree productive in gold, and more or less remunerative to future diggers.

But there is in reality no reason to believe that the gold of the great Australian basin was ever confined—at least since the region became covered with drift—to the immediate neighbourhood of the mountains, or to the valleys through which its mountain streams pursue their way. We have already fully explained that it is not to the action of existing rivers on the native gold-bearing rocks of the mountain, that the presence of the precious metal in their sands is generally due, but to that of numerous degrading causes, operating simultaneously and at a more ancient period, when the whole valley was covered deep with water. By these, the debris of the mountains here, as in California, must have been spread more or less uniformly over the entire western plain. This vast area, therefore, comprehending so many thousand square miles, may, through all its drifted sands and gravels, be impregnated with metallic particles. Dry diggings, consequently, may be hereafter opened at great distances from the banks of existing streams. Time alone, in fact, can tell over how much of this extensive region it will pay the adventurer to dig and wash the wide-spread depths of drift.

Then there is the province of Victoria, south of the Australian Alps, in which gold is described as most plentiful. The streams which descend from the southern slope of these mountains are numerous, in consequence of the peculiarly large quantity of rain which falls on this part of Australia,^[21] and over a breadth of 200 miles they are represented as all rich in gold. And besides, the country east of the meridian chain, between Bathurst and the sea, and all the still unknown portion of the Australian continent, have yet to add their stores to those of Victoria and of the basin of the Murray. And though we do not know to what extent quartz veins prevail in the mountains of New South Wales, we have authentic statements as to their existence not very remote from Bathurst, and as to their being rich in gold. Here also, therefore, as in California, there may be a permanent source of gold supply, which may continue to yield, after the washings have ceased to be greatly remunerative—which may even augment in productiveness as that of the sands declines. On the whole, then, although it is impossible to form any estimate of the actual amount of gold which year by year the great new mining fields are destined to supply to the markets of the world, yet we think two deductions may be assumed as perfectly certain from the facts we have stated—first, that the average annual supply for the next ten years is likely to be greater than it ever was since the commencement of authentic history—and second, that the supply, though the washings fall off, will be kept up for an indefinite period, by the exploration of the gold-bearing quartz veins in Australia and America.

In the table we have copied from Mr Wyld, the produce of gold for 1851 is estimated—guessed is a better word—at £22,500,000. Advices from Melbourne to the 22d of December state that the receipts of gold in that place in a single day had amounted to 16,333 ounces—that the total produce of the Ballarat and Mount Alexander diggings, from their discovery on the 29th September to the 17th of December, two months and a half, had been 243,414 ounces, valued at £730,242—that from twenty thousand to thirty thousand persons were employed at the diggings—and that the auriferous grounds, already known, which can be profitably worked, cannot be dug for years to come “by any number of people that can by possibility reach them.” Those from Sydney calculate the export from that place to have been at the rate of three millions sterling a-year; while the report of the Government Commissioners, “On the extent and capability of the mines in New South Wales,” gives it as their unanimous opinion, that they offer a “highly remunerative employment to at least a hundred thousand persons—four times the number now employed.” With these data, there appears no exaggeration in the estimate now made in the colony, that the yearly export of gold will not be less than seven or eight millions sterling. With this more accurate knowledge of the capabilities of Australia than was possessed when Mr Wyld’s estimate was made, and with the hopes and rumours that exist as to other new sources of supply, are we wrong in guessing that the total produce of gold alone, for the present and some succeeding years, cannot be less than £25,000,000 to £30,000,000 sterling? What was the largest yield of the most fruitful mines in ancient times compared with this? The annual product of the ancient Egyptian mines of gold and silver is said by Herodotus to have been inscribed on the walls of the palace of the ancient kings at Thebes, and the sum, as he states it in Grecian money, was equal to six millions sterling! This Jacob^[22] considers to be a gross exaggeration; but he believes, nevertheless, that “the produce of the mines of that country, together with that of the other countries whose gold and silver was deposited there, far exceeded the quantity drawn from all the mines of the then known world in subsequent ages, down to the discovery of America.”

And what did America yield after the discovery by Columbus, (1492,) and the triumphs of Cortes and Pizarro? Humboldt estimates the annual yield of gold, from the plunder of the people and from the mines united—

From 1492 to 1521 at £52,000

„ 1521 to 1546 at £630,000

And from the discovery of the silver mine of Potosi in 1545, to the end of the century, the produce of silver and gold together was about £2,100,000 from America; and from America and Europe together, £2,250,000 a-year.

Again, during the eighteenth century, the yearly produce of the precious metals—gold and silver together—obtained from the mines of Europe, Africa, and America, is estimated by Mr Jacob (ii. p. 167) at £8,000,000; and for the twenty years previous to 1830, at about £5,000,000 sterling.^[23] And although the greatly enlarged produce of the Russian mines, in gold especially, has come in to make up for the failure or stoppage of the American mines since 1800, yet what does the largest of all past yields of gold amount to, compared with the quadrupled or quintupled supply there seems now fair and reasonable grounds for expecting?

And what are to be the consequences of the greatly augmented supply of gold which these countries promise? Among the first will be to provoke and stimulate the mining industry of other countries to new activity and new researches; and thus, by a natural reaction, to add additional intensity to the cause of change. Such was the effect of the discovery of America upon mining in Europe, and especially in Germany. “In fourteen years after 1516, not less than twenty-five noble veins were discovered in Joachimsthal in Bohemia, and in sixty years they yielded 1,250,000 marcs of silver.”^[24] And,

“The discovery of America, and of the mines it contained,” says Mr Jacob, “seems to have kindled a most vehement passion for exploring the bowels of the earth in search of gold in most of the countries of Europe, but in no part of it to so great an extent as in the Bishopric of Salzburg. The inhabitants of that country seemed to think themselves within reach of the Apple of the Hesperides and of the Golden Fleece, and about to find in their streams the Pactolus of antiquity. Between the years 1538 and 1562,^[25] more than a thousand leases of mines were taken. The greatest activity prevailed, and one or two large fortunes were made.”—(Jacob, i. p. 250.)

This impulse has already been felt as the consequence of recent discovery. The New York papers have just announced the discovery of new deposits of gold in Virginia, “equal to the richest in California;” in Queen Charlotte’s Island gold is said to have been found in great abundance; in New Caledonia and New Zealand it is spoken of; and the research after the precious metal is at the present moment propagating itself throughout the civilised world. And that the activity thus awakened is likely to be rewarded by many new discoveries, and by larger returns in old localities, will appear certain, when we consider, first, that the geological position and history of gold-producing regions is far better understood now than it ever was before; second, that the value of quartz veins, previously under-estimated, has been established by the Californian explorations, and must lead in other countries to new researches and new trials; thirdly, that the increased supply of quicksilver which California promises may call into new life hosts of deserted mines in Southern America and elsewhere; and, lastly, that improved methods of extraction, which the progress of chemical science is daily supplying, are rendering profitable the poorer mines which in past days it was found necessary to abandon.

About the end of the seventeenth century the reduction in the price of quicksilver, consequent on the supplies drawn from the mines of Idria, greatly aided the mines of Mexico, (Jacob, ii. p. 153;) and of the effects of better methods Rose gives the following illustrations, in his description of the celebrated Schlangenberg mine in Siberia:—

“At first, ores containing only four solotniks of silver were considered unfit for smelting, and were employed in the mines for filling up the waste. These have long already been taken out, and replaced by poorer ores, which in their turn will probably by-and-by be replaced by still poorer.”—“The ancient inhabitants washed out the gold from the ochre of these mines, as is evident from the heaps of refuse which remain on the banks of the river Smejewka. This refuse has been found rich enough in gold to pay for washing and extracting anew.”^[26]

The history of all mining districts, and of all smelting and refining processes,^[27] present us with similar facts; and the aspects of applied science, in our day, are rich in their promise of such improvements for the future. If, therefore, to all the considerations we have presented we add those from which writers like M’Culloch^[28] had previously anticipated an increased supply of the precious metals—such as the pacification of Southern America, and the application of new energy to the mines of that country, and probably under the direction of a new race—the calmest and coolest of our readers will, we think, coincide with us in anticipating from old sources, as well as from new, an increased and prolonged production of the precious metals.

Of the social and political consequences of these discoveries, the most striking and attractive are those which are likely to be manifested in the immediate neighbourhood—using the word in a large sense—of the countries in which the new gold mines have been met with. The peopling of California and Australia—the development of the boundless traffic which Western America and the islands of the Australasian, Indian, and Chinese seas are fitted to support—the annexation of the Sandwich Islands(!)—the establishment of new and independent dominions on the great islands to the south and west—the throng of great ships and vessels of war we can in anticipation see dotting and over-awing the broad Pacific—the influence, political and social, of these new nations on the old dominions and civilisation of the fabled East, and of still mysterious China and hidden Japan;—we may almost speak of this forward vision, as Playfair has written of the effect upon his mind of Hutton’s expositions of the past—“The mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far back into the abyss of time; and while we listened with earnestness and admiration to the philosopher, who was now unfolding to us the order and series of these wonderful events, we became sensible how much further reason may sometimes go than imagination can venture to follow.”

But its influence, though less dazzling, will be as deep and perceptible upon the social relations of the older monarchies of Europe. Our own richly commercial and famed agricultural country, and its dependencies, will be especially affected. Prices will nominally rise—commerce and general industry will be stimulated—and a gilding of apparent prosperity will overspread class interests, which would otherwise languish and decline. How far this is likely to be favourable to the country, on the whole—to interfere with, disguise, or modify the effect of party measures—we have recently discussed in previous articles, and shall for the present pass by.

Perhaps that portion of its influence which, in this country of great money fortunes, and in some of the Continental states, is attracting most attention, is the change likely to be produced by it in the bullion market, especially in the relative values of gold and silver, and even (should this not materially alter, in consequence of an enlarged produce from the silver mines) in the real value of annuities, stock, and bonds of every description. It has occasionally happened in ancient times, that by a sudden large influx of gold the comparative value of that metal has been lowered in an extraordinary degree. Thus Strabo, in his Geography, (book iv. chap. vi. sect. 9,) has the following passage:—

“Polybius relates that, in his time, mines of gold were found among the Taurisci Norici, in the neighbourhood of Aquilea, so rich that, in digging to the depth of two feet only, gold was met with, and that the ordinary sinkings did not exceed fifteen feet; that part of it was in the form of native gold, in pieces as large as a bean or a lupin, which lost only one-eighth in the fire; and that the rest, though requiring more purification, gave a considerable product; that some Italians, having associated themselves with the barbarians to work the mines, in the space of two months the price of gold fell one-third throughout the whole of Italy; and that the Taurisci, having seen this, expelled their foreign partners, and sold the metal themselves.”^[29]

Were anything of this nature to happen—though very far less in degree—as a consequence of the recent discoveries, it could not fail to produce a serious monetary revolution, and much pecuniary distress, both individual and general, which the wisest legislation could neither wholly prevent nor remove. Such a sudden and extreme effect many have actually anticipated from them, and measures have, in consequence, been taken, even by Continental governments, such as are detailed in the following passage from Mr Wyld’s pamphlet:—

“Among the many extraordinary incidents connected with the Californian discoveries, was the alarm communicated to many classes, which was not confined to individuals, but invaded governments. The first announcement spread alarm; but, as the cargoes of gold rose from a hundred thousand dollars to a million, bankers and financiers began seriously to prepare for an expected crisis. In England and the United States the panic was confined to a few; but, on the Continent of Europe, every government, rich and poor, thought it needful to make provision against the threatened evils. The governments of France, Holland, and Russia, in particular, turned their attention to the monetary question; and, in 1850, the government of Holland availed itself of a law, which had not before been put in operation, to take immediate steps for selling off the gold in the banks of Amsterdam, at what they supposed to be the then highest prices, and to stock themselves with silver. This operation was carried on concurrently with a supply of bullion to Russia for a loan, a demand for silver in Austria, and for shipment to India; and it did really produce an effect on the silver market.

“The particular way in which the Netherlands operations were carried out was especially calculated to produce the greatest disturbance of prices. The ten-florin gold pieces were sent to Paris, coined there into napoleons, and silver five-franc pieces drawn out in their place. At Paris, the premium on gold, in a few months, fell from nearly two per cent to a discount, and at Hamburg a like fall took place. In London, the great silver market, silver rose between the autumn and the New Year, from 5s. per oz. to 5s. 1⅝d. per oz., and Mexican dollars from 4s. 10½d. to 4s. 11⅝d. per oz.; nor did prices recover until towards the end of the year 1851, when the fall was as sudden as the rise.”—(Wyld, pp. 20, 21.)