234 GOLD 



coin called the guinea because it was made of gold from the 

 colony whose shores are washed by the Gulf of Guinea. 



The unhealthiness of the climate and the difficulties of 

 transport hindered exploration, so that, although alluvial gold 

 was worked, the rocks in which the gold veins were imbedded 

 remained untouched until about 1880, when a French trader 

 called attention to the presence of gold at Tarkwa in the west 

 of the colony. A railway has now been built from Sekondi, 

 on the coast, through Tarkwa, on to Kumasi, in Ashanti, and 

 the yield of gold from the colony is now considerable. 



In British Guiana, too, gold is found in the river gravels, 

 but, as in West Africa, the climate and dense vegetation have 

 hindered progress. 



Canada. 



1. British Columbia. In 1857 and 1858 gold was discovered 

 in the sands and gravels of the Fraser and Columbia Rivers, but 

 these early ' finds ' have been superseded by the quartz mines 

 of other districts, chiefly by those in the West Kootenay 

 district, and in the south of the province. Here the chief 

 mining town is Rossland, reached by rail over the Crow's 

 Nest Pass of the Rockies. 



2. Klondike. From 1886 onwards gold had been obtained 

 in the Yukon Valley, but it was not until ten years later that 

 miners, working their way up the various tributaries of the 

 main river, discovered the rich ' fields ' of Klondike. Then 

 ensued the usual rush, and in the desolate inhospitable waste 

 Dawson City arose. It stands at the junction of the Yukon 

 and Klondike Rivers. 



The average temperature for January in this district is 

 5 F., i. e. thirty-seven degrees of frost, and during the other 

 winter months the cold is not much less intense. Under these 

 circumstances the ground becomes as hard as cast-iron and 

 digging is an impossibility. After various experiments the 

 miners hit upon the following plan. They lit great fires 

 which thawed the ground under them, and, while the earth 

 was still soft, the men dug it out and piled it up, ready for 



