ever collected in any spot on the surface of the globe. Californian Indians, with their gay costume in gaudy mimicry of the old nobility of Castile; rough American adventurers, lawyers, merchants, farmers, artisans, professional men, and mechanics of all descriptions, thronged into the scene. Among them were conspicuous a few ancient Spanish dons in embroidered blue and crimson clothes, that in their own country had been out of fashion for forty years. A few gentlemen, and numbers of women, were among the delvers; while, after some months had elapsed, even China opened her gates to let out some adventurous house-builders, who took junks at Canton, sailed across ten thousand miles of sea, arrived at San Francisco, and there betook themselves to their calling, and made large fortunes by the construction of light portable buildings for the use of the gold-finders in the hot and populous valley.

Within eighteen months, 100,000 men arrived in California from the United States, and settled temporarily in the valley; though, after a short period, the return steamers were as well laden with life as the others. Nine thousand immense wagons came through the pass of the Rocky Mountains, with an average of five persons to each vehicle; 4000 emigrants rode on horseback through the same route; and of the others, many crossed the Isthmus of Panama, where the passengers were sometimes so impatient, that the government packets were pressed into their service, and compelled to start on their voyage before the arrival of the mails. Others made the sea-voyage of 17,000 miles round Cape Horn. In a New York paper, sixty sail of ships were advertised to sail for the gold region in one day. The route by the emigrant trail was at first one of the utmost weariness and peril. The road, rough and broken as it was, was thronged with an almost perpetual stream of caravans ; whole armies appeared to be marching to the gold regions; and each of these, as it passed, opened an easier way to its successor by levelling the mounds, throwing bridges across the water-chasms, filling up ravines, and hewing shorter routes through the woods. Yet numbers fell by the way, and died of hunger, or thirst, or sheer fatigue, though many were relieved at the settlement of the Mormon Saints, on the shores of the Great Salt Lake.

Arrived at their destination, their first care was to provide themselves, if not already prepared, with implements-pots, kettles, crowbars, colanders, baskets, and cradles. These and other instruments, various and multiplied, constituted the wealth of the gold-seeker. The towns on the coast were in a continual bustle; every remnant of their population was engaged in working at high rates of remuneration to supply the wants of new-comers. Captains were compelled to handcuff their men, to prevent their yielding to the attraction of the magnetic mineral lying in the valley. Labourers could only be induced to remain with their employers for a week or two at ten dollars a day; carpenters and blacksmiths were paid with a daily

ounce of pure gold: laundresses received about thirty-five shillings for every dozen of articles they washed; cooks commanded thirty guineas a month; and houses recently bought for a barrel of 'strong water,' sold for 20,000 dollars. One speculator spent £45,000 on the erection of a three-story frame hotel, and immediately found a tenant, who paid him 20 per cent. on the outlay, and let some of the rooms, each at the rate of 400 dollars a month, for gambling purposes. The whole place was a theatre of excitement, and in the delirium of the mania, persons even far removed from the scene of enthusiasm committed acts of the utmost folly. They shipped whole cargoes of fine calicoes and rich silks to a land where there was hardly a female population at all; they transported immense consignments of costly furniture to towns where the habitations were mere mud hovels or timber-frames; they brought in one mass tobacco enough for several years' consumption; paper, which, as the Americans said, 'the stupendous wastefulness and extravagance of all the Congresses since the Union could not have consumed since the Declaration ;' and a number of magnificent pianofortes, which sold for their value as cupboards!

Yet the prices paid for merchandise and commodities really wanted were extraordinary: blankets at eight guineas each, fresh water at a shilling a bucket. Wines and liquors were consumed in profusion, though to be procured only for extravagant sums. Golddust, doubloons, and dollars were the only money accepted; and a traveller has declared that many of the miners flung away showers of small coins, rather than be troubled with the possession of them! But this feverish fit, like all other paroxysms, was temporary, though, while it lasted, San Francisco was worthy to be the capital of a gold region. In the cafés, you were charged, for a small slice of ham, two eggs, and a cup of coffee, twelve shillings; and all other provisions sold at equal rates. Powder was very costly, and yet intoxicated men rushed through the streets discharging guns, pistols, and revolvers, through mere recklessness; while others, mounted on horses hired at several guineas a day, galloped wildly without purpose along the beach. The whole town was a Babel, and in its outskirts the scene was no less confused, and still more picturesque. A vast camp stretched around it, and along the shore, to a considerable distance on either side. Tents of all sizes, shapes, and colours crowded the mist-covered hills, and piles of merchandise obstructed the passages between. Immense fires burned in all directions, and uncouth groups were busy round them, engaged in the various processes of cooking or preparing their clothes, arms, implements, or equipage for the journey to the valley of the Sacramento. Such is a sketch of the gateway of this region as it appeared under its new aspect in 1848.

The early processes of gold-finding at California may now be described. The gold flakes were found impregnating the sand or

shingle, either actually below water, or left dry by the absorption or diversion of some current from the hills; though in the gullies and ravines large lumps were plentifully discovered in the crevices of rocks, in cracks in the ground, or among the roots of trees. The sand in the streams was usually worth, in the gross, from one to two shillings a poundweight. The soil was composed largely of gravel, full of small stones like jasper, fragments of slate, and chips of basalt, evidently washed down from the mountains. At first, the simplest method was employed to collect it. Tubs, pails, and tin pans were filled with mud and water, which was rapidly stirred, allowed to settle for a moment, and then poured off, leaving the heavy portion precipitated to the bottom. This was found a tedious and incomplete process. Sieves of woven willow-twigs were next tried, and for the same reason abandoned by all who could procure more serviceable utensils. Some ingenious miner invented the 'rocker,' a wooden cradle raised more at one end than at the other, and thus forming an incline. Across the bottom are nailed some broad laths, and over the top is placed a grating or perforated plate of tin. Some are small, and worked by one man, who first piles the auriferous earth on the upper tray, and then with one hand rocks the machine, while with the other he bales water into it with a tin pan. Some of them, however, occupy four men, whose division of labour is complete: one with a suitable spade shovels the earth into his pans; the next carries it to the cradle, and flings it heavily on the close grating; the third rocks the machine; and the fourth continually pours water upon the mass inside. A heavy sediment, rich in gold, is left at the bottom, while all the light substances are washed away. In the upper districts, the gold was principally found in the bed or dry beds of mountain torrents, between rocky and precipitous channels, in a yellowish-red soil. The finer dust was found in the lower region, the rough lumps in the more elevated. Massive pieces were discovered only in the upper country.

The scenes presented in the gold region by the busy multitude toiling in it were thus described at that period: 'In one spot may be seen a party of newly arrived emigrants, each armed with a shovel, a tin pan, a sieve, or a colander, and all standing in the water scooping up the sand into buckets, stirring the contents with their bare arms, and watching the result with glistening eyes, as the water is poured off, and the precious sediment revealed; in another, men are busy in collecting the gold-dust, after passing through the first rough process of cleansing, in small, closely woven baskets of Indian manufacture, which are arranged on the ground in the full glare of the sun; in another, a large party is labouring with the immense rockers-or gold-canoes, as the Indians term them— gravely, as though accustomed to their task; in another, scattered individuals are groping with knives, crowbars, and even common sticks, in the dry ravines, expecting by this desultory labour to earn No. 51.

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more by picking up small masses of pure ore than by industriously toiling amid the sands; in another, the miners are spreading their shining stores to dry on pieces of canvas; while everywhere multitudes of men, in all varieties of costume, and collected from all quarters of the world, maintain an incessant motion and hum, suggesting the idea of some colony of gigantic ants engaged in collecting the materials for their dwellings.'

Many adventurous dealers established stores or improvised shops at the diggings in the following way: In front was placed a large awning, with a barrel set upright at each corner. Four broad planks formed convenient counters on each side, and on these were displayed the articles for sale. The miners, clad in greasy deerskin pantaloons, and red hunting-shirts-the common costume in the diggings-came to the store, and produced, from the folds of a sash or handkerchief, leathern pouches full of gold scales, which they shook into the balance to the amount demanded. Some of the dust often fell on the board, and the storekeepers volunteered to return it; but unless it was a large quantity, the general [answer was: 'No; keep it: there's plenty more where that came from.' One man came to them for a bottle of brandy, and bought it for half an ounce of gold-powder, inviting the Americans to drink with him. They declined; he insisted, and they still refused; when he dashed the bottle to shivers against a tree, and went on with other purchases.

The gains amassed by the miners were regulated partly by the shrewdness of the individual in the choice of his locality, and partly by accident. Some collected gold at the rate of half an ounce, others of an ounce, a day; while there were instances of a thousand dollars per man per day. Some of the miners were accustomed to toil incessantly for a long period, and then, assembling near some well-provided store, to spend most of their gains in one extravagant fit of luxury, when they returned to their labour, to renew the feast as soon as new treasure had been accumulated. They spread an awning overhead, supplied themselves with brandy, champagne, and choice provisions, ate and drank_to_repletion; and when satiated with the costly indulgence, rushed out among the tents with brandished knives or rifles, shooting at any mark they fancied. But worse than mere reckless squandering occurred. Many of the men were desperadoes, and their success was distributed unequally. Here at once was a source of disorganisation. The unfortunate envied the prosperous, and these suspected all others. Partnerships were formed in sanguine hope, and broken off in bitter distrust.

To what extent the gold-workings of California have been carried on in subsequent years, we shall notice in a later page. At present, we dwell only on the extraordinary scenes of excitement which the first year or two of the discovery presented. And now it will be

interesting to trace the production of scenes very similar in character, in a wholly distinct part of the world.

GOLD-FEVER IN AUSTRALIA.

Every one knows that Australia is a great squarish-shaped island, or rather continent, in the southern hemisphere, about 2000 miles across from north to south, and 2500 from east to west, with the tropic of Capricorn running through the middle of it, so that its northern coasts reach within II degrees of the equator. Along its eastern side there runs a band of mountainous country, from Cape York on the north, to Wilson's Promontory on the south. These mountains rise 6500 feet in a part called the Australian Alps, or Snowy Mountains, in about south latitude 36°, and this is the loftiest point at present known in the country. There are numerous summits rising 4000 feet all along the course of the chain as far north as Cape Melville, near south latitude 14°, beyond which it gradually declines in height and importance. In the colony of Victoria are several short ranges of mountains, fifty miles long or so, running north and south, and rising 3000 or 4000 feet above the The great eastern chain is very largely composed of granite, which forms some of its most lofty and massive mountain groups, and often appears in the beds of its ravines beneath the other rocks. On the granite rest great but irregular masses of gneiss, mica-slate, chlorite-slate, clay-slate, and other metamorphic rocks. These are frequently traversed by granitic dikes and veins, as also by large intrusive masses of granite, syenite, porphyry, greenstone, and other similar igneous rocks. Upon this metamorphic set of rocks rest here and there large and regularly stratified sheets of unaltered rocks, principally sandstone, with interstratified beds of shale, and some beds of limestone. These rocks are full of fossils, resembling those found in the Devonian and Silurian rocks of Western Europe; and among the mineral treasures contained in them, gold is now known to be one.

sea.

The discovery of gold in Australia, like that of California, was reserved for an individual who proceeded upon no scientific view of the subject. Mr Edward Hargreaves, having had a farm on the flanks of the Conobolas, some thirty miles west of Bathurst, in New South Wales, went to California in search of gold. While there, he was struck with the similarity between the rocks and earthy matters of California and those of his own district. He returned, accordingly, to Australia, 'prospected' in his own neighbourhood, and after one or two months' search (April 1851), found some gold. Being assured of the valuable nature of his discovery, Mr Hargreaves applied to the colonial government for reward; and on his report being verified by Mr Stutchbury, the colonial geologist, Mr Hargreaves was rewarded by a bonus of £500, and an appointment as 'Commissioner of Crown Lands for the Exploration of Gold Districts.'