290 TlMEHRI. 
a new field, he is liable to find it over-run by a crowd of 
followers who may appropriate all the best claims before 
he has an opportunity of reaping any adequate reward 
from his labours. It may be contended that such a con- 
tingency is met by the regulation which provides tha^ 
the discoverer of a new field shall be entitled to locate 
two placer claims before any other person shall locate 
any therein, but no practical miner will admit that the 
concession is anything but a delusive one, and for suffi- 
ciently obvious reasons the whole clause may be written 
off as a dead letter. 
As instancing the remunerative character of our sur- 
face workings, the Commissioner of Mines observes that 
" an income of $2,000 per annum may be easily obtained 
by the working of a single torn upon a claim giving a 
return of one ounce per day by the investment of a 
capital of six hundred dollars." This is by no means an 
exaggeration, as it is well-known that some of our very 
richest placers were established by an even smaller out- 
lay, but the statement must not be taken as implying a 
general rule, as he elsewhere states that *' scarcely any- 
thing in the line of legitimace prospecting as is done in 
other countries, or combination of interests, has ever 
been even attempted, the success of any enterprise being 
purely a matter of chance and not a certainty as it 
otherwise could and should be." 
Enough has been said to shew the prolific richness of 
our mineral fields of which it is no exaggeration to affirm 
that not the one-thousandth part has ever been explored, 
and that given proper precautions they present an open- 
ing for the profitable investments of capital unexcelled 
by any country in the world 
