A RUSH FOR GOLD.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2904, 31 January 1911, Page 7

A RUSH FOR GOLD.

BTORY OF ROMANCE AND TRAGEDY. The sensational discovery of gold in British Columbia is another example of history repeating itself. As in practically every similar case, the present is described as he greatest mineral discovery ever made, the statement that a thousand stamps conld be worked for a hundred years on the reef being a picturesque detail. The history of Bitter Creek, the new Eldorado, will, doubtless, prove to be similar to the history of

THE CALIFORNIA GOLDFIELDS; The outstanding fact with regard to the opening of new goldfields is that the original discoverers have rarely benefited greatly, the harvest going to others. Usually the gold deposits have besn discovered merely by accident. Thus take the case of the great discoveries in California. A Mr. Marshall, who had a sawmill on a river in the now famous goldproducing district, decided to widen the tail-race of the mill in the course of other alterations. After the work bad been done he was walking along the bank one morning when he noticed a number of shining particles amidst the disturbed mass of sand and gravel ; however, he paid no particular notice. Later in an idle moment, he went to the trouble of picking out one of the scintillating particles, and was astonished to find that it was a thin scale of gold. Then he picked out as many of tin fragments as he could see, and found that the whole of them were undoubtedly pure gold. Even- then he paid little attention to his discovery, considering that the fragments were the remnants of some of the early mysterious inhabitants, the ruins of whose temples were scattered in the neighbourhood. In a casual manner he mentioned his discovery to a neighbour, and the two made a thorough search, which proved that the whole of the debris

undoubtedly was auriferous. Their searches showed that not only was eold to be found over the whole of the river course, but that in the dried-up gulches and creeks there were solid deposits. In fact, they picked up nuggets from the soil by the simple means of using a penknife.

Now it happened that a number of the millhands were curious to know the strange movements of the two men. The result was that in a very short time the secret of the gold deposits was noised far and wide, and so the infection of the great gold fever spread over the land. Remarkable scenes were soon witnessed, but these are outside the scope of the present article.

BOOMS IN AUSTRALIA. The original discovery of gold in Australia was of a most romantic and astounding nature. While a convict was at work in New South Wales he came across a small nugget of gol** one day. Accordingly the man was brought before a magistrate and questioned as to his possession of a Piece of gold. His story was not believed, as he could not point out the spot where he had picked up the nugget. He was accused of having stolen a gold watch and having melted it down, and was convicted of the crime with the result that the poor wretch received the punishment of 150 lashes. Owing to the sparscness of the population some remarkable scenes were witnessed in Australia. The towns were rapidly drained of the males, and, as in the case of California, the result was that in the mining towns women were so remarkably scarce that the minecs were willing to pay over a quantity of gold dust simply to view a female through the cracks of a shanty. Possibly a more remarkable fact, however, was that in a number of the older Australian towns, such as Geelong, men beenme such curiosities that the women would flock in crowds whenever a man appeared on the scene.

AMAZING NUGGETS. One of the principal West Australian mines is stated to have been discovered owing to the playful habits of a boy. He picked up a •tone to throw at a crow, a nd found It was very and bright. He banded this stone to his father, who found it was a piece of yellow metal, and reported the fact to the Warden. According to the legend, that worthy official telegraphed the news immediately to the Governor of the Colony, stating that a boy had picked up a stone to throw at a crow ; in his intense excitement at the dis-

covery, the Warden omitted to state that the stone contained gold. Hence it was that the astounded Governor wired back—"Yes, and what happened to the crow ?" These Australian fields are noted for the greatness of size of nuggets which have been found. Thus, one of the natives was seen playing with

to be a nugget of gold weighing 102|n>., and having a value of over £4OOO sterling. Considerably more valuable nuggets were found ; the famous Welcome Stranger nugget actually weighed 2268-oz., while another nugget realised £10,500 when sold. So abundant were these nuggets that a single party of five men obtained £SOOO worth of gold in a day of eight hours. KLONDIKE AND YUKON.

Probably the most remarkable gold finds have been those attaching to Northern Canada, the home of the new fields. These have proved the

exception to the rule that original finders have been the most badly rewarded. This has been due to the fact that in frozen North America discoverers have been cut off entirely from civilisation, and so the news has taken a considerable time to leak out—the discoverers meanwhile reaping the fruits of their luck.

Take the case of the memorable discoveries in the Yukon. Owing to the isolated position of the fields, and the terrible difficulties in the way of travel, the news of the discovery was not bruited until the original finders had obtained all the gold they wanted, and had returned to civilisation to realise their fortunes in gold dust. This district, in fact, contained only a handful of inhabitants. The remarkable case of the discovery of the Bonanza Creek on the Klondike River should be mentioned. There were only 350 inhabitants at Forty-Mile, and these individuals made astounding fortunes owing to having the richest known deposits of gold in the world at thefr solitary disposal. All the land about was simply studded with gold, many large ntiggets being taken. Hence through the winter the miners spent the whole of their time digging up the "pay-dust" ; the work of washing it was left until the spring, and every perbon became wealthy. There was a particularly idle barman in the town who did not possess the energy to take him to the top of the creek ; instead, he turned his attention to the small side creek close by, and, astounding as the fact seems, he obtained no less than £600,000 worth of gold as a reward of his sloth! Eventually the first batch of miners reached San Francisco by boat ; they were a curious looking set of customers, and carried their precious dust in every article possible to conceive, from rude canvas sacks to jam jars covered with old newspapers. Their arrival was the signal for the enormous rush which took place, and which, it must be stated, ended in direst disappointment to the majority of the adventurers.—"Leeds Mercury."