STRIKING IT RICH.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LX, Issue 17065, 18 August 1917, Page 5

STRIKING IT RICH.

FORTUNES MADE IN A SINGLE BAY.

One of the commonest scenes of't'qa picture palace is a sudden and delirious strike of gold. AYe see the poor prospector leave his log hut with pick and N shovel, dejected and harassed and almost hopeless, leaving his wife perhaps with I a sick child r . Then we see him hacking away at the rock. There is a fall. He pounces eagerly upon a fallen fragment and we see his lips frame the word —die magic word—"Gold!" J

It is a scene quite true to life. It has happened many a time. The distance between poverty.and wealth beyond the dreams of avarice is but a step. In fact, most big goldfields havebeen discovered by accident. One day in the sunimer of 1896' four persons were going up the bed1 of a creek in the rar North-West of Canada. The party consisted of a white man, half trapper, nali prospector, his Indian squaw, and iier two brothers. Every now and then they stopped to prospect, the woman cashing the "dirt." At last came the time when, ai'er a thousand blanks, the prize came. Among the gravel left at the bottom of -the pan tva» several pounds' worth of gold. Chey all pegged out claims, and there was soon a mining camp of several hundred men, who worked until the following spring. It was then known to all f.be world that thh was the biggest find of all alluvial gold since the days of California and Australia.

Then the trek to the Klondike took place. Aristocratic, democratic, saint and sinner, "cook's son, duke's son," all fip.t their faces up the long trail, and the Chilcoot Pass was strewn with the mari/yrs of gold. But since that Indian squaw's first rich strike the region has yielded £50,000,000 worth of the yellowmetal for which men and women sen their souls.

Nuggets are the delight of the minor's heart. The famous Hill End..n\i fe . get, found in 1872 in New South Wales, was 4ft. 9in. in length, 3ft. 3in. <n width, and about 3in."in thickness. It weighed over 600fb. and was worm £30,000.

It is a fact that the man who found it had not his lodging money at tn« time. He was absolutely penniless. A prospecting miner, disgusted witn a bad season, set off homeward. On the way he stumbled over a boulder half buried in the'sand. He chipped oft »• fragment which showed gold underneath. That boulder weighed 20,00u tons. Tt yielded 81b., to 121b. a ton. ana the bio- stone -panned out eventually at £270,000. That was striking it ver.y rich.