Dec. 13, 1859.] ON BRITISH COLUMBIA. 37 



should be regarded as one of the most important in the globe. Our fellow- 

 member, James Macqueen, so well J^nown by his African labours, had been 

 long devoted to this object. 



He would mention as bearing on this subject that Captain W. Kennedy, the 

 commander of one of the late Arctic expeditions, who was partly an Indian by 

 birth, had since the last meeting left England for the express purpose of forming, 

 in conjunction with one of the chiefs, of excellent probity and character, a 

 civilized Indian settlement near the Lake of the Woods, and on the probable 

 line of route. It well deserved all the support and encouragement which could 

 be given to it. 



Mr. John Crawfurd, f.r.g.s., would not recommend anybody to go particu- 

 larly to New Columbia for gold-digging. He should not like to take up a resi- 

 dence there himself in preference to many other places in America and Australia. 

 With regard to the San Juan difficulty, it was monstrous to suppose that two 

 countries, having millions of square miles of land at their disposal, and bound 

 together by such ties as those of America and England, should go to war about 

 that paltry little island. They were respectively bound, moreover, under a 

 penalty of 20,000,OOOZ. per annum to keep the peace : 20,000,000?. worth of 

 American cotton, tobacco, and corn, came to England every year, and 

 20,000,000?. worth of English manufactures went to America. It was ridi- 

 culous, therefore, to suppose that war would result from the little unpleasant- 

 ness that had arisen about a small island. He did not agree with Dr. Hodgkin 

 about the volunteer question. He thought the movement an excellent one, 

 and would observe that they did not owe it to the Government but to the 

 press of the country, and especially to the Times newspaper : in fact, it 

 might be said that the press had done it all. He believed the whole of the 

 gold yearly produced by New Columbia was not more than half a million 

 sterling — the twenty-fourth part of what Australia had been yielding for the 

 last eight or ten years. It was not that gold did not abound in New 

 Columbia, for there was not the least doubt but that it did, over very 

 extensive fields rich in yield ; there were however physical and he hoped only 

 temporary obstacles to its cheap production. At the commencement of the 

 Californian and Australian gold discoveries many people were in terror that 

 we would be ruined by the influx of gold — injured by too much gold ; but 

 the fact was, that although gold and silver had been added to our previous 

 supply to the yearly amount of some 50,000,000?., it had produced no dimi- 

 nution whatever in the value of the precious metals, while commerce had 

 been vastly promoted by it. In reality, the new supply was so much capital 

 added to the previous capital of the world. And it was worthy of remark 

 that silver had kept pace with gold, so that there was no relative disproportion 

 in the value of the two metals, and this was principally owing to the discover}'- 

 of quicksilver mines in California, upon the price of which the productiveness 

 of the mines of silver always depended. 



The Chairman said that many years ago he had ventured to express the 

 opinion in various writings, and in a lecture delivered at the Koyal Institution, 

 that there need be no apprehension of having too much of a good thing, by the 

 discoveries of enormous accumulations of gold ; and the result up to the 

 present time seemed to have proved the opinion to have been sound. 



