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 Arrica, 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 mincs are those of Victoria and New South 
Wales. Victoria yielded, in 1856, 3,000,000 ounces, and in 1875, 1,195,- 
200 ; 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 
old. . 
‘ 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 aftcr 
before each stream in succession, north and south, aiong 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 (80 miles south of Crescent City) 
tothe Umpqua. What once was Rogue River is now called Gold River. 
In Colorado, gold mines occur in Gilpin County, and much less pic- 
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 (see p. 123), in 1875, gold 
‘o the amount of about $11,740,000, and the rest of Nevada, $2,256,000. 
