GOLD NUGGETS. 



267 



the Kum Tow, 718 ounces, and the Needful, 247 

 ounces. The following year one of 477 ounces was 

 found there. The Viscount and Viscountess Can- 

 terbury also came from Berlin. The latter weighed 

 884 ounces. They were found in 1809. In the 

 same year, one of 893 ounces was discovered at 

 Berlin, and in 1870 one of 890 ounces, and in 1872 

 was found the Crescent, 179 ounces. 



The Heron, a solid lump of gold, weighing 1,008 

 ounces, worth $20,400, was found near Old Golden 

 Point, Fryer's Creek, Mount Alexander, where also 

 nuggets of 264 ounces, 22 ounces, and 84 ounces had 

 been found. The Victorian nugget was found in 

 1852 in White Horse Gully, Sandhurst; it weighed 

 340 ounces. Parliament bought it for $8,250 and 

 presented it to the Queen. In the same hole also, 

 in 1852, was found a nugget of 573 ounces, valued 

 at $10,500, and near by, imbedded a foot deep in 

 gravel, the Dascombe nugget was found in the same 

 year. Robinson Crusoe Gully, Sandhurst, yielded 

 a nugget of 377 ounces 6 pennyweights. Also at 

 Sandhurst, in 1852, one of 288 ounces was found. 

 Another Australian nugget was presented to the 

 Queen in 1858. It weighed 146 pounds. 



In West Australia, in 1899, a singular nugget of 

 100 pounds was found as the result of a vision. 

 A priest was told by a poor, devout parishioner that 

 he had miraculously learned of the whereabouts of 

 the nugget. He followed the directions and dug 

 up a lump of gold which from its shape he named 

 the " Sacred and Golden Sickle." 



Other Australian nuggets, with the place where 

 found and the year (when recorded), are the fol- 

 lowing: 



Daisy Hill (1855), at a depth of 3 feet, 715 

 ounces. 



Mclvor (1858), 658 ounces. 



Back Creek, Taradale, at a depth of 12 feet, 648 

 ounces. 



Mclvor (1855), 645 ounces. 



Midas mine, Cheswick (1887), the Lady Loch, 

 617 ounces. 



Yandoit, Castlemain (1860), value $10,000, 600 

 ounces. 



Ironback (1889), 461 ounces. 



Twisted Gum Tree, 408 ounces. 



Yandoit, Castlemain (1860), at a depth of 16 

 feet, 384 ounces. 



Mclvor (1857), 328 ounces. 



McCallum's Creek, 326 ounces 10 pennyweights. 



Jones's Creek (1856), 281 ounces. 



Daisy Hill (1856), 275 ounces 3 pennyweights 18 

 grains. 



Brown's Diggings (1856), 263 ounces 8 penny- 

 weights. 



Mount Blackwood (1855), found on the surface 

 of the ground, 240 ounces. 



Yandoit (I860), about 20 feet deep, 240 ounces. 



Mount Korong (1856), at a depth of 18 inches, 

 value $5,000, 235 ounces 13 pennyweights. 



Mount Korong (1854), 192 ounces. 



Bryant's Ranges (1854), 183 ounces 8 penny- 

 weights 12 grains. 



Tarrangower (1855), 180 ounces. 



Evans's Gully (1861), 153i ounces. 



Jones's Creek, Mount Moliagul (1855), 145 

 ounces 5 pennyweights. 



Cheswick Creek (1860), 144 ounces. 



Blackwood (1889), 142 ounces. 



Jones's Creek, Mount Moliagul (1855), 140 

 ounces. 



Rokewood, Break-of-Day claim (1898), 138 

 ounces. 



Jim Crow (1858), 136 ounces. 



Mount Korong, at a depth of 4J feet, 132 ounces 

 9 pennyweights. 



Blue'Gully (1898), 127 ounces. 



Mount Moliagul (1857), value $2,000, 104 ounces 

 8 pennyweights. 



Bokewood, 54 ounces. 



Five others were taken from Yandoit, the Lady 

 Brassey from the Midas mine, Cheswick, and small 

 nuggets to the amount of 80 ounces from Back 

 Creek, Taradale, and many others have been found 

 on various Australian gold fields, from 20 ounces to 

 200. 



Eldorado County was the scene of the first gold 

 discovery in California. A little nugget was found 

 by James W. Marshall and Peter Winner in 1848. 

 It was about the si/e of a Lima bean, but it excited 

 the whole country, and began that great stream of 

 emigration which flowed westward for several 

 years thereafter. In the beginning of California 

 prospecting, nuggets as large as eggs were often 

 found, and occasionally some twice that size. The 

 largest nugget California ever yielded weighed 

 80 pounds. Two drunken fellows were crossing the 

 Grizzly mountains to Camp Corona in 1854, when, 

 on the night of Nov. 17, a heavy rain fell. They 

 sought shelter in a deserted hut, but before morn- 

 ing the water carried them away, and one was 

 drowned. On the following morning, the other, 

 Oliver Martin, was beginning to dig a grave for his 

 companion when he unearthed the nugget. He se- 

 cured help, and carried it to Camp Corona, exhib- 

 ited it in various parts of the country, from which 

 he realized $10,000, and sold it for $22,700. Never 

 after that did Martin touch liquor, for the fortu- 

 nate escape and the fortunate find seemed to him 

 an act of Providence. With his providential capi- 

 tal he began businesslike mining, and when he 

 died, in New Orleans, he left more than a million 

 dollars. Eldorado County yielded not only the 

 first California nugget, but the first large one. 

 This weighed 121 ounces, and was dug from the 

 bank of American river in 1850. Also in 1850 was 

 found, in French Ravine, Calaveras County, a nug- 

 get of 263 ounces, worth $4,893. The same ravine, 

 in the year following, yielded one worth $8,000. 

 From the Sailor Diggings, Downieville, Eldorado 

 County, also in 1851, a party of English sailors 

 found a 31 -pound nugget, and several others from 

 5 to 15 pounds, which they exhibited in England. 



In 1852 a nugget of 45 pounds was found in Tuo- 

 lumne County. A consumptive friend of the 

 finder brought it East to exhibit it, and gave lec- 

 tures on mining in California. For a time the 

 miner failed to hear from him, when one day news 

 came of his death, and that the nugget was depos- 

 ited in a bank for the owner. It yielded $8,000 

 Avorth of gold. 



In 1853 a nugget of 330 ounces, worth $5,625, 

 was found at Columbus, Tuolumne County. 



In 1854, on Sullivan's Creek, Eldorado County, 

 one of 28 pounds, worth $7,168, was found. 



In 1855, French Ravine yielded one worth $10,- 

 000. 



In 1856, at Remington Hill, Nevada County, half 

 of a worn bowlder of gold quartz was found, 

 worth $4,672.50. Two years later a hired man en- 

 gaged at the mine suddenly told his employers he 

 was going to leave. One of them suspected that 

 the other half of the bowlder had come to light, so 

 mounted his horse and went in pursuit, to find hi* 

 surmise correct and return $4,430.75 the richer for 

 his ride. 



In 1858, a boy named Perkins, playing with a 

 toy water wheel in a worked-over mountain stream 

 in Calaveras County, came upon a nugget that 

 yielded $1,800. 



In 1859, near Butcher's Ranch, Placer County, 

 a nugget of 20 pounds brought the finder $3.264. 

 The same man in the same mine found, years later, 

 one of 147 ounces, worth $2,852. 



