The " Fifty-eighter" was, and is, in his way.as romantic a character as the typical Argonaut drawn. by Bret Harte and his many disciples. Though he did not shoot at sight and "gamble quite so wildly asthe Forty-niners—for. in the old Cariboo days Sir Matthew. Begbie, that fearless and indefatigable. awarder.' of " justice, taught him once and for all the value of a man's life in English law, and his earnings were never sufficient to admit of very much "bucking again the tiger "—yet the annals of his struggles. with Nature and Nature's children and foster-children (bears and Indians for instance) contain episodes as dramatic as any of Bret Harte's tales of the first. Argonatits.. Instead of duels' with derringers we hear of. battles fought with the Cuast-Indians, who were 75,000 strong, according to Sir George Simpson, in 1857; and instead of that quaint childishness of thought..which runs like a gold-bearing quartz-stringer. through the. living-rock of the Californian manhood, we seem to notice. x certain.vein of grim-humour,-a result. no doubt of-theirconstant_intercourse with: Nature in-a wilder and more malign mood." The following story of a tenderfoot's conversion is pretty fair spec' men quartz" from this vein as yet-unworked by the professional humourist:- It appears there was a little camp called '*Boot Hog. or. Die" (very streaky diggings-there!) on the Thompson in the sixties, Most of the. miners there know how to deal with the Indian plague; so that the appearance of mew-comer, who confessed that he had his: life: never -killed an-Indian, was bitterly resented. Soon-enough, however, the now arrival -became tired of eatin' crow atoll three meals," and taking a gun Joaded with buck-shot set-out to repair the omission in lis education. After a long search he came upon three old squaws picking hiye-berries with wooden scoops on a little rising hill; and "slipping up on em as a man slips up on a covey chicken. waited. till_ they crawled into line an' then let fi. Walking up he saw the first was dead, an' the sycond was deader, but the third—she was still opening an' shutting' her eyes like machinery. He looks at her awhile an' then he ses "I guess,' ses he, quiet-like—'I won't waste a charge on you.' So he went back to. camp and told the boys, who gave him drinks and praised him, though there wasn't one as c'u'dn't ha' done wa much an' more."
The old-time-placer-mii never looked for quartz~ lacked the scientific knowledge to pro such discoveries, and also they knew it twas impossible to bring in the necessary machinery for working them when proved. Ie costs both time and' money to find out the extent of a vein; o that when their bar or bench was worked out, they would leave it and. make for, other placer-diggings,. or try for a new discovery. And as for silver and silver-ores—theko unlearned gold-hunters had a hearty contempt for such matters. In view of the fact that the argentiferous galenas, of the Slocan pay a better percentage on capital outlay even than the auriferous sulphides of Trail Creek, and that in Dr. Dawson's opinion British Columbia is even greater as a silver country than asa goldfield, this conduct, though justifiable at a time when ora could not he freighted out nor a single smelter be buile, strikes one as foolish. Still the British Columbian naver att ined to the folly of the old-time Nevadan who working his, way up the flanks of Mount Davidson and washing out a little gold from time to time, used to.swenr-at a curious blue black clay" which often clogged up his rocker, never. dreaming that the same. was rosily the detritus from the outcrop of the wonderful Comstock" Lode and worth about 6,000 dollsra a ton!
FRE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY; Next to the little standing army of placer-miners British Columbia owes most to the Canadian Geological. Suryey.. The maps and papers issued since 1870 by that admirably conducted body of experts are invaluable not only to the geologist but also to the practical miner. That they are neglected by the latter is probably due to the fact. that they have never been published in a handy and accessible form so that the seeker after information about any particular district finds it necessary to examine a very large number of maps and reports before he gets at what he wants. Nevertheless, the search, though it, cost both time and trouble, should always be made, fur it is really extraordinary how many of the successes of practical mining in the Far West have been foretold years before by the officers of the Survey. Thus the real value of the Trail Creek and Slocan. minos in West Kootenay was pointed out ata time when the shares in the best of them were regarded as so much spoilt paper; and ten years before the. Klondyke discoveries, Dr. Dawson, the Director of the Survey, drew attention tothe opportunities offered by the Yukon basin.as 4 field for prospecting and prophesied the finding there of richer deposits of '*coarae gold" than any known to exist at that time.
'As valuable in a different, way as the detailed studies of particular areas are{the general observations of the geology pf the Province to be found in these much neglected publications. Such general considerations of theory combined with' our knowledge of the results of practical mining in British Columbia and the Western and Pacific States enable us to estimate the future of the Far West—a matter which
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.