The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-27 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY, AUGUST 27, 1863.

A quarter of a century having elapsed since the
British Association was last assembled at New-
castle-upon-Tyne—that one suggestive circumstance
alone furnished this year's President, Sir \VILLIAM
ARMSTRONG, with a noble theme for the inaugural
address delivered by him last evening, a remark•
able harangue, which will be found fully reported
in another part of this day's impression of our

journal. Within these five-and-twenty years last
past, how much in truth has there not been accom-
plished. Science, to take simply one solitary illus-
tration of the marvels it has effected within that
interval—Science has, PRosPERo-like, within this
narrow space of the world's history, summoned, in
Electricity, its ARIEL, virtually, to put a girdle
round:the-Earth in forty seconds. Since 1838, when
the town of Newcastle was last selected as the
chosen rendezvous for the members of the
British Association, the whole wonderful systems
of railways and of steam navigation, have covered
the solid earth with a magic network of iron, and
have enabled Man to travers2 the ocean indepen •
dently of wind and tide. It is true that long before
1838 the marvellous contrivance of the steam engine
had already endowed modern civilisation with a
power, that might be regarded as not inaptly
symbolized by the Geni rising vapour-like from the
brazen casket dragged up from the deep in his net,
by the Arabian Fisherman. But it has been since
1838, it may here be confidently asserted, that the
chief application of that astonishing power, that the
principle evidence of its extraordinary capacity to
perform according to pleasure the labours of a Fairy
or of a Giant, has been manifested. Within this quar-
ter of a century, the round of which has but just been
completed, not only has the whole Railway System
grown up, and„parallel with it, the whole system of
the Electric Telegraph, but how many other won-
drous miracles of science have we not seen per-
formed with a nicety and a precision and a frequency
that have long since rendered them familiar even
to the uneducated multitude. If we have spoken,
as we hare, of the invention of the steam-engine as
not inaptly symbolized by the Geni of the Brazen
Casket, dragged up in his net upon the
seashore, by the:Arabian Fisherman—and the

resemblance hinted at need hardly appear so extra

vagant to the philosophical dreamer, remembering,
for example, Sir ISAAC NEWTON'S humble reference
to himself, as one picking np shells and pebbles upon
the shore of the Great Ocean of Truth—
we might
no less aptly recognise a symbolism of the magic
power of the Electric Telegraph in the obe-
dient Geni of the Ring of ALLADIN. The
rubbing of the ring in that wonderful old
eastern romance, being, almost one might
say, mysteriously typical of the completion of the
metallic round, or the electric circuit, by the opera-
tion of the galvanic battery—evoking nowadays
momentarily at every telegraph station, at the
behest of anyone, a Geni far more more marvellous
as a messenger, than that old Geni of the Ring in
the story of " Alladin." Again, have we not pur-
claaseable now, any day, at any railway station, for
a few coins, a little scrap of a card-board ticket,
that, for carrying us to and fro, whithersoever
we wish, may vie with the few feet
square of the Turkish Carpet, told of also
in the Arabian Night's Entertainments ? Another
of the old poetic fabulists, it may be remembered,
amused his own fancy for the marvellous, and that
of his readers, by describing the little pool of water
upon the surface of which the reflection of the
gazer's face was fixed and preserved, and—with the
gazer's fa'e"---the shadow also of the surrounding
lanescape! An exact and literal fore-shadowing
that of the marvelsbythnowadays being perpetually
effected
rs of
e photographer. Several of
the later yea
this last quarter of a
century have elapsed.
since poor Captain
WARNER died, almost n
in
some
obseul:oticed, and was quietly
buried away
grave as a mere idle
visionary—the "long range,,
of the projectiles,
about which he was wont in hi, time
to
talk amidst
almost universal ridicule, being the favourite subject,
then, of the jester and the caricaturist, Yet—since
then, since the death of that poor, despised Captain
WARNER, who only talked of those ti
g ranges,"
—have not the day-dreams of the •
umprae.
ticable theorist, been, not only _c,
a many
realised, but absolutely surpassed
by the
astounding specimens of ordnance fabricated, among
others, by the very man who was last evening, at
Newcastle, delivering the inaugural address for
1863 of the proceedings at this annual meeting of
the members of the British Association. If only
for thus bringing vividly within the general survey
this last wonderful interval of five-and-twenty
years, since the Association was once before gathered
together down at Newcastle, we have reason to be
grateful to Sir WILLIAM ARMSTRONG for the en-
thralling interest, the instructive scope, and the
singular suggestiveness of his really masterly re-
trospect.

It is difficult for the denizens in the busy centres
of civilisation to realise the wild free life, the
reckless adventure of the new colony of the
Western Hemisphere. It is Equally difficult foe
the weary seeker for employment, iaeaiteick with

hope deferred, amid the throng of equally eager com-
petitors, to believe that at this very moment there
exists a spot where the English tongue is spoken,
where honest labour brings in the rich reward of
10 or 12 dollars a day, and even the humble toil of
carrying provisions brings in a, similar sum. Yet
this El Dorado has its drawbacks, as may be seen
from the full and comprehensive account given of
its lights and shadows by the correspondent of our
chief morning contemporary. The one great quali-
fication for the colony is a willingness and a capa-
city for work, not mental work, not gentlemanly
employment, not busy idleness, but real hard
physical labour ; labour that covers you with mud
and makes a dry shoe a thing unknown. The
member of a mining company who has been some
years on the spot, declares that there is abundance
and variety of work for labourers in Cariboo, and
that those who can work and will work,
get work, except when the labour of mining
is suspended by flooding. Those who will
not work are beneath criticism, and those
who cannot have mistaken their vocation
in going to the mines. The golden fortunes of
British Columbia retain all their brightness. Wil-
liams's Creek, the chief mining field at present, has
nroduced an immense quantity of gold, and continues
ntinrahees
to supply the lucky eviller with rich or
creek is supposed to run into the Willow River,
and is separated from Antler Creek, which was the
scene of the earliest operations, by a group of moun-
tains. Richfield, a small town on Williams's
Creek, is the capital of Cariboo, and boasts " 25
houses, besides tents." These houses, along with
which must be reckoned the Government office, are
all occupied, and the new, or lower town, has 16
houses finished, so that buildings are rapidly in-
creasing, not before they are needed, we should
imagine, by a population of 2,500 miners alone!
The last 50 miles of the road to this creek are in
such a condition as to be impassable to beasts of
burden ; the only trail being blocked up with trees
thrown down by the storms and horses dead from
fatigue. This state of things is favourable to the
carriers on the principle of the ill wind that blows
some good with it, for provisions have to be carried
on men's backs for several miles, and as we may
guess, under such circumstances, at heavy charges.
The rate of provisions is high, and makes a
large demand on the miner's wages; the
weekly board being 35 dollars; a single meal
21 dollars, and these sums being often paid in ad-
vance. The work is plentiful and the wages high,
10 or 12 dollars daily being ready for all who are
willing to work hard and able to "drift." Some of
the claims are very profitable; others, with the
variable fortune inseparable from goldfields, worth-
less and unremunerative. The work of some of
the companies at the time the narrative was written
was hindered by the freshets having inundated the
shafts. This disaster is common at this season, and
interferes sericusly with the profits of the miner.
" The daily yield of the American Company ave-
raged," we are told, " 150 oz. The Black Jack
Company was doing well; but the Barker, at f rst
the richest of all, was not yielding so much as usual
owing to the impediment of underground water."
This is one of those casualties that interfere with
the best calculations, and which render a miner's
life, in spite of its hard work, akin to that of the
gambler. Other companies, like the owner of a
run of luck at the gaming table, are making fabue
lons sums. One company, in their fioal operation,
the " washing up," gained in six hours 250 oz.
A nice afternoon's work, since the • value
is about £B7O. This is no partial or exaggerated
statement, but is taken from the Commissioner's
report, in which we find also mention made of three
companies, whose claims were all situated within
half-a-mile, which had " weshed up" respectively
1700 z., 160ez., and 120 oz. in a day's labour. At
the same time these amounts must not, of course, be
taken as samples of the average success attending
the miner's exertions. Two other creeks have been
discovered in the vicinity of Williams's which had
disturbed the ordinary state of affairs there by occa-
sioning one of those "rushes" unfavourable to the
miner. " They deprive the capitalist of labour at
a juncture when he most needs it, and the labourer
of time which, had he employed it in steady work
at high wages, he would have turned to good ac-
count instead of wasting it, as toe often happens, in
pursuing a shadow." The whole labour of gold-
digging sometimes produces but shadowy results,
and notwithstanding the sudden gleams of success
and fortune which occasionally make a poor
man rich and crown a life of labour with
the wealth of an Arabian fable, there
can be no question that it is a hard, laborious, and
uncertain existence. One of its great annoyances
in Cariboo is the system of " jumping '' claims,
or unjustly usurping claims belonging to other
miners during their casual absence. This produces
appeals to the Gold Commissioner, pending whose
decision one hundred " jumped" claims were lying
idle when the news left. It can hardly add much
to the wealth or comfort of the young fraternity
that it numbers six lawyers among its members !
Tne American war is producing unwelcome effects
in the North, the collector of Washington Terri-
tory having at the close of June forbidden the ex-
port of any live stock. As Victoria and British
Columbia had before that date drawn the greater
part of their supplies of beef, this occasioned con.
However, the 'cuteness of
siderable inconvenience.
Americans and the gold of the miners have solved
the difficulty in some degree, as they now kill the
animals in American territories, and export the
carcases, as the high-sounding order for the "pre-
vention of the withdrawal of military resources
from the country" does not include dead meat.
Meanwhile the Governor of Washington Territory
has taken up the cause, and we shall learn by the
next mail the result of hie friendly remonstrances.
Altogether the accounts from this new colony,
though showing that it will be long before the
rough edges will be smoothed down into conven.
tional shape, and that comfort and civilisation must
not be too quickly looked for, are full of hope and pro-
mise. Gold will people the north as it has the south,
and the vast fields of British Columbia will long
serve as a safety-valve for the superfluous energies
and unemployed labour of our older life, though we
must even retain the drones in the old hive, since
there is no place for them in the busy, striving,
thriving, and laborious young community.

The Frankfort Congress seems to be progressing
satisfactorily, notwithstanding the very difficult
and delicate tasks imposed upon its members. It
they succeed in coming to definite arrangements,
without
understanngadniyvse:atious disputes, or awkward mis-
it will be very fortunate. The
project of Austria,
compose
regardarooe mtoodi
the
flo
aDt
iioroesc.t o rTa the
has been adoptede,
six members who
the body are taken from
several quarters. One
vote each
will appertain to
Austria, Prussia, and Bavaria, one
vote in turn is
to belong to Saxony. WartenTh og'
and Hanover.
The fifth member will be named by Electoral Hesse
and the seven Grand Duchies ; the sixth will be
selected by the other German States. The settle-
ment of the presidency of the Directorate will be
left to the decision of Austria and Prussia. So far
this seems to promise fairly enough, and to bespeak
some chance of a fortuitous termination of the dia.
oubsions, The Ctzgte.;zi of 1-)fILICS kpear to work