In British Columbia (at Grst known us New Caledonia), as everywhere else in the North-West, the earliest pioneers were fur it was not, however, until 1858, when the first and' greatest invasion of gold-reokers took place, that the importance of the so-called Sea of Mountains" was generally recognised. That Canada possesses her splendid province on the Pacific—that the Empire's moiety of the "Gold Belt" of North America (a claim covering half a million square miles and having the Kootenay at one end and Klondyke at the other) did not lapse to the United States—is directly due to the Hudson's Bay Company, the inheritor and representative of all previous fur-trading concerns. The servants of the Company in charge of the New Caledonia department undertook the most fatiguing explorations in their efforts to extend the fur-trade, and though their operations never profitable on that side of the Rockies partly because of the difficulty of sending in eupplios, and partly owing to the covert hostility of the Indians—the Company, recognising the importance of maintaining British induence on the Columbia River, never entertained the idea of withdrawing. For'several decades they were the only civilised occupants of both banks of the Columbia; and it is nob their fault that nowadays that river does not flow wholly through British territory. Tu 1839 (whan Alaska waa leased from the the Company had established at_all likely' spots. from Bering sea to San Francisco; and they held their xeound in Oregon and' Washington Territory until compelled: to relinquish their hold by the Treaty of 1846—at which time, that for the belief in Great Britain that the countries in question were practically value-Jess, both Oregon and Washington, and even Alaska, perhaps, might have been retained under the Britisti flag fora small consideration.
'THE FEST GOLD DIscoveny.
It is not generally known that the first discovery of gold in British Columbia occurred in: 1852—six yours before the great rush to the Fraser River—at Mitchell Harbour, on the west const of the Queen Charlotte Islands. The story of that long-for-gotten episode may suggest to the modern prospector a new field for his effort, In 1851 a nugget was picked up on the beach by an Indian woman, and, ater a part had been cut off, was taken by the Indians to Fort Simpson, and sold there to the Company's agent. From Fort Simpson it was sent to Fort Victoria (then, as now, the H.B. Co.'s headquarters on the const) with the story of its find and instructions to send a ship to the place where: it was found. Accordingly, that same year, the brigintine Una was dos-patched tO Mitchell Harbour, where a quartz vein seven inches wide and containing in places 25 per cent of gold was traced' for eighty feet. Some of the quartz was blasted cub: and shipped, but, unfortunately, it never ranched Fort Victoria, the Una being lost on the return age near Cape Flattery. Next year a U.S. brigantine named the Orbit, which lay on the rocks in Esquimault harbour, was bought by the Company and sent north with thirty miners in addition to the crew—the miners going on shoots" in their venture or, in other words, receiving alalf share of the profits. Three months were spent in getting a cargo of the quartz, which was eventually sent to England, These miners received 30 dollars a month each as their share of the venture, and this erning known in San Francisco, a fleet of tiny vessels left that port for the Queen Charlotte Islands. These particular Aryonauts seem to have been a turbulent lot, for H.M.S. Thetis had to be sent up to keep order between them and the Indians who had mustered there in great numbers. Excepting the Susan Sturgess (whose skipper was named Rooney, the same being "a very handy man with hair on his wrists") none of these ships.got anything of a cargo; and even the Susan Sturgess was not altogether successful—for, though Mr. Rooney obtained 1,400 dollars for hia first cargo, on a second visit his sessd was captured and looted by the Indians at Masset, and he and his crew kept prisoners till the H: B. Co.'s steamer Beaver brought them off.
Though this little vein seems to have yielded gold to the value of 45,000 dollars (most of which sank with the Una) no excitement in California resulted from this discovery; which is curious, seeing that any sort of a tale—such as that, for instance, of the sea washing up gold on the shores of Humboldt County so that an able-bodied man with a wheelbarrow could depend upon making a fortune ina week "—was sufficient at that time to set the forty-niners on a stampede.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.