GOLD-MINING IN BRITAIN

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 261, 4 August 1928, Page 24

GOLD-MINING IN BRITAIN

Few people realise that gold is to be dug in many parts of the British Isles. The trouble is not to find auriferous ore, but to find it sufficiently auriferous to yield a profit after the expensive processes of extraction. As in the case of non-corrosive steel, ingenious chemists, the world over, are exploring every evenue of possibly cheaper production, and the discovery of a new process may well lead to the prompt establishment of scores of gold mines in our isles (says “8.D.” in the “Manchester Guardian”).

“Poor man’s” or "placer” mining has produced numerous nuggets in the stream beds of the Glenconner region of Clydesdale; the Kildonan regions, a little north of Dunrobin; the foothills of Ben Douran, - Crawford Moor, and other parts of Scotland; Queen Elizabeth was presented with a porringer made of Scottish placer gold. Many a Devonshire brook, foaming down from the heights of Dartmoor, has yielded flakes and specks of gold. There is an especially good vein up in the hills near Dolgelley. It is Wales that is Britain’s big natural gold reserve. Ever since the Roman occupation, and probably even in the days of Neolithic man, the precious metal has been coming out of the Welsh mines.

In the course of centuries large quantities of Irish gold have been extracted from the beds of a certain stream on the north side of Croghan Kinsnelagh, in the Wicklow mountains. For last century alone the yield was worth abput £30,000, and large nuggets have been procured there. So pure was the gold that the Dublin shops, a few decades ago, used exchange it for a similar weight of minted guineas in the other pan of their scales. Even beyond our shores, it is not necessary to journey to South Africa, Australia, or Alaska to strike gold. It is mined in Spain and Hungary, Rumania, and the Piedmont region of Italy. Alpine discoveries of gold-bear-ing quartz were made in the Swiss canton of Grisons, and in mountains near Giaveno, to the west of Turin. There is plenty of silver to be mined in Britain. Indeed, the Lord Mayor of London’s official banquet tankards are made of metal brought out of a shaft at Coombe Martin, in Devonshire. The mine was worked from the reign of Edward I to about 1835. Precious metal tb the value of £30.000 was mined in four years during the reign of Charles I. The Bulmer tankards, as they are called at the Mansion House, are dated 1593, and bear this quaint inscription: In Martyn’s comb long lay I hydd, Obscured, deforest with grossest soyle, Debased much with mixed lead ’Till Bulmer came, whose skilie and toyle Refined me so pure and clean As rycher nowhere else is seene, And adding yet a further grace, By fashion he did me enable Me worthy for to take a place— To serve at any prince's table. Comb Martyn gave the ore alone, Bulmer the fining and fashion.