billion dollars. Of this amount California has, since 1848, contributed one billion dollars, and Australia, since 1851, an additional billion dollars. Thus it will be seen that California and Australia, in the brief period of twenty years, have contributed to the world one-half of its gold.

In estimating the wealth of nations and the value of products, it must always be borne in mind that, while mines of gold and silver become exhausted, the metals produced do not, but, unlike the product of shop and field, which becomes extinct on use, the precious metals retain their value for

ages.

From 1492 to 1500, about fifty-two thousand pounds sterling in gold went annually from the American continent to Europe. Up to 1519, of the precious metals gold only was found in America.

With the conquest of Mexico, in 1521, and the discovery of the rich silver mines of Potosi, in 1545, a large supply of silver found its way from America to England. In the reign of James VI, gold was mined in the slate rocks of Leadhills, Scotland; and near the close of the last century fifty thousand dollars in gold was collected in two months, in the county of Wicklow, Ireland. At Cornwall, Devonshire, in Wales, and other parts of Great Britain, gold has been mined for, but never profitably.

In almost all the mountains and streams of Europe and Asia gold has been discovered in less or greater quantities, on the Rhine, Rhone, Reuss, Danube, and Aar, in the Alps, and Siberia. Up to the date of the discovery of gold in California, Russia was the greatest gold-producing country in the world. Croesus is sup

posed to have obtained his gold in the sands of the River Pactolus, in Asia Minor.

The gold product of Borneo is supposed to be about five million dollars per annum.

Gold has been obtained in Japan from time immemorial. During the sixty years that the Dutch traded with that country, they are supposed to have carried away in trade over forty million dollars in gold.

The whole region of South and Central America and Mexico is rich in gold and silver. The heathens of the Isthmus of Panama of past centuries made their gods of gold, and interred them in the graves of their dead. A few years since, mining for gods was a profitable employment in New Grenada.

Gold-mining in the United States is comparatively of a recent date; the first discovery being made in North Carolina, in 1799, in Meadow creek, a small stream in Cabarrus county. It was discovered by a boy named Conrad Reed, who, on a Sunday, was sporting and catching fish in the stream. He saw a yellow lump of metal in the water and carried it home; his father took it to the village silversmith at Concord, but he was unable to tell what it was. For three years the lump, which was about the size of a small smoothing-iron, was used as a weight against the door; when, in 1802, the old man Reed carried it to Fayetteville: there a jeweller pronounced it gold, melted it into a bar, and paid Mr. Reed three hundred and fifty dollars for it, much to his surprise and delight. Meadow creek was soon thoroughly explored, when considerable gold was discovered. In 1803, one piece found in that stream weighed twenty-eight pounds, another sixteen pounds. In 1831, a rich quartz vein was discovered in the vicinity

of Meadow creek, and, from this period, mining for gold was pushed with interest in North Carolina.

Previous to 1825, but little gold was found in the United States; some small quantities were found in Alabama, and between the Coosa and Potomac. In 1825, a gold-bearing quartz lead was discovered by a Mr. Barringer, at Montgomery, North Carolina. Soon after this, gold-bearing quartz was discovered in Virginia, Georgia, and South Carolina; and gold in small quantities was obtained from many rivers in these States.

In 1824, the first native gold appeared in the United States mint at Philadelphia. The supply increased considerably for a few years. Up to 1827, North Carolina was the chief gold-producing State in the Union.

The entire product of gold of the five Southern States, from 1828 to 1872, is estimated to have been forty million dollars, as follows: North Carolina, eighteen million five hundred thousand dollars; Georgia, fourteen million five hundred thousand dollars; Virginia, three million five hundred thousand dollars; South Carolina, three million dollars; Alabama, five hundred thousand dollars. In 1829, the first mint deposit of gold from South Carolina-thirty-five hundred dollars-was made; in the same year, Virginia deposited twenty-five hundred dollars; and, in 1830, Georgia deposited two hundred and twelve thousand dollars.

The increase of gold from the Southern States was so great that, in 1837, a United States mint was established at Charlotte, North Carolina, and another at Dahlonega, Georgia. It is estimated that the Southern States yielded an average of one million dollars in gold annually, from 1808 up to the discovery of gold in California in 1848. Gold in these regions was gener

ally obtained from decomposed quartz and from slate rock of such a poor quality that it seldom paid for working; and of late years the yield has greatly fallen off, it having been for the last twenty years less than five hundred thousand dollars per annum. Gold has been discovered in Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Hampshire, and Vermont, but not in quantities to justify working.

In many parts of Canada gold has been found in small quantities; and, in 1860, free gold in well-defined quartz ledges was discovered in the southeastern part of Nova Scotia ; these mines are still profitably worked.

The discovery of gold in California in 1848, and in Australia in 1851, introduced a new era in the production of the precious metals. Gold is known to have been discovered in Australia as early as 1839, by Count Strazelecki, who, in September of the following year, informed the lieutenant-governor of the colony of his discovery. In 1841, the Rev. Mr. Clark announced that he had discovered gold in Australia; and, from the year 1843 to 1847, Sir Roderick I. Murchison repeatedly urged the exploration of Australia for the precious metals. In February, 1851, a Mr. Hargrove, who had been in California, found gold in Australia, and in April following announced his discovery, which led to the finding of the vast gold-fields of that region, so rich and so profitably worked up to the present period, with prospects of inexhaustible supply.

GOLD IN CALIFORNIA.

The first mention of gold in California is found in a small volume of romance published in Spain in 1510seventy years before the arrival of Sir Francis Drake in California. The book is entitled "The Sergas of

Esplandian, the son of Amadis of Gaul." (See Chapter XIII of this volume.) In this romance the following passage occurs: "The island was the strongest in the world, from its steep rocks and great cliffs. Their arms [the natives'] were all of gold, and so were the caparisons of the wild beasts they rode."

The next mention of gold in California is found in Hukluyt's account of Sir Francis Drake's voyage to California in the summer of 1579. In this account a paragraph reads: "There is no part of the earth here to be taken up wherein there is not a reasonable quantity of gold or silver." This statement of Hukluyt is a pure fiction, like the account of the Spanish novelist of 1510, and was only intended to lend a charm to the distant land of California. Most of Californians well know that there is not a shovelful of earth in the vicinity of Drake's bay, or any portion of the coast wherein the English buccaneer spent the six weeks in 1579, in which there is "a reasonable quantity of gold or silver," so far as known, nor has either of these metals been discovered in any quantity up to the present time within the radius of one hundred miles of Drake's bay, in Marin county.

Placer gold in small quantities had been discovered in California at various times between the years 1775 and 1828, near the Colorado in the southern part of California; in 1802, a vein of mineral supposed to contain gold was discovered at Olizal, in Monterey county; and, in 1828, small particles of placer gold were discovered at San Isdro, in San Diego county; but none of these indications of the precious metals were sufficient to attract public attention, or to warrant the belief that gold existed in paying quantities in the country.