FAMOUS FINDS OF GOLD.

Otago Witness, Issue 1915, 3 August 1888, Page 12

FAMOUS FINDS OF GOLD.

A flood of nugget stories has (etays an exchange) been let loose by the recent discovery of a great nugget in Australia which is estimated to contain 511b of pure gold, worth about £51 per pound, or about £2600.

In 1858 a party of four men unearthed at Buarandong, in New South Wales, a lump weighing over 11270z, and valued at £4389 8s lOd. Another of 300oz was found at Kiandra, and a Chinaman at Jericho, in Victoria, was the lucky discoverer of one weighing 400oz.

As for 50oz, 200oz, and 2500z pieces, though these finds are so notable that every instance of them has been chronicled, they all sink into insignificance beside the " Welcome " nugget of Bakery Hill, Ballarat, which was dug up in June 1858, and weighed so much that it was sold for £8376, and the " Welcome Stranger " of Moliogul, in Victoria, which in 1869 yielded 25020z 18dwt and sgr of melted gold, the whole mass being of the gross weight of 2101b.

The Carr nugget, which was found in 1852, not far from the 400oz one of the Chinaman, weighed close on a hundredweight, though only a part of it was pure metal. Australia, indued, seems to be the land of great nuggeta.

Most of the richest veins in California have been brought to light by poor and uneducated adventurers. There is not a single instance of one having been found by a trained geologist or the graduate of a mining school.

A hunter in Tuolumne County discovered a rich quartz vein by accidentally chipping off a point of rock while firing at a grizzly bear, and in 1885 a miner hit upon an equally valuable lodo in Mariposa County by noting that the bullet with which he had killed a midnight robber had struck a spot which sparkled in the moonlight.

Another mine was discovered by som6 men who, in denpair of ever doing much good in California, were on the eve of bidding it goodbye. But before leaving they celebrated their departure by a druaken frolic, during which they amused themselves by rolling stones down the hillside. One of these houlders broke off a projecting ledge of rock, exposing a vein of quartz so rich as to induce the accidental discoverers to remain, and they were well rewarded.