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I have left myself but
small space or time to speak of that which, is undoubtedly the
mainspring of British Columbia— its immense and apparently inexhaustible
yield of gold. At starting, however, a few remarks upon the various
methods of working mining-claims at the gold-fields may be found of
interest to the general reader.
As a rule, picking up gold is a mere delusive figure of speech. It has
to be dug and worked for hardly, with primitive appliances often ;
sometimes with all the resources of modern mechanism. Before attempting
to describe shortly the various processes of extracting the precious
mineral, I may say that they all require the aid of water and, with rare
exceptions, quicksilver. It is the abundant natural supply of water that
gives British Columbia so great an advantage over California. The
country is, as I have before said, and as a glance at the map will show,
intersected in every direction by streams and rivers, while lakes of
various size abound, the majority of which may be easily adapted to the
purposes of mining. The very height of the hills also, which may be in
other respects a disadvantage, proves in this case of use to the miner
who can divert to his purpose the torrents which course down their
sides. In California the want of water has been much felt, and the
methods resorted to for meeting it illustrate as much as anything else
in that marvellous country the enterprise and spirit of the American
settler. In Grass Valley, Nevada county, one of the richest quartz
districts in California, which I visited in 1860, and where 40
steam-mills were then at work, every drop of water used had to be
brought by “flumes,” from a distance of more than 40 miles!
Quicksilver has as yet always been found to exist in gold countries.
California is abundantly supplied. It has been discovered in several
places in Columbia; but as yet it has been found cheaper to procure it
from California than to work it there.
In 1860 I made the tour of some of the richest diggings in California,
with the view of seeing the various appliances in use there. In
describing these various methods of gold working, I shall have to speak
of several not yet in use in Columbia; some of them, indeed, being but
newly introduced into California.
The first task of the miner attracted to a new gold country or district,
by the report of its wealth, is “prospecting.” For this purpose every
miner, however light his equipment may otherwise be, carries with him a
“pan” and a small quantity of quicksilver; the latter to be used only
where the gold is very fine. Very little experience enables a miner to
detect that “colour” of the earth which indicates the presence of the
metallic sand in which gold is found. Wherever, as he travels through
the new country, he sees this, he stops at once to wash a pan of dirt,
and thus test its value. Although many diggings are found away from the
bank of a stream, the river-sides are the places where gold is generally
first looked for and worked. In saying this, of course I [except the
gold in quartz, of which I shall have to speak hereafter. The spots
first searched are generally those upon the bank of a river where the
deposit consists of a thick, stiff mud or clay, with stones. In some
cases this is covered with sand, so that the surface has to be removed
before the “pay dust” is revealed. All these workings on river-banks are
called “bars,” and are usually named after the prospecter, or from some
incident connected with their discovery.
When the Prospecter conies to dirt which looks as if it would pay, he
unslings his pan from his hack, and proceeds to test it. This he effects
by filling his pan with the earth, then squatting on the edge of the
stream, he takes it by the rim, dipping it in the water, and giving it a
kind of rotary motion stirring and kneading the contents occasionally
until the whole is completely moistened. The larger stones are then
thrown out, the edge of the pan canted upwards, and a continual flow of
water made to pass through it until, the lighter portion of its contents
being washed away, nothing but a few pebbles and specks of black
metallic sand are left, among which the gold, if there is any, will be
found. The rotary movement, by which the heavier pebbles and bits of
gold are kept in the centre of the pan, and the lighter earth allowed to
pass over its edge, requires considerable practice, and an unskilful
prospector will perhaps pass by a place as not being worth working that
an experienced hand will recognise as very rich. The specific gravity of
the black sand being nearly equal to that of the gold, while wet they
cannot be at once separated, and the nuggets, if any, being taken out,
the pan is laid in the sun or by a fire to dry. When dry the lighter
particles of sand are blown away; or if the gold is very fine it is
amalgamated with quicksilver. The miners know by practice how much gold
in a pan will constitute a rich digging, and they usually express the
value of the earth as “ 5/’ “ 10,” or “ 15 cent dirt,” meaning that each
pan so washed will yield so much in money. Panning, it may be remarked,
never gives the full value of the dirt, as may be imagined from the
roughness of the process. If the gold should be in flakes, a good deal
is likely to be lost in the process, as it will not then sink readily to
the bottom of the pan, and is more likely to be washed away with the
sand. In panning, as well as, indeed, in all the other primitive
processes of washing gold, the superior specific gravity of this metal
over others, except platinum, is the basis of operations; all depending
Aon its settling at the bottom of whatever vessel may chance to be used.
The “pan” is hardly ever used except for prospecting, so that the
“rocker” or “cradle” may be described as the most primitive appliance
used in gold-washing. In the winter of 1859, when I first went up the
Fraser, the rocker was the general machine—the use of sluices not having
then begun. It was used in California as early as 1S4S, being-formed
rudely of logs, or the trunk of a tree. And yet, ungainly as they were,
they commanded, before saw-mills were established in the country,
enormous prices.
The rocker, then, consists of a box 34 to 4 feet long, about 2 feet
wide, and 14 deep. The top and one end of this box are open, and at the
lower end the sides slope gradually until they reach the bottom. At its
head is attached a closely-jointed box with a sheet-iron bottom, pierced
with holes sufficiently large to allow pebbles to pass through. This
machine is provided with rockers like a child’s cradle, while within
cleets are placed to arrest the gold in its passage. One of the miners
then, the cradle being placed by the water’s edge, feeds it with earth,
while another rocks and supplies it with water. The dirt to be washed is
thrown into the upper iron box, and a continual stream of water
being-poured in, it is disintegrated, the gold and pebbles passing-down
to the bottom, where the water is allowed to carry the stones away, and
the cleets arrest the precious metal.
'When the gold is very fine I have seen a piece of cloth laid along the
bottom box, covered with quicksilver to arrest the gold. When a party of
miners work with rockers, they divide the labour of rocking, carrying
water, if necessary, and digging equally among themselves. The rocker is
the only apparatus that can be at all successfully worked singlehanded;
and rough as it appears and really is, I have seen men make 30 to 50
dollars a day with it, while far greater sums have been known to be
realized by it. In these remarks I have assumed that my readers
generally are aware that quicksilver arrests whatever gold passes over
it, and, forming an amalgam with it, retains it until it is retorted
from it. In washing gold, quicksilver has to be used always, except
where the mineral is found very large and coarse. Even then the earth is
generally made to pass over some quicksilver before it escapes
altogether, in order to preserve the finer particles. I may here mention
that in a “sluice” of ordinary size 40 or 50 lbs. of quicksilver are
used daily; in a rocker perhaps 8 or 10 lbs. Of course the same
quicksilver can be used over and over again when the gold has been
retorted from it.
The first improvement on the “Rocker” was by the use of a machine called
the “Long Tom.” This, though common enough in California, I never saw
used in British Columbia. It consists of a shallow trough, from 10 to 20
feet long, and 16 inches to 2 feet wide. One end is slightly turned up,
shod with iron, and perforated like the sieve of a rocker. The trough is
placed at an incline, sieve-end downwards. A stream of water is turned
into the upper end of the Tom, and several hands supply it with earth,
which finds its way to the sieve, carrying along with it the gold, which
it washes or disintegrates in its passage. Immediately beneath the sieve
a box is placed, in which are nailed cleets, or as they are more
generally termed “Riffles,” which catch the gold as in the rocker. When
the gold is fine another box containing quicksilver is placed at the end
of the riffle, to catch the gold which passes it.
A man always attends at the end to clear away the “Tailings,” or earth
discharged from the machine, and also to stir up the earth in the Tom,
and keep the sieve clear of stones, an iron rake being used for the
purpose. By the use of the “Long Tom,” rather than the cradle, a great
saving is effected; the work being performed in a much more thorough
manner. It is estimated in California tliat the Tom will wash ten times
as much earth as a cradle, employing the same number of hands.
The next important method is “Sluicing.” This is by far the most
commonly used both in British Columbia and California, employing, I
suppose, one-half the mining population of both couutries.
Sluicing is, moreover, an operation which can be carried on on any
scale, from two or three men upon a river bar, to a rich company washing
away an entire hill by the “Hydraulic” process. Whatever may be the
scale of the operations, however, “sluicing” is necessarily connected
with a system of “ flumes,” or wooden aqueducts of greater or less
extent, either running along the back of a river-bar, and supplying the
sluices at it, or cob webbing and intersecting the whole country as in
California. I have seen flumes on the Shady Creek Canal there, conveying
an enormous stream of water across a deep ravine at the height of 100 to
200 feet.
“Sluice-boxes” are of various sizes, but generally from 2 to 3 feet
long, by about the same width. These are fitted closely together at the
ends, so as to form a continuous strongly-built trough of the required
length, from 15 or 20 to several thousand feet, their make and strength
depending entirely upon the work they have to do. I will here describe
sluicing upon a moderate scale, as I found it in practice at Hill’s Bar
upon the Fraser during my visit there in 1858.
This bar was taken up in claims early in 1858, its size being then about
1½ mile, although it has since been much extended, the richness of the
soil proving, I believe, greater as it is ascended. In this place, then,
a flume was put up, carrying the water from a stream which descended the
mountain at its southern end along the whole length of the bar, and
behind those claims which were being worked. From this flume each miner
led a sluice down towards the river; his sluice being placed at such an
angle that the water
Would run through it with sufficient force to carry the earth, but not,
of course, the gold with it. Its strength, indeed, is so regulated as to
allow time for the riffles and quicksilver to catch the gold as it
passes. The supply of water from the flume to each sluice is regulated
by a gate in the side of the flume, which is raised for so much per
inch. The price paid for water of course varies greatly with the cost of
timber, engineering difficulties of making the flume, Ac. It is
ordinarily established by the miners, who meet and agree to pay any
individual or company who may undertake the work a certain rateable
rental for the water. Their construction, indeed, is one of the most
profitable of colonial speculations. The flume I am now speaking of cost
7000 or 8000 dollars, and each miner paid a dollar an inch for water
daily. Since that time it has become much cheaper, and the usual price
is about 25 cents (Is.) an inch, the width of the gate being 1 foot. The
sluice-boxes here were very slight, about inch-plank, as the dirt which
had to pass through them was not large. In the bottom of each box was a
grating, made of strips of plank nailed crosswise to each other, but not
attached to the box like the riffles. In the interstices of these
gratings quicksilver is spread to catch the fine gold, the coarse being
canght by the grating itself. The sluice is placed on tressels or legs,
so as to raise it to the height convenient for shovelling the earth in;
the water is then let on, and several men feed the sluice with earth
from either side, while one or two with iron rakes stir it up or pull
out any large stones -which might break the gratings.
Such is the working of ordinary sluices; but sluicing is also
inseparable from the grandest of all mining operations—viz., “Hydraulic
Mining.” Hydraulic mining, as I witnessed it at Timbuctoo in California,
is certainly a marvellous operation. A hill of moderate size, 200 to 300
feet high, may often be found to contain gold throughout its formation,
but too thinly to repay cradle-washing, or even hand-sluicing, and not
lying in any veins or streaks which could be worked by tunnelling or
ground-sluicing.
A series of sluice-boxes are therefore constructed and put together, as
described above; but in this case, instead of being of light timber,
they are made of the stoutest board that can possibly be got, backed by
cross-pieces, &c., so as to be of sufficient strength to allow the
passage of any amount of earth and stones forced through them by a flood
of water. The boxes are also made shorter and wider, being generally
about 14 inches long by 3 to 4 feet wide—the bottoms, instead of the
gratings spoken of above, being lined with wooden blocks like
wood-pavement, for resisting the friction of the debris passing over it,
the interstices being filled with quicksilver to catch the fine gold.
The sluice, thus prepared, is firmly placed in a slanting position near
the foot of the hill intended to be attacked.
To shovel a mass of several million tons of earth into these sluices
would prove a tedious and profitless operation. In its stead, therefore,
hydraulic mining is called into play, by which the labour of many men is
performed by water, and the hill worn down to the base by its agency.
The operation consists of simply throwing an immense stream of water
upon the side of the hill with hose and pipe, as a fire-engine plays
upon a burning building. The water is led through guttapercha or canvas
hoses, 4 to 6 inches in diameter, and is thrown from a considerable
height above the scene of operations. It is consequently hurled with
such force as to eat into the hill-side as if it were sugar. At the spot
where I saw this working in operation to the greatest advantage they
were using four horses, which they estimated as equal to the power of a
hundred men with pick and shovel. There is more knowledge and skill
required in this work than would at first sight be supposed necessary.
The purpose of the man who directs the hose is to undermine the surface
as well as wash away the face of the hill. He therefore directs the
water at a likely spot until indications of a “cave-in” become apparent.
Notice being given, the neighbourhood is deserted. The earth far above
cracks, and down comes all the face of the precipice with the noise of
an avalanche. By this means a hill several hundred feet higher than the
water could reach may easily be washed away.
The greatest difficulty connected with hydraulic work is to get a
sufficient fall for the water—a considerable pressure being, of course,
necessary. At Timbuctoo, for instance, a large river flowed close by,
but its waters at that point were quite useless from being too low; the
consequence was, that a flume had to be led several miles, from a part
of the river higher up, so as to gain the force required. Supplying
water for this and similar mining purposes has, therefore, proved a very
successful speculation in California. I am not able to give the exact
length of the longest flumes constructed there, but I know that it has
in some cases been found necessary to bring water from the Sierra
Nevada, and to tap streams that have their rise there. It is not at all
uncommon to bring it from a distance of 50 miles, and in some cases it
has been conveyed as far again.
The expense of this is, of course, enormous, and it is in the ready
supply of water at various levels, that the work of mining in British
Columbia will be found so much more easy than in California. So scarce
is it there, indeed, that it sometimes has been found cheaper to pack
the earth on mules and carry it to the river-side than to bring the
water to the gold-fields.
The difficulty of obtaining water in the early days of gold-digging in
California gave rise to a very curious method of extracting the mineral,
which, I believe, was only practised by the Mexicans. Two men would
collect a heap of earth from some place containing grain-gold, and pound
it as fine as possible. It was then placed in a large cloth, like a
sheet, and winnowed—the breeze carrying away the dust, while the heavier
gold fell back into the cloth. Bellows were sometimes used for this
purpose also.
While upon this subject, I will take the opportunity of describing the
most common appliance for raising water from a river for the use of a
sluice on its bank. The machinery used is known as the “fiutter-wheel,”
and the traveller in a mining country will see them erected in every
conceivable manner and place. It is the same in principle and very
similar in appearance to our common “undershot-wheel,” consisting of a
large wheel 20 to 30 feet in diameter, turned by the force of the
current. The paddles are fitted with buckets made to fill themselves
with water as they pass under the wheel, which they empty as they turn
over into a trough placed convenient for the purpose and leading to the
sluice. In a river with a rapid current, like the Fraser, they can be
made to supply almost any quantity of water.
There is a kind of intermediate process between that which I have just
described and tunnelling or “koyoteing,” partaking in a measure of both.
This is called “ground-sluicing,” and is quite distinct from “sluicing.”
The reader will better understand this process if I speak of
“koyoteing,” and “ground-sluicing” together, the latter having become a
substitute for the former.
As the miners in California began to gain experience in gold-seeking,
they found that at a certain distance beneath the surface of the earth a
layer of rock existed, on which the gold, by its superior specific
gravity, had gradually settled. Experience soon taught the miner to
discard the upper earth, which was comparatively valueless, and to seek
for gold in the cracks or “pockets” of this bed-rock, or in the layer of
earth or clay covering it. The depth of this rock is very various ;
sometimes it crops out at the surface, while at other times it is found
150 to 200 feet down. Where it is very deep, recourse must be had to
regular shaft-sinking and tunnelling, as in a coal or copper mine; but
when the rock is only 20 or 30 feet beneath the surface, tunnelling on a
very small scale, known as “koyoteing,” from its fancied resemblance to
the burrowing of the small wikl-clog common to British Columbia and
California, is adopted. These little tunnels are made to save the
expense of shovelling off the 20 or 30 feet of earth that cover the “
pay dirt ” on the bedrock, and their extraordinary number gives a very
strange appearance to those parts of the country which have been
thoroughly “koyote-ed.” I have seen a hill completely honeycombed with
these burrows, carried through and through it, and interlacing in every
possible direction. So rich is their formation, however, that after they
have been deserted by the koyote-ers they are still found worth working.
I remember looking at one in the Yuba county in California which
appeared so completely riddled that the pressure of a child's foot would
have brought it down. Upon my expressing my conviction that anyhow that
seemed worked out, a miner standing by at once corrected me. “Worked
out, sir?” he said—“not a bit of it! If you come in six months, you’ll
not see any hill there at all, sir. A company are going to bring the
water to play upon it in a few days.” “Will it pay well, do you
suppose?” “All pays about here, sir,” was the quick reply; “they’ll take
a hundred dollars each a-day.”
The Koyote tunnels are only made sufficiently high for the workman to
sit upright in them. They are generally carried through somewhat
stiffish clay, and are propped and supported with wooden posts, but, as
may be imagined in the case of such small apertures extending for so
great a length as some of them do, they are very unsafe. Not
unfrequently they “cave in” without the slightest warning. Sometimes,
too, the earth settles down upon the bed-rock so slowly and silently,
that the poor victims are buried alive unknown to them companions
without.
The danger of this work and its inefficiency for extracting the gold,
much of which was lost in these dark holes, gave rise, as the agency of
water became more appreciated, to “ground-sluicing.” This consists in
directing a heavy stream of water upon the bank which is to be removed,
and, with the aid of pick and shovel, washing the natural surface away
and bringing the “pay-streak” next the bed-rock into view.
Before proceeding to the subject of quartz-crushing, it will be well
perhaps to give the reader some further idea of the great extent of
those mining operations which, begun by a few adventurers, have become a
regularly organised system, carried on by wealthy and powerful
companies. As a striking monument of their courage and the extent of
their resources, I would instance the fact of their having diverted
large rivers from their channels so as to lay their beds dry for mining
purposes. This has been done at nearly every bend or shallow in the
numerous streams of California, and will doubtless be imitated in
Columbia ere long. The largest of these operations that I ever saw was
near Auburn, a large town in Placer county, on the American river.
Sometimes the water can be brought in a strongly-built flume from above,
and carried by a long box over the old bed of the river ; at other times
a regular canal has to be made and dams constructed upon a very large
scale. The result is that the bed of the river is laid dry, when its
every crevice and pocket is carefully searched for the gold which the
water has generally brought down from the bases of the hills and the
bars higher up the stream. These operations are frequently so extensive
as to occupy several successive seasons before the whole is worked, and
to employ hundreds of labourers besides the individuals composing the
company, who usually in such an enterprise number fifty or sixty.
Sometimes the premature approach of the rainy season, and consequent
freshets, carry away the whole of the works in a night. These works
occasionally yield immense returns, and it is not unfrequently found, on
renewing them alter the rainy season, that fresh deposits of gold have
taken place, almost equal in value to the first. On the other hand, no
amount of judgment can select with any degree of certainty a favourable
spot for “jamming” or turning a river, and, after months of hard labour,
the bed when laid bare may prove entirely destitute of gold deposits.
The long space of still water below a series of rapids will sometimes be
found in one spot to contain pounds of gold, while in another the
workers who have selected that portion of the river above the rapids
will find themselves in the paying place.
All gold operations, indeed, depend very much upon chance for success.
No one can ever 'calculate with any degree of certainty on the run of
the “lode” underground, or in the “pay streak” near the surface. Thus it
is ever a lottery. As an instance of this on a large scale, I remember
when I was at Grass Valley, “Nevada county,” going to see the working at
the “ Black Bridge ” tunnel there. The first shaft for this tunnel was
sunk five years before my visit, and up to that time nothing had been
taken, though it had been constantly worked and wTas nearly 20,000 feet
long. It was commenced in 1855 by a company, who sunk a shaft nearly 250
feet, to strike, as they hoped and expected, a lode from the opposite
side of the valley. The original company consisted of five men, and in
the course of the five years some of them gave up and others joined,
part of them working at other diggings to get money for provisions,
tools, &c., to keep their firm going. At length, just before my visit,
all the original projectors, and about three sets of others who had
joined at different periods, gave the enterprise up as hopeless after
carrying it, as I have said, nearly four miles. A new company then took
possession of it and summoned the miners of the valley to a
consultation. The meeting decided that they had not gone deep enough,
and the shaft was accordingly sunk 50 feet lower, when the gold was at
once struck. I tried to ascertain what had been expended upon this
tunnel, but it had passed through so many hands that it was impossible
even to estimate it. The gentleman who showed me over it, and who was an
Englishman and the principal man of Grass Valley (Mr. Attwood), said it
would cost the new company 12,000 or 14,000 dollars (3000Z.) before they
took out anything that would repay them. The recklessness with which
money is risked and the apparent unconcern with which a man loses a
large fortune, and the millionaire of to-day becomes a hired labourer
to-morrow, is one of the most striking characteristics of the American
in these Western states. It is owing in a great degree to the mere
accident which gold-working is. The effect of this upon society is of
course most injurious. The poor miner, hobbling along the street of San
Francisco or Sacramento trying to borrow—for there are no beggars in
California—money enough to take him back to the mines from which ague or
rheumatism have driven him a few months before, knows that a lucky hit
may enable him in a very short time to take the place of the gentleman
who passes by him in his carriage, and whose capital is very probably
floating about in schemes, the failure of which will as rapidly reduce
him to the streets, or send him back again to the mines as a labourer.
The spirit, too, which these changes of fortune are borne is wonderful.
I travelled once in California with a man who was on his way to the
mines to commence work as a labourer for the third time. He told me his
story readily: it was simple enough. He had twice made what he thought
would enrich him for life, and twice it had gone in unlucky
speculations. An Englishman under these circumstances would probably
have been greatly depressed: not so my fellow-traveller. He talked away
through the journey cheerfully, describing the country as Ave passed
through it, speaking of the past without anything like regret, and
calmly hopeful for the future.
To return to the gold-working, however. I have described the various
processes of extracting it from the earth or the rock-surface. I come
now lastly to the more arduous work of collecting it from the rock
itself, known as quartz-crushing. Some very rich specimens of quartz
have been found in British Columbia, near Lowkee Creek, Cariboo, and in
other places. But while the surface-diggings continue to yield such rich
returns and transport is so dear, it can scarcely be expected that
quartz-crushing, which requires the use of ponderous machinery, will be
commenced. The richest quartz district in California is Grass Valley, in
Nevada county, which place, as I have before observed, I visited in
1860. In this valley there are forty steam-mills at work, drawing the
earth from tunnels, crushing quartz, &c. The average value of the quartz
there is 60 or 70 dollars a ton, though it sometimes runs as high as 200
dollars per ton. The Helvetia mill, which is one of the best, crushes on
an average 30 tons daily, making therefore nearly 2000 dollars (1007).
The quartz is picked or blasted out in the usual way, and then conveyed
on mules or by tramway to the mill, where it is broken by hand into
pieces about the size of an egg.
The machinery is placed under a large shed or wooden building of some
kind. It consists of a series of heavy stampers, made of iron, or wood
shod with iron, the lower ends of which fit into boxes in which the
quartz is placed. The stampers are moved by cogs connected with a
revolving wheel, which lifts them and lets them fall into the boxes. The
Helvetia mill works thirty-four of these stampers. The stamping-boxes
are supplied with water by a hose or pipe on one side, while at the
other side is a hole through wdrich the quartz, as it is crushed, passes
out in the form of a thick white fluid. As it comes out it is received
upon a framework, placed at such an angle that it passes slowly over it:
on this frame are several quicksilver riffles, which catch and
amalgamate the gold as it glides along. Beyond this again is another
frame, over which is spread a blanket, which arrests any fine particles
which escape the quicksilver. Even with all this care there is
considerable waste, and the “tailings” or refuse is generally worth a
second washing. No way has yet been found of obviating this waste.
There is a more primitive method of quartz-crushing called the “rastra,”
or drag, which, though it will only crush about a ton a day, does its
work more perfectly than the stampers. For this purpose a circular
trough is made, and paved at the bottom. In the centre of this an
upright post is fixed, with a spindle fitted into a frame at the top, so
that it can be turned round. Through the lower part of this a horizontal
pole is passed, one end of which plumbs the edge of the trough, while
the other projects some way beyond it. To the short end a couple of
heavy stones are attached; a mule or horse being harnessed to the other.
The quartz is then put into the trough, being first broken up small, and
ground by the friction of the stones, which are dragged round by the
mule. A small stream of water is kept constantly flowing into the
trough, and quicksilver is sprinkled in at intervals to amalgamate with
the gold. After a certain time the water is turned off, the entire
pavement of the trough taken up, and the amalgam carefully collected and
retorted. Of course these are worked chiefly by parties who do not
possess sufficient capital to construct steam-mills.
With respect to the existence of the precious mineral in North America,
the theory which Sir Roderiek Murchison maintains is that the matrix
will be found extending the whole way along the slopes of the chain of
mountains lying between the Rocky Mountains and the Coast Ridge. This
theory is borne out by the discoveries in Rock Creek and Cariboo, which
lie in the line attributed to it. All the river bars or “placers,” as
surface-diggings are called, which have been worked as yet are
undeniably the alluvial deposits brought down by the streams on whose
banks they are found. And nearly all these rivers take their rise in the
chain of mountains spoken of, which form an almost unbroken line between
Bock Creek and Cariboo. The Cariboo Lake and some of the rich Cariboo
diggings, as Iveithley’s Creek, Cottonwood River, &c., are on the west
side of this ridge; while Antler Creek, Canon Creek, and others lie on
the east, showing that the gold is common to both slopes. This has
probably tended to make the Fraser River bars much richer than they
otherwise would have been, as all the small streams which rise on the
eastern side of these mountains also run into the Fraser, which comes up
from the southward behind them, till, as I have before shown, it is
turned southward by the height of the land between it and the Peace
River.
The few adventurers who have crossed this barrier to the Peace River
report all the appearances of an extremely rich auriferous region there;
and Mr. Kind tells me that it is generally believed at Cariboo that the
richest diggings will be found in that direction. This fact undoubtedly
confirms Sir E. Murchison’s theory, as the Peace River Valley stretches
northward in the same direction till it meets the Finlay River in lat.
56 N.
It would be simply waste of space to quote the accounts of the richness
of the gold-fields of British Columbia, given at intervals in the
journals of the day. New and more startling discoveries are being so
constantly made, that the marvels of one day are always likely to be
eclipsed by the still more extraordinary reports of the next. We have
also yet to receive the accounts of this summer’s work at the
gold-fields. I will give, however, from the Times of February 6, 1862,
the estimate which its correspondent forms of the approximate gross
yield of gold for 1861:—
“It is impossible to give a return of the ‘yield ’ of gold produced by
British Columbia in the aggregate with certainty. I shall merely attempt
an approximation of the gross yield from the best data within my reach.
“It is generally conceded that, including Chinese, there were 5000 men
engaged in gold-digging this year. The various Government returns of
Customs duties and of interior tolls of roads charged on the passage of
merchandise collected, justify this assumption, while the miners’
licences issued tend to corroborate it. The mining population in the
Cariboo country, including within this division the Forks of Quesnelle
River (50 miles below) is put down on general testimony (of miners,
travellers, other residents, and Government returns) at 1500 men. To
work out the earnings of this aggregate of 5000 miners, I adopt a
statement of names and amounts, made up from miners’ information, of 79
men who together took out in. Cariboo 926,680 dollars. The general
opinion of the miners is, that (in addition to the ‘lucky ones’ who made
‘big strikes,’ and which I limit to the above number of 7 9) every man
who had a claim or a share in a claim made from 1000 to 2000 dollars. Of
these there were at the least 400, and taking their earnings at a medium
or average between the two sums mentioned—say at 1500 dollars to
each—they would produce 600,000 dollars. There remain 1021 men to be
accounted for. Putting their earnings at 7 dollars a day each, which is
the lowest rate of wages paid for hired labour in the Cariboo mines, and
assigning only 107 working days as the period of their mining operations
during the season, to make allowance for its shortness by reason of the
distance from the different points of departure and of bad weather, they
would have taken out 764,729 dollars. These several sums added would
make the yield of Cariboo and Quesnelle 2,291,409 dollars to 1500 men
for the season, by far the greater portion, or nearly all, in fact,
being from Cariboo; although the north fork of Quesnelle is also very
productive and so rich as to induce its being worked by fluming this
winter by about 100 miners, who have remained for the purpose.
“The remaining 3500 of the mining population who worked on Thompson’s
River, the Fraser, from Fort George downwards; Bridge River, Semilkameen,
and Okanagan (very few), Rock Creek, and all other localities throughout
the country, I shall divide into two classes: the first to consist of
1500, who made 10 dollars a-day for—say 180 days (Sundays thrown off),
and which would give 2,700,000 dollars for their joint earnings; the
second and last class of 2000 men, who were not so lucky, I shall assume
to have made only 5 dollars each a-day for the same period, and which
would give 1,800,000 dollars as the fruit of their united labour.
“The three last categories, which number 4521 men, include the many
miners who in Cariboo were making 20 to 50 dollars a-day each, as well
as those who, in various other localities, were making from 15 dollars
to 100 dollars a-day occasionally, so I think my estimate, although not
accurate, is reasonable and moderate. The Government people think I have
rather understated the earnings of the miners in these three classes of
4521 men ; and the Governor himself, who takes an absorbing interest in
the affairs of this portion of his government, and to whose ready
courtesy I am indebted for some of the information given in this letter,
as well as for much formerly communicated in my correspondence, thinks
my estimate is a very safe one.
“But I must finish this long letter with a recapitulation, for I dread
the inroads I have made upon your space:—
“This does not include
the native Indians, as I have no means of estimating their earnings.
They are beginning to ‘dig,’ in imitation of the white men, in some
parts, and will eventually increase the yield of gold, as the desire for
wealth grows upon them. As a proof of their aptitude and success in
this, to them, new field of labour, I may mention that the Bishop of
Columbia found a gang of them 'washing’ on Bridge River last summer, and
that he had the day’s earnings of one Indian weighed when he ceased his
labours, and found it to contain one ounce of gold. His Lordship
purchased it of him, paying him 16 dollars 50 cents, the current issue,
and carried it away as a souvenir.”
The return of the assays of Cariboo gold, given by the same gentleman,
are also of permanent interest, as showing the value of the dust. The
highest assayed by Messrs. Marchand and Co., from whom the return is
obtained, from Davis Creek, was 718 fine, value per ounce 18 doll. 97.64
c., or about 31.19s. The lowest, which came from Williams Creek, was 810
fine, value per ounce 16 doll. 74.42 c. (about 31. 9s. Id.). The average
value of all Cariboo dust is 854 fine, value per ounce 17 doll. 65.37 c.
(3/. 13s. 6d.).
In conclusion, I have merely to add, that I remained with the 'Hecate’
at San Francisco until she was repaired, when, on the 21st October,
1861, I left that place in the United States mail steamer 'Orizaba,’ and
on the 27th November arrived “home.” |
