FAMOUS GOLD RUSHES

Evening Star, Issue 19328, 14 August 1926, Page 12

FAMOUS GOLD RUSHES

WAHCEAHD TRAGEDY One of the record rushes for fortune has just taken place (says the ‘ Sunday Chronicle’) in South Africa, where at Elandsputte, near Lichtenburg, over 10,000 people participated in the race from a. startling lino a mile and a-half long to cover some four miles and stake out their claims in the new diamond Geld discovered there. Many competitors fell exhausted when they reached their goal, and pegged out their claims where they lay, or on hands and knees. Some who could afford it engaged prominent members of the Transvaal athletic clubs to run for them, hoping thus to secure choice claims. This is but the latest of many scenes of the kind, differing in character according to locality. On this occasion diamonds formed the lure, but. it is more often the call of virgin gold that proves so powerful. THE KLONDYKE RUSH. The Story of Canada’s gold rushes is all within tho memory of living people, and is centred round the famous Kl.ondyke El Dorado and in the recent magic developments of Ontario’s goldfields. In the former the trail of “ ’9B” led over tho Ch’ilcoot Pass to the head waters of the Yukon River; thence down to the country around the boundary of Alaska. The dangers and difficulties of that long journey have since been often told.

More gold was spent in getting into Klondyke than ever was brought out, and more lives were lost in the great exodus which followed the first rush than paid tho. extreme price going in. The pioneers worked in the pebbly wash of-the frozen creeks feeding tho Yukon all the summer,, knowing thev would of necessity have to get out to civilisation for food before the winter set in. ■ . The Americans formed the majority of the experienced gold seekers, and they told the others that the ice grip would close ou the great river from the north. But it did not. Without warning the Yukon became solid from the south —the higher altitudes of the sources had more than compensated for the difference in latitude—and the way out was barred. Sixty men out of 6,000 who started on tho back track reached Dyea, on the coast; tho rest had gone on a longer trail! TRAPPER’S FIND. It may be said generally that all tho rivers of Canada flowing north have their sources in auriferous regions, and it therefore occasioned no surprise when the first of the Northern Ontarian rushes broke out some years ago. They were too near civilisation to become sensational, and when a wandering trapper, who knew nothing about prospecting, reported having stumbled across an outcropping reef of something that ho thought might carrv gold everyone laughingly agreed with him. Every reef in the country carried gold; it was the amount per ton it carried that mattered. With the help of some friends who knew little more of gold and its mode of occurrence than hh did himself, the trapper sank a shaft on the reef, which was contemptuously termed “ a hole in tho ground ” by some raining men who saw it, and “ bottomed ’ it ou quartz so much impregnated with pin-points of soft yellow substance that they could not believe it was gold. But it was. That “ hole in the ground ” was named after _ the poor persevering finder, Ben Hollinger, and the Hollinger mine is to-day the greatest single gold producer in the world. “THE GOLDEN MILE.” The romance of the West Australian goldfields would fill many volumes. Bayley and Hannan are the names associated with the finding of tho fields on which Coolgardic and Kalgoorlie now stand, hut, for reasons known to most who dig out gold from the Australian sands, those names are not treasured in story to tho same, extent as those of Brookman, Manzies, Doolettc, and others. Brookman and two mates, with a borrowed capital of £l5O. discovered tho richest mile of ground in tho world. It is known to-day as “Tho Golden Mile.” and it includes six of the world’s greatest mifies, one of which, the Golden Horseshoe, has just struck a new vein of “ 3}oa gold ” on its deepest level. There were ten shareholders in Bill Brockman’s first prospecting syndicate, and "while some sold out their £ls shares for £2OO in the early days one man sold a half of au original share last year for £45,000! In West Australia took place the most remarkable rush in history—the Sacred Slug rush. Tens, of thousands of people converged from all parts of Australia and New Zealand on the little township, of Kanowna to take part in a scramble to get near an unknown piece of ground in which a nugget so heavy that it could not bo removed from its resting place was said to havo been found. I’RIEST’S SECR ET.

No man other than the finders had ever seen this nugget, and they hail told of their discovery only in .confession to a priest. This priest, Father Long, had been ordered by tho Government to disclose -the secret of the- confessional, and the greatest .assembly of human beings ever witnessed in Western Australia had gathered to hear vAat he,- had to tell.

He told—-perhaps!—but his. message was drowned, out in the uproar that followed the utterance, of ins first words, and a mad stampede of frenzied humanity took place towards the place known locally as Golden Valley, which name was the only words hoard; . No gold was found, and the priest died shortly afterwards. The secret of the Sacred Slug remains a secret to-day. The goldfield of Tanami lies- between Broome, the famous pearling centre on tho nor’-west coast, and Darwin, tho hot, stuffy metropolis of, tho. Northern, Territory. Five hundred miles of a desert, over which roll imperceptibly enormous waves of sand, stretch between the gold formations and cither town, and few men who have seen the golden treasure have as yet returned. Throughout this trackless ocean of moving sand are hidden oases, round which tribes of strange natives have their homes. These children of the desert wear nuggets of gold as ornaments on their naked bodies, and the writer was one of a party that years ago received from them solid chunks of gold in exchange for bottles of fruit salts and sugar and jam.