discoveries of Grold in Nova Scotia. 421 



auriferous iron pyrites. Mr. Poole has also found at Tangier, in 

 quartz veins similar to those containing the gold, small quanti- 

 ties of arsenical pyrites (Mispickel). No other metallic mineral 

 has hitherto, in so far as I am aware, been discovered ; though the 

 analogy of other gold regions would suggest the probability that 

 others may occur. * 



The Hon. Mr. Howe in an official report to the Lieutenant 

 Governor of Nova Scotia, thus notices the later history of the 

 Tangier *' diggings." 



" The discoveries made in 1860, your Excellency is aware, were 

 unimportant. Some hundreds of persons, tempted by rumors of 

 the existence of the precious metal, rushed into the woods near 

 the head waters of the Tangier, ten miles from the sea coast, and 

 proved the existence of gold, it is true, but in quantities so small, 

 and such a distance from the roads and navigation, as to promise 

 no return to the most industrious miner. The facts having been 

 investigated and made public, the excitement subsided, and the 

 people returned to their ordinary pursuits. 



" In March this year a man, stooping to drink at a brook,found a 

 piece of gold shining among the pebbles over which the stream 

 flowed. He picked it up, and searching found more. This was 

 about half a mile to the eastward of the debouchment of Tangier 

 River, a stream of no great magnitude, taking its rise not very 

 far from the sources of the Musquodoboit, flowing through a 

 chain of lakes which drain, for many miles on either side, a 

 rugged and wilderness country, and falling into the Atlantic 

 about 40 miles to the eastward of Halifax. 



'* The locality was most favourable for mining operations, being 

 within half a mile of navigation, and surrounded by a hardy pop- 

 ulation engaged in the fisheries, whose small craft could readily 

 transport everything that the miners would require. 



" Though gold was brought to the capital in small quantities in 

 the spring, and some of it exhibited to the Legislature, nobody 

 was sanguine enough to believe that it could be obtained in suf- 

 ficient abundance to pay for the labor of industrious men, who 

 could earn from four to six shillings sterling per day at almost 

 any other employment. The feeling of the Legislature evidently 

 was, that what might prove a delusion and a snare ought not to 

 be over-estimated ; and that the Government should proceed with 

 caution, that the people might not be misled. 



" It was necessary to make some arrangements, however, as per* 



