APPEAL TO THE BRITISH PRESS.

35

this, and every other impediment and restriction tending to retard the settlement of the country, the revenue was in reality increased by the influx of a taxable population. It was also argued, that the advantages and profits arising from the first settlement of a new country, ought to be enjoyed by the early settlers; that they have peculiar hardships and privations to undergo, especial dangers and labours to encounter, and, therefore, that to these the law ought not to contemplate any competition, except from other actual settlers in selecting the most fertile lands and the choicest spots. Such was the basis of the American Act of September 4th, 1841, which, by several subsequent statutes, they have brought into perfect working order. It was no longer considered necessary to hold colonial lands, to a certain extent, in trust, to benefit the future redundant population of the country— generations yet unborn - and it was concluded that posterity should take care of itself.

The act which refers to British Columbia, is inserted in the Appendix, and objections taken to portions of it, which will require re-modelling before the whole can be brought into working order; but these are trifles compared with the wisdom of the measure itself, and the spirit of extreme liberality in which it is conceived; and it is to be hoped that the press will assist in promulgating it for the information of farmers possessed of moderate capital, and therefore but moderate profits in Great Britain.

MINERALS AND ROCKS.

GOLD IN BRITISH

COLUMBIA, VANCOUVER ISLAND, AND QUEEN CHARLOTTE'S ISLAND. COAL ON THE PACIFIC.

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MARBLE, AND VARIOUS COLOURED EARTHS. SALT SPRINGS, &c.

THE wide distribution of gold in British Columbia is very striking traversing the country diagonally from north to south, the Fraser River everywhere passes through a gold country. The same may be said of Thomson's River, and of the Columbia north of 49°. A glance at the map shows the aggregate length of these rivers to be much more than 1000 miles. As a rule, the gold is found in much smaller particles, and less in quantity nearer the mouths of these rivers, and both size and quantity increase as we ascend them. At Colvile, for instance, gold is found in almost any part of the surrounding country, but not quite coarse enough to pay for working. In the neighbourhood of Fort Thomson, Shoushwap and Kamloops Lakes, gold in quantity was first discovered and reported by Indians. For a considerable time Yale was the centre of attraction, afterwards Bridge River and the forks: but the vicinity of Fort George and Fort Alexandria, and the slopes of the mountain range in which the Quesnel River rises, are now found to contain, in the greatest quantity, the coarsest gold.

As to the produce of the country in this respect, and the success that an intending emigrant miner may fairly be led to anticipate, I take the liberty to denounce in the strongest terms, as unfair and calcu

GOLD MINING AS AN AVOCATION.

37

37

lated to mislead, the manner in which this part of the subject is treated in most books written on gold countries; which, if I were to follow, I should commence by enumerating the several successes of Brown, Jones, and Robinson; tell how Peter's eyes sparkled while he picked "a pocket" in a rock, and how in a valley exceeding in grandeur anything he had met before, Jenkins washed out so many cents to the pan. I could, without any sacrifice of truth, produce instances of several persons who realised, during a mining season, some 400l. or 500l. each, but, unless I also recorded many a sad instance of failure, of constitutions ruined, and disappointed expectation, the induction would be useless, a wrong impression conveyed, and the exceedingly precarious nature of mining as an avocation lost sight of, ending with the disappointment of the inexperienced and the sanguine.

This remark will perhaps apply with greater force to British Columbia than to any other known gold country. Gold mining is laborious everywhere, but there, owing to the want of main lines of road, the labour is greatly increased. Sometimes, with the tracking line passed across his shoulders, the miner drags his boat or canoe against a swift current, often wading up to his waist in water. At other times we meet him toiling up some very rugged hill with a month's provisions on his back. And what has been the result? Since mining began in British Columbia in 1858, the miner's average earnings have not exceeded 1007. or so a-year, while the cost of living is at least 60l. a-year. An intending emigrant should dismiss from his mind any instances of extraordinary successes he may have heard of. Suppose he has become accidentally acquainted with an authenticated case of a

38

GOLD FIELDS OF BRITISH COLUMBIA.

man making five or ten times more than the average in a season, such an instance only argues 5 or 10 to 1 against his (the intending emigrant) realising anything.

In 1858 the greatest monthly shipment of gold from British Columbia was $235,000 and the least was about $6000, and the total product of the gold mines for that year was estimated at $1,494,211 (vide Gazette, April 19th, 1859). From data before me I believe the amount mined in 1859 to have been about $2,000,000; but to be moderate, assume the product of the two years at $3,000,000; the number of miners actually at work at any time in the country cannot have exceeded 3000, as the mining licences show (Gazette, June 9th, 1859, estimates them at 2000); which gives the miner's average annual earning at 1007., as I before stated.

In California the average earnings are about half as much, but the country is open and accessible, and therefore the means of living and creature-comforts much more plentiful, which leads the miner 'to prefer it far to British Columbia, notwithstanding the higher pay in the latter.

To make this clear, I estimate the working miners of California now at 200,000, and shall give the data on which I do so. The "Price Current " of December 31st, 1854, when the population of California was, in round numbers, 300,000, estimated the number of miners then in the State at 80,000 to 100,000; since then the population of the State has been increased chiefly by immigration, at the rate of 30,000 to 40,000 per annum, principally from the labouring classes, and is now not far short of 600,000, two-thirds of whom are

*The New York Herald, copied by Morning Chronicle, March 5th, 1860, makes the population of California exceed a million,— a manifest exaggeration.

GOLD FIELDS OF CALIFORNIA.

39

On

estimated by Mr. Greeley to be able-bodied men. these grounds I am safe in putting down the number of miners as above stated.

The yield of these mines is now, with tolerable regularity, $50,000,000 annually; and this will show that the British Columbia gold fields, however inaccessible, are twice as profitable to the miner, as the California gold fields are.

In stating the average of the latter, as I have done, at 50l. per man per annum, it may be objected, that they cannot live, finding tools, quicksilver, mules, clothes, &c., on so little to this I reply that 40,000 or 50,000 of their number realise a mere subsistence from mining, and are therefore ready, on the vaguest rumour and the shortest notice, to start for Victoria, Denver, Sonora, or the south, with a view to participate in the profits of any enterprise that may offer.

The surface diggings of California are now considerably exhausted, and the yield of the mines less by nearly $9,000,000, than it was in 1853, while the population has been all along rapidly increasing. Additional force is given to the statement that the surface mines are partially exhausted, by the fact, that while the annual yield of gold is on the decline, quartz mills are now numerous, and quartz companies far more successful than heretofore.

The editor of the New York Tribune seemed to suspect this, when in 1859 he wrote as follows:

"I do not suppose that the gold mines of California will ever be thoroughly worked out; certainly not in the next thousand years. Yet I do not anticipate any considerable increase in the annual production, because I deem $50,000,000 per annum as much as can be * Overland Journey. New York, 1860, p. 355.