FAMOUS GOLD RUSHES.

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 January 1911, Page 8

FAMOUS GOLD RUSHES.

The discovery of rich gold at Goldfinch, in Western Australia, and at Stewart, in British ■ Columbia, shows that the gold-seeking romances of the world have not yet come to an end. • “Stewart went’mad.' Waiters; dropped tlieir trays, workmen their tools, drivers their reins, and stampeded.” Thus a daily paper described the excitement created in Stewart, British Columbia, when the report came that seventeen miles distant, at a place called Bitter Cx*eek, a great discovery of gold had been made. It is the old, old story of human avarice and greed (remarks an English contemporary). Reason disappears when the gold fever seizes on man.

Two years ago three mining prospectors tried their luck in the Nevada Hills two hundred miles north-east of San Francisco, where they discovered a wealthy deposit of gold. They told some acquaintances at the nearest town, whereupon two hundred railroad labourers dropped their tools and began the mad rush for gold. The news spread like wildfire, and in a few weeks the camp of the three prospectors, which had been named Rawside, had a population of 10,000 people, and miners were arriving at the rate of 200 a day. Lots were sold at anything from £IOOO to £SOOO, while some mining magnates purchased one claim, which had been staked out by a syndicate of twenty miners, and had made a phenomenal yield, for £160,000, HUNDREDS DIED ON THE WAY. The story of Klondyke is even more amazing. The first find of gold of any importance was made in 1897—not by gold prospectors, but by a fisherjnan—at the junction of the Klondyke and Yukon Rivers. Immediately the news of rich deposits of gold which were to be found got abroad there was a mad rush, not only from all parts of America but also from Europe. Soon 30,000, people were on their way to the diggings, many destined never to return; for 500 miles of the roughest Alaska country had to be traversed, and the route was literally paved with the bones of those who had joined in the mad rush without stopping to consider the difficulties the journey presented. Husbands dserted their wives, while clerks, merchants, doctors and lawyers sold all they possessed to pay their way to Klondyke. But where one unpractical man succeeded in' enriching himself, scores of American professional miners came away worth hundreds of thousands. In spite of the warnings issued, however, and the fact that it needed a capital of something like £3OO to get from England to Klondyke, hundreds of people wen I from England, only to return wrecked in health and pocket. A SHREWD PROSPECTOR. It is a curious fact that when Mr Harry de Windt, the well-known explorer, returned from Klondyke, in 1897, he said, during the course, of an interview, published in the “Strand Magazine,” that the Stewart region was even richer than Klondyke. And after a dozen years there comes the recent romantic corrboration. The fact is ifot generally known, perhaps, that it was the discovery of gold in California in 1847 which led ■to the discovery in Australia. Within four years the annual output from the fields of California reached £12,000,000, and it was a Mr Hargreaves who went as a miner to California, who first discovered gold in Australia. He was struck by the resemblance of the rocks near his home in Australia to the gold-bearing rocks of California. He systematically searched for signs of gold, and on February 12, 1851, he found some of the precious metal for the first time. BIG NUGGETS.

The excitement created by the discovery was intenge. Towns grew up as if by magic. Even police left their employment to try their luck at the diggings, while sailors deserted from their ships as soon as they arrived at a port near the fields. Men flocked in their thousands to Ballarat and Bathurst, and it was at these places where the world’s biggest nuggets were found. Fifty miles north of Bathurst three quartz blocks, containing 1121 b of pure virgin gold, were discovered, and the, famous “Victoria Nugget” a single mass of pure virgin gold weighing 3400z5, was brought from Bendigo But the largest nugget of all was that Christened the “Welcome.” This was found at Ballarat on June 4. 1858 weighing 25160z5. and was valued a* over £9582. Within ten years gold to the enormous value of £96.000.D0C had been brought to England from Hutwo colonies of Victoria and New South Wales.

Two years ago one of the discoverers of the famous Kalgoorlie goldfield in Western Australia passed away in the person of an Irishman named Daniel Shea. He and a compatriot named Hannan, while prospecting for gold, camped on the site of Kalgoorlie when it was a wilderness. Hannan; in searching for a horse, kicked a nugget of gold. The news spread, a rush set in, and the wealth of the place soon became apparent. Hannan and Shea as the pioneers were awarded pensions of £IOO a year—not a great sum when one considers that the annual output of the Kalgoorlie goldfield is between £2,000,000 and £3.000,000. MORE MINES TO BE FOUND.

There are, however no gold mines so rich as those of the Transvaal Since 1884 —the year the world’s greatest goldfield, Witwatersrand, was discovered—until June, 1908, the total value of the gold production of the Transvaal amounted to no less than £211,535,995. It was a prospectoi named Arnold who first discovered that gold lay among the bare and lonely hills of Witwatersrand. In tb is case there was no great rush, for the simple reason that there was no chance for the miner without capital. The Rand’s pre-eminence amongst goldfields is not due to the exceeding richness of deposits, for in their percentage of the yellow metal they do not compare with the mines of California, for instance. But while its o ores are of low grade they are found in much more extensive bodies than those ol any other fields, much machinery and many workers being required to unearth the gold. There are still more chances, however, for prospectors, like Croesus, the first really rich man known to fame, who is said to'have discovered a little gold mine of his own, to find one for themselves; for, according to authorities, the world contains several unworked goldfields quite as rich as any yet discovered. Parts of Siberia are alleged to be richer in gold than Kloudyke while Sir Martin Conway said some time ago that along the eastern slope of the Andes ran many rivers rich in gold.