GOLD. 



" on the coast of California there is a plain, 

 14 leagues in extent, covered with an allu- 

 vial deposit, in which lumps of gold are dis- 

 persed," * it was only through the accidental 

 discovery of gold in cutting a mill-race, on 

 the river Americanos, that the attention of 

 the world was drawn to the enormous 

 quantities of the metal in question contained 

 in that countrv.f 



The gold produced in California in 1857 

 amounted to £13,110,000 ; in 1856 to 

 £14,000,000. 



Subsequently, however, to the re-discovery 

 of gold in California, public attention was 

 directed to Australia, where it had been 

 foretold by Sir R. Murchison that the metal 

 in question would, most probably, be found 

 in as large quantities and under the same 

 conditions as in Russia, California, and other 

 great gold-producing countries, which asser- 

 tion proved, on examination, to be correct. 

 The Legislative Council of New South 

 Wales voted a sum of £10,000 to Mr. Har- 

 greaves for his discovery of the gold region.J 



The quantity of gold exported from Aus- 

 tralia in 1857 amounted to £11,764,299. 



More recently auriferous deposits have 

 been discovered in Tasmania, and in British 

 Columbia. In the latter country paying 

 diggings have been found on the Fraser 

 River, extending from Fort Hope almost to 

 Fort Alexander, a continuous distance of 

 nearly 400 miles. 



(lold is stated, by Professor Hochstet- 

 ter, to be found in beds of quartz-gravel in 

 the rivers and creeks which flow down from 

 both sides of the Coromandel range in JMew 

 Zealand. 



Gold to the annual value of nearly three 

 millions sterling is obtained in Russia, 

 chiefly "from local detritus or alluvia, 



* Jamieson's Mineralogy, vol. iii. p. 13, 1816 



t A large portion of a vein ofCalifornian gold- 

 bearing Quartz, together wi h some richer frag- 

 ments of auriferous Quartz, from the Grass Val- 

 ley, Nevada cc, are contained in the entrance 

 hall cf the Museum of Practical Geology. 



The discovery of gold in New South Wales 

 was originally made by Count Strzelecki, but the 

 colonial government of that day kept the circum- 

 stance a secret, in the belief that the existence of 

 a gold-seeking population would lead to the de- 

 moralisation of the colony. 



J A model of the mines worked by the Clunes 

 Mining Co., and of the machines of the Port 

 Phillip Gold Mining Co., Victoria, as they ap- 

 peared in December, 1H58, will be found on the 

 Principal Floor of the Museum of Practical 

 Geolog}'. This model, constructed on a scale of 

 I of an inch to a foot, shows in a very instructive 

 manner the mode of occurrence of the gold-bear- 

 ing Quartz veins (or reefs, as they are called by 

 the miners), and the manner in v/hich they are 

 worked. 



GOLD. 159 



usually called 'gold-sand,' but for which (as 

 far as Russia is concerned) the term shingle 

 would be much more appropriate." — Sii- 

 M. I. Murchison. 



Of the above produce about half a million 

 sterling is obtained from the eastern flank 

 of the Ural, and the remainder, amounting 

 to considerably more than two milJions and 

 a quarter, from the governments of Tomsk 

 and Yeniseisk in Siberia.§ 



The quantity of gold extracted from the 

 gold mines of Eastern Siberia, in 1859, 

 amounted to upwards of 1134 poods (of 

 near 34 lbs each). This was 87 poods less 

 than in 1858. The number of companies 

 occupied in extracting gold was 160, and 

 there were employed 26,112 men and 572 

 women belonp;ing to the government of 

 Siberia, and 5081 men and 29 women from 

 Great Russia. The total number was nearly 

 5000 fewer than in the preceding year, and 

 the falling ofi^ was caused by the dearness 

 of provisions. The number of horses em- 

 ployed was 12,1^.— Irkutsk Gazette. 



The only work in the Ural Mountains at 

 which subterranean mining for gold in the 

 solid rock is still practised, is at Beresow, 

 where (according to Murchison) the matrix 

 IS "a mass of apparently metamorphosed 

 and crystalline rock, called ' beresite,^ resem- 

 bling a decomposed granite with veins of 

 quartz, in which some gold is disseminated." 

 At the Soimonofsk Mines, south of Miask, 

 the gold is obtained from the vast deposits 

 of ancient drift-gravel, or shingle, which 

 cover and fill up inequalities in the eroded 

 surface of highly inclined crystalline lime- 

 stones, supposed to be of Silurian or Devo- 

 nian age. 



In Europe the gold mines of Salzburg, 

 near Gastein, have been worked for cen- 

 turies, as have also those of Hungary and 

 Transylvania. In Hungary the principal 

 mines are those of Schemnitz, Kremnitz, 

 Felsobanya, Konigsberg and Telkebanya 

 to the south of Kaschau : in Transylvania 

 those of Vorospatak, Kapnik, Oftenbanya, 

 Zelatna and Nagy-ag. 

 Brit. Mus , Case 3. 



M.P.G. In Hall, a large mass of gold- 

 bearing Quartz from Grass Valley, Nevada 

 CO., California. Principal floor, Wall-cases 

 14 (British); 23 (Foreign); 37 (N. S. 

 Wales) ; 40 (Queen Charlotte's Island, N. 

 Pacific Ocean). Case II (Nuggets of Native 

 Gold and models of remarkable nuggets from 

 various diggings in Victoria and N. S. 

 Wales). 



§ See Mus. Pract. Geol., Wall-case 23. 



