discoveries of Gold in Nova Scotia, 423 



by mounted escorts ; and in the gambling hells of the larger 

 towns, the earnings of the successful are often dissipated in a 

 night. In Nova Scotia, gold mining, like everything else, has 

 developed itself in an orderly and law-abiding spirit. The im- 

 provised community at Tangier has been permitted to govern it- 

 self. There has been no resident magistrate or policemen, on 

 the ground, during the five months that the mines have been 

 worked. There has not been an act of violence, or a life lost, 

 hardly a blow struck. Two men detected stealing, were drummed 

 out of the settlement, and larceny is unknown. Men sleep and 

 work unarmed, leaving their property secure in their huts ; and 

 the roads are as safe in the neighbourhood of Tangier as in the 

 streets of Halifax." 



The discoveries at Tangier were followed by others in Musquo- 

 doboit, in Laurencetown, and in the vicinity of Halifax. Near 

 Lunenburg also, auriferous veins have been found, and at the lat- 

 ter place a curious and unusual kind of surface deposit has been 

 observed on the beach in front of the auriferous slates, an instance 

 of a gold alluvium actually in progress of formation under the 

 action of the waves. 



Still more recently similar discoveries have been made at and 

 near Wine Harbor, fifty miles east of Tangier. Specimens from 

 this place have been kindly forwarded to me by James Primrose, 

 Esq., of Pictou ; they are precisely of the same character with 

 those from Tangier, and appear to have been taken from a narrow 

 vein of white quartz in fine grained, glistening, black slate. The 

 following account of the discoveries at this place and the neigh- 

 bouring harbor is given in a letter accompanying the specimens. 



^' A fisherman and farmer residing at Indian Harbor and who 

 knew of the Tangier gold, has been prospecting in his own vici- 

 nity for about two years, and some weeks ago discovered an au- 

 riferous vein of quartz at the shore at Wine Harbor, a little 

 above and very near high water mark. There are no high lands 

 in the vicinity ; the surface is covered by a gravelly reddish 

 earth, in some places to the depth of five or six feet, and in others 

 the whin and slate rocks crop out at the surface. Where the first 

 discovery was made these rocks cropped out thus, showing a small 

 irregular vein of quartz which on trial proved auriferous. The 

 strike of the whin rock is pretty regularly south 63*^ east, and the 

 dip nearly vertical, sometimes inclining a little on either side of 

 the perpendicular. The shores both at Wine and Indian Harbor 



