To the Editor of the Colonist,

Colonist, Volume II, Issue 191, 19 August 1859, Page 3

To the Editor of the Colonist,

Sib, —Can you inform the diggers what is the cause of the sudden fal'Hu the -price of gold, which has caused so much discontent among all parties , here. Another monster meeting here will come off in a few days, as it is well known that gold at present is 7s. below the Sydney price, a fact that the diggers of the right stamp will not long agree to. Your insertion of the above will much, oblige AN AUSTRALIAN. Collingwood, Aug. 15fh, 1850.

What is the- Matrix oit Gold?—lt is highly probable that gold In this coLny has more than one matrix, and that hereafter it will be found in combination with substances which are little suspected of being auriferous. In support of this opinion it will be sufficient to ■ refer to the Old Post Hill Reef. Here the principal part of the gold obtained is crushed out of the sandstone strata. This rock has from the firafc been found to be richer than the quartz leaders or the reef. To prove that gold is really taken from the solid sandstone and not the slate or clay casing, generally found in close proximity to quartz, I am assured that the stuff which is now sent to the mill from one of the claims, and is found to pay well, is procured by penetrating the sandstone strata to a distance of eight feet from the quartz. At Tarrangower considerable quantities of the pi'ecious metal exist in combination with bismuth, the latter smelting from the quartz which is roasted for the "Chilian mills. It would be advisable for the Government to invite miners who have specimens of minerals supposed to contain gold, or any other valuable metals, to send them for examination at the public expense. It frequently happens that the quartz reefer meets with foreign substances of the value of which he is entirely ignoiant. Generally, unless the unknown body plainly exhibits traces of gold the curiosity i 3 thrown on "one side, and no further notice is taken of it: Some further additions to our mineral wealth might result from adopting the suggestions thrown out above.— Mount Alexander Mail. The Guano Trade of Peru.—The Govern* ment of Peru sold from the Chiucha Islands, during the year 1858, guano to the amount of 266,700 tons. This sold at., the ports m Europe and America, where it was delivered, for about 15,000,000 dollars; and deducting 8,000,000 dollars for the freight, this leaves 12,000,000 dollars received by the Peruvian Government and their agents from the sales. The freight the last year lias averaged about 11 dollars a.ton. It is now 10 dollars or less. At one time the freight was as high as 30 dollars a ton. A French chemist professes to have discovered a new process of making paper, by boiling slices of wood with a certain quantity of mineral and vegetable alkali. If we may rely on the statement of the inventor, he can produce, from fifty'four kilogrammes of slices of firewood and five kilogrammes of alkali, a ream of large paper, as white as snow and as fine as silk. ». A Lady Preaching in Bed,—The Ohio Republican says that Mrs. Burney, of Tippecanoe, Harrison Count}1-, Ohio, a highly respectable lady, and a member of the Presbyterian Church, during a peculiar condition of her physical and mental organisation, has preached a sermon half an hour long every other Sunday at ten o'clock, for eighteen yeai's. While preaching she reclines upon a bed. Her instructions are generally excellent, and abound in scriptural quotations; but when she recovers her consciousness, she has no recollection whatever of what she has been saying. Singular and Fataii Accident.—Lately, Mrs. Watson, wife of a dyer in Leeds, while asleep, swallowed a set of four false teeth, which stuck \ fast in her throet. Medical aid was called in, and two eminent surgeons performed an operation, and succeeded in partially, dislodging the teeth, though not sufficiently. Mrs. Watson expired a few days afterwards.

THE LIONS OF ALGERIA. ■ (From Gerard's Adventures.) On my arrival at Constantinople, 1 was saluted on every side by complaints concerning the Leonine family, that had most assuredly lost none of its bad reputation during the year that had passed. •>,'•■ - The following is a summary of their evil deeds that were narrated to me, as having been done in my absence. # I pass over the pecuniary losses that the tribes of the district had endared, and give only those graver sufferings of the human family that were well known in the pro■vince. - In the beginning of the winter, a merchant of Tunis came down to trade with the people of the lower provinces; according to his custom, bringing with him his wife to assist him in his negotiations. He had reached a place called^Tifech, in the territory of Saderata, and while passing through a defile, near the ancient Roman'town of Memissa, his wife lingered behind, while he drove on his mules laden with goods. On reaching the other end of the pass, he missed his wife, and turned back to search for her, when he suddenly came upon a lion lying by the roadside, quietly making Jhis supper on the body of the poor woman. The animal paid no attention to the man, for he could get men any day he wanted them, and the merchant ran off to relate his horrible story at the neighboring douar. He tried hard to get the men to come with him to rescue the remains of his wife, but the evening was coming on, and the}' would not venture in such a desperate duel. They, however, promised that the next morning they would summon the men from the next dcuar, and they would go in force to wreak summary vengeance on the murderer. With the early daybreak, the merchant, armed from head to loot, marched towards | the,place where his wife had fallen, bringing with him the whole force of the Sr.deratas. They found the spot, but all that remained of the woman was her white robe, dabbled red, and her long black hair. The desolate man prayed the Arabs to lead him to the lion's den, no matter where It might be, and help him to take revenge on the ruthless monster. In about an hour the party reached the cover where the lion lay sleeping away the warm hours, and digesting his delicate supper. The Arabs gave a loud hurrah, and he came out of the bushes and laid himself down in the sun, combing his locks, and yawning in the face of all his foes. . "Now, yours shall "be the revenge," said the Saderatas to the merchant, "as you have most suffered; go a little nearer, and, taking good aim, drive a ball through the head of the infidel; we will stand here to aid you." The innocent man took a few steps in advance, then slowly levelled his gun, and fired. In tRe winking of an eye he was dashed to the earth, and torn to pieces in the midst of the jokes of the Saderatas, who then returned to their douars, to divide among themselves the goods of the deceased couple. About a month after this, theChegatmas were -hunting this same lion. One of the hunl^'-n, pr-rched in a tree which the lion was psss'n^v'sent a ball at him. The animal looked up in the tree, and measuring its height with his cj 7e, gave a bound that carried him so near the hunter that he dragged him to the earth, with his claws and then me d 3 mir.ce-meat of him before lie could put in a word of expostulation. In the evenings of the early spring time, there were three men of the same tribe, who watched for game at a spring called jiin-Secd, or the lion's spring-. Ac the dawning of-the. day, they saw a lion coming down to drink, and ho carried in his mouth the body of a beautiful girl. Having reached the water, he deposited his burden on the grass, and commenced licking off the blood that trickled from under her garments, down her breast and feet. Presently ho went away again, leaving the body were he had deposited it, and the men mounted a high rock, that overlooked the place, and waited to see if he would return. | In about half an hour the animal came back with the body of a man, that, by its convulsive motions, still gave signs of life, and he laid him down by the side of the woman. The hunters theu fired all together and the lion fell dead. In a few moments after, the man breathed his last. In the month oi' July, some men of Seguia, of the tribe of Outed-Mehloul, while on a hunt to the hills, met a lion face to face. They knelt down and waited till the lion charged them, when they all fired at him when he was almost within arm's reach. In spite of six balls, the-lion sprung on them, wounded two of them severely with his claws, and carried off another in his mouth, shaking him from time to time, until he dropped him on the grass, dead. In July, a lion encountered a man and a woman, that the beauties of the summer night had enticed out to a place called "Foumel-I-lamis. The kindly emotions of the hour pleaded in vain with the ruthless bandit, and the next morning the tribe found only the garments of the lovers. During the same month, the hunters of the tribe of Ouled-Mehlpul found a lioness with two cubs, in the mountains of the Zerazer. The principal body of the hunters excited the lioness with cries and missiles, ■until she charged them, while one or two men, in concealment, stole her little ones, and covering them with their burnous, fled Cvvav to the plains. When she discovered her loss, she started in pursuit, with such a fearful intensity of maternal rage, that no barrier could stop her. She descended the mountain, crossed the open plain, and followed the robbers under their very tents. She seized one" man aud killed him, another got off badly wounded, and every living "thing fled from the camp at the terrible invasion, while the lioness made herself quietly at home, and took up her abode in. the tent; where she had found her cubs,. . .

The dispossessed Arabs lied to the tenls of the Ouled-Sassi, and prayed them for help, and the Sheik, Amar-ben Taieb, came to their assistance, with fifteen of his best hunters. After dismounting in front of the douar, •they advanced slowly, side by side, to the gate of the douar, and summoned the lioness to shew herself. The queenly mother not only complied with the request, but did so with such alacrity, that she fell like a bombshell in the middle of the band, tearing to the right and left,-and died on the bodies of three men, that she had grasped in her great arms, with a long and last embrace. One more story of the misadventures, that occurred during my short absence, and I return-to the chase. A few days before the lotus opened Its buds to the spring, a^lover had wooed and won the heart of a young girl of a neighboring tribe, but as the fates were' not propitious, they resolved upon flight, and a secret marriage. t Rendezvous was given at the foot of the great rock of Johel-Hanout, at the hour when the moon should rest her lower rim on the western hills. The girl arrived as faithful as the moon and said-to her lover, "Bee what is following me." The man, or he might better be-called the woman, gave one look behind, then fled without saying a word, and abandoned his love to a lioness that had been tracking her all the way from the douar. The morning dawned again-, but the girl never came back to her lather's tent.

Fallen Majesty. —Eagles are subject to diseases, flesh, bone, and blood, just like the veriest poultry that die to croup and consumption on the dunghill before the byre door. Sickness blinds the eye* that God framed to pierce^t])e sun., and weakens the wing that dallies with the tempest. Then the eagle ieels how vain is the doctrine "of" the divine right of kings. He is hawked at by the mousing owl, whose instinct in-, structs him that these talons have lost their graso and the pinions their death-blow. The eagle lies for weeks famishing in his eyrie, and hunger driven over the ledge, leaves it to ascend no more. He is dethroned and wasted to mere bones—a bunch of feathers; his flight is now slower than that of the buzzard; he floats himself,, along now from knoll to knoll, pursued by the shrieking magpies, buffetted by the corby, and lying on his back, like a recreant, before the beak of the raven, who a month ago, was terrified to hop round the carcase till the king of the air was satiated, and gave his permission to croaking sooty to dig into the bowels he himself had scorned. Yet he is a noble aim to the fowler still; you break a wing and a leg, and fear to touch him with your hand : your dog feels the iron clutch of his talons constricted in the death pang, and holding him up, you wonder that such an anatomy —rfor his weight is not more than three poundscould drive his claws through that shaggy hide till blood sprung to the blow.—Christopher■■NGiih in Ms Sporting jacket. To add in a single year (o the fleet twenty-six large vessels, of which fifteen are line-of-battle ships, is an extraordinary exertion which England is alone capable of making, and which could not be executed by the dockyards of all the other powers of the old and new world, were they even lo combine their efforts.— Journal dcs Dcbc'ts. Chloroform. —Whatever dread a person may at first feel to inhale a dose of chloroform nearly always vanish?s with the first trial. Our consciousness is always destroyed in natural sleep, and we voluntarily 'yield- ourselves up to it night after night without compunction or regret. The only real difference between this and ancesthetie sleep is that we yield ourselves up to the former to cure corporeal fatigue, and that experience has made us so familiar with it that we resign ourselves confidently to its embraces; to the latter we submjt for relief from physical pain; but in default of experience, we dread to do so. The objection /that chloroform has produced and may again, produce, death, is by far the most valid, and one which demands the gravest consideration. It must be remembered, however, that when we hear from time to time about fatal cases, no mention is made of trip thousands of instances in which chloroform is constantly giving with impunity and with the happiest results. The unitia'cd may be led to suppose that it is sekkm given ; and when it is, only at considerable hazard. The truth is, that this agent has .been administered in Europe and America probably hundreds of thousands of times, and the reputed deaths collected from all these quarters are very little over half a hundred. Although used most extensively to abate the pangs of -maternity, there Has not in these cases been a single death recorded when the agent was administered by a qualified medical man. It may, we think, be affirmed without exaggeration that every one who starts on a railway journal encounters an almost unequal risk; and the proportionate number of. accidents which occur from sea-bathing 'and skating are annually greater. The danger, indeed, of inhaling chloroform is"fractional, while the benefit- it confers on humanity is incalculable. The science of anaesthetics 13 yet young. IJVit'.er experience will probably still further diminish the slight risk -which anaesthesia entails.— Household Words. Blarriage Extraordinary. —A bridal party were assembled at the Roman Catholic Chapel. in Limerick, ready to take one another "for better or for worse," but the gay Lothario could not screw up his courage, to the sticking point, and when asked if he was willing to-take the lady as his wedded wife he became absolutely tongue-tied. Meanwhile the lady, who before blushed with modesty, now crimsoned with indignation; but the would-be Benedict put into her hand a £%Q note as a reparation to

her. wounded feelings. Sensibly enough | she took the money, and thinking it a pity that she should be "disappointed, and knowing that no time was to be lost,, as it was the last day of Shrovetide, sho turned off from the fickle swain, and'asked a young' man who had come to witness the ceremony and with whom she had been previously acquainted, if he would have .her.. He jumped at the proposal, and the necessary forms having gone through the marriage rites were completed. On the conclusion of the ceremony, ihe newly-made bride took from her pocket £200, and handed it and the £20 to her new lord and master, 'to the' amazement and chagrin of her former suitor, who, it would appear, " founded his proposal" on a rpnort that ihe lady had money, and backetl out of it at the last moment, not seeing it forthcoming before marriage. To inerense his trouble, the now happy fair one exclaimed, "Ah, you lost, a bai'gin !" London Bridge. —Every one familiar with the travHc over London-bridge is awaro of the gorged appearance which that great thoroughfare presents at certain hours of the day. Though tbo police arrangements for the sepaistion of the last and slow traffic into lines of continuous vehicles, are most admirable, it is found impossible to prevent occasional 'J blocks," —rthe mm.'b t of vehicles which concentrate upon that point of crossing between the two sides of tiie Tliatr.cs being so enormous. Arit^met'cal figure s can s>\ve only a-faint idea of the magnitude o(" this traffic*; but. it msv be mentioned that upwards of GO,OCO foot passengers and 13,000 \ chicles cross the bridge d;ii'y bftween eight a.m. and oio'ht P.i:>. A'ho aspect which the b,"i('c;c p;events- b-i.'twcen ten ana eleven in the morning, and four and five in the afternoon, is especially remarkable. Dur- ! ing each' of-these two hours there pass before the eyes of a spectator stationed on the bridge, about 7,000. persons on i'oot, and 1,800 vehicles of all sorts,—a traffic unequaled in any other thoroughfare in the world.— Builder. A Highlander, who sold brooms, went into a barber's shop in Glasgow to get shaved. The barber bought one of his brooms, and having shaved him, asked the price of it. " Tippence," said the Highlander. " No, no," said the shaver, I'll give you a penny, and.if that does riot satisfy you, take your broom again." The Highlander took ir, and asked what he had to pay. "A penny," says Strap. " I'll gie ye a bawbee," says Duncan, " and if that dinna satisfy ye, pit on my beard again." At a table d'hote at Hamburgh, a"true cockney, who spoke nothing but English, was seated next to a German lady, who did not speak it at all. Handing her a plate of peaches, he,said f ," Have a peach, mann ?" "Nein," (no) replied the lady. "Nino!" said he, staring with astonishment, first at her, and then at the other guests at the table. "."Why,, marm, there is only six in the dish; but there they are for you," at the same time rolling the whole upon her plate. Why'is a.bed-covpr like a blister ?v; Because it's a counterpane (counterpain). Dean Swift proposed to tax iemale beauty, and to leave every lady to rate her own charms. He said the tax would be cheerfully paid, and be very productive. Everything, moralises an American contemporary, must have altered very muchin a short time. Only a few -yeaVs since, General Jackson, being seated between two ladies, said he felt like a thorn surrounded by roses. President Buchanan said a few days ago, while riding in an omnibus, and being seated between two ladies, he felt like a stave in a hogshead, surrounded by hoops.

As the mail train due at Newcastle-on-Tyne, about Go' clock on the 31st of May, was backing into the York station, a five was discovered by the pointsman in the tender which accompanies the travelling post-office. An alarm being given, the guard in charge instantly rushed into the midst of the fire, ( guided by his coadjutor, and subdued the flames. The amount of damage to letters and papers1 is reported to be considerable; but the Newcastle letters escaped.— Home Iseivs, June 18. In appreciation of the strong interest taken in the completion of the Great Eastern, the directors availed themselves of Whit Monday and Tuesday, the 7 3th and 13th of June, to admit shareholders and the public. Under the present management considerable progress has been made, an:] it is expected that the vessel will be ready for sea in August.— Home News, June 18. A short time ago a torn tit commenced building its nest in the' letter-box at the sub post-office at Hprstead Keyncs, a village near 'East Grinstead. The postmistress soon ejected this intruder, and re r moved the nest materials from the box, but the courageous bird was not to be put aside from its purpose, for it again entered by the aperture, and again began to build. Its perseverance this lime ,was rewarded, for it was determined that, provided this resolute tenant did not mind the annoyance it would be subjected to in such an abode, it might be allowed to carry on its work. Well, the nest is completed, and three eggs have b:e.i already deposited. What makes this novelty still more novel is the fact that the letter-box is not fixed in the window as is usual, but is attached to.the office door, so that the box, nest, and all is swung to and fro every time the'door is. opened.— Home ffieivs, June 18. A respectable butcher of Stafford having lost several halters, was at a loss to account for the way in which they had been disposed cf. A few days ago, however, his wife hapening to go into the servant's bedroom, noticed a dress hanging up, presenting more than the ordinary appearance of fulness above the skirt, and upon examining it, she- found the missing halters, with the ends cut off, and the rope, neatly bound with calico, supplying the place of a steel hoop.— Home New^ June 18.

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