GOLD. 113 



sparingly in the rivers of Syria and other parts of Asia 

 Minor ; in Ceylon, China, Japan, Formosa, Java, Sumatra, 

 Western Borneo, the Philippines, and New Guinea. 



In Africa, at Kordofan, between Darfour and Abyssinia ; 

 also south of Sahara, in the western part of Africa, from 

 the Senegal to Cape Palmas ; also along the coast opposite 

 Madagascar, between the 22d and 35th degrees south lati- 

 tude, in the Transvaal Republic. Other regions are Tas- 

 mania, New Zealand, and New Caledonia. 



General Remarks. — The most productive gold regions at the present 

 time are those of Australia and California. 



In Australia the richest mines are those of Victoria and New South 

 Wales. Victoria yielded, in 1856, 3,000,000 ounces, and in 1875, 1,195,- 

 250 ; Australia, in 1875, 227,000 ounces. The Australian gold was 

 first made known to the world in 1851. The localities discovered 

 were on Summer Hill Creek and the Lewis Pond River (near lat. 33° 

 N., long. 149-150" E.), streams which run from the northern flank 

 of the Coriobolas down to the river Macquarie, a river flowing west- 

 ward and northward ; it was soon afterward found on the Turon 

 River, which rises in the Blue Mountains ; and finally a region of 

 country 1,000 miles in length, north and south, was proved to be 

 auriferous ; the country is a region of metamorphic rocks, granite and 

 slates, and in many parts abounds in quartz veins. Queensland and 

 South Australia, and also Tasmania and New Zealand, afford some 

 gold. 



The first discovery of gold in California was made early in the 

 spring of 1848, on the American Fork, a tributary to the Sacramento, 

 near the mouth of which Sutter's establishment was situated. Soon 

 Feather River, another affluent, 18 or 20 miles north, was also proved 

 to abound in gold about its upper portions ; and it was not long after 

 before each stream in succession, north and south, along the western 

 slope of the Sierra Nevada was found to flow over auriferous sands. 

 The gold as now developed extends along that chain, through the 

 whole length of the great north and south valley which holds the 

 rivers and plains of the Sacramento and San Joaquin. It continues 

 south nearly to the Tejon pass, in latitude 35°, and north beyond the 

 Shasta Mountains to the Umpqua, and less productively into Oregon 

 and Washington Territories, and in British Columbia. Gold also 

 occurs in some places in the coast range of mountains. Even the 

 very site of San Francisco has been found to contain traces. North 

 of Shasta Mountain there are important mines on the Klamath and 

 the Umpqua, and some of the best on the sea-shore between Gold 

 Bluff, in 41' 30 south of the Klamath (30 miles south of Crescent City) 

 to the Umpqua. What once was Rogue River is now called Gold River. 



In Colorado, gold mines occur in Gilpin County, and much less pro- 

 ductively in Clear Creek, Park, Boulder, Lake, Summit, and Southern 

 counties ; and the yield in 1874 amounted to $2,102,487, of which 

 $1,525,447 were from Gilpin County. 



Nevada produced from the Comstock lode (seep. 123), in 1875, gold 

 V> the amount of about $11,740,000, and the rest of Nevada, $2,256,000- 



