31 2 The Scottish Naturalist. 



that Calvert's is, in this instance at least, the more correct ver- 

 sion ; and it follows that the calculation given must be divided by- 

 eighty, which will give a mere bagatelle of a gold-yield : for even 

 in current coin ;2^ 100,000 worth of gold in eighty years — or an 

 annual average of ^1550 — would be an insignificant yield, con- 

 sidering that the produce of the Sutherland diggings in 1869, in 

 a few months, from the surface-soil merely, was variously estimated 

 at p^i 2,000 to ;2^25,ooo, or that the gold export of our single col- 

 ony of New Zealand, in the year 1877, was i^ millions worth; 

 and considering, further, that neither in the case of Sutherland nor 

 New Zealand does the quantity reported to the authorities, as 

 exported or collected, represent more than a varying proportion 

 of the total actual yield. There is, on gold-fields of whatever size 

 and wherever situate, always much gold that gets into private 

 hands, much that is exported surreptitiously or illegally, without 

 payment of duty, or entry in the books of the Customs authorities 

 or of other public statisticians. 



The stamping-mills of Bowes and Bulmer appear to have been 

 facts ; and it is a legitimate inference tha.t they were used for crush- 

 ing auriferous quartz, and that this quartz was found in veins or 

 lodes in the Silurian slates. Unfortunately, however, the writings 

 of the Cottonian Reporter and of Atkinson contain what are 

 apparently very positive assertions, that no such veins have ever 

 been found in the Crawford district. 



In the first place, the Cottonian Reporter, according to Calvert 

 (p. 135), states that, though sometimes as many as 300 gold 

 gatherers were at work, and though the works had gone on in the 

 reigns of James IV. and James V. continuously for eighty years, 

 " yet by the people working for gold no veins of gold have been 

 found." Again, though adits of 120 fathoms in length or depth 

 were occasionally driven, " yet not any veins of gold have been 

 known to be found." Notwithstanding that veins of copper and 

 lead were come upon, " the workmen have not found a?iy known 

 veins of gold '^ Nevertheless he is perfectly sanguine as to the 

 existence of veins of gold in the district, and he gives at full 

 length six reasons or grounds for his belief. 



Were this series of papers in the ' Scottish Naturalist ' of a 

 historical or archaeological character, it would be interesting, and 

 even amusing, to discuss these reasons of the Cottonian Reporter, 

 illustrating, as they do, the curious mining lore of the day with 

 all its fables, and now to us unintelligible jargon. But our object 

 is to get at facts showing the nature of the gold -mining of thQ 



