The Sun.
London, England, 1862-02-25 00:00:00

2HE GOLD IN NOVA SCOTIA

The discovery during the Prt year of gold in Nova Scotia,
already made known to the British public through the me
dium of the newspaper press, renders the following re-
marks from a gentleman resident in the country very into-

resting :
The site of the first gold discoveries in Nova Scotia, and
that on which mining operations have been carried on to
the greatest extent, is Tangier. This name is applied to a
river, and also to a harbour into which the river empties,
the latter being on the Atlantic coast, from 50 to 60 miles
eastward of Halifax. The mines at this place extend from
within half a mile to within two miles of the head of the
harbour. Mining operations commenced here in the latter
part of April last, but the Nova Scotian public were incre-
dulous as to the existence of gold in their country, and for
months goldhunters came into the new mines but slowly.
At the best part of the season the number of miners at Tan-
gier did not probably exceed 1,000. What were the pro-
fits of these men? will naturally be asked. Any statistical
answer to this question must be founded, in a great degree,
upon conjecture. In a country like this, where no " gold
escorts" are required to bring the gold from the mines to a
place of safe deposit, where the products of those mines do
not pass through the hands and are not submitted to the
inspection of any Government official, and where the gold
which leaves the province passes through such a variety of
channels to Europe, the United States, and the neighbour-
ing provinces, it is next to impossible for a private person to
ascertain the amount of gold obtained, and any conjecture
upon the subject would be practically valueless. I may
safely say, however, that the Tangier miners—and they
comprise among their number many men of Californian and
Australian experience—with very few exceptions, express
themselves well satisfied with the results of their labours
hitherto, and with their prospects for the future. Yet the
greater part of the gold obtained has been extracted from
the quartz by merely breaking it up with hammers, the
fragments of the quartz still remaining on hand to be
afterwards ground in a quartz-mill, and contain-
ing, of course, a large proportion of gold. It is only recently
hat any serviceable quartz-crushing machine has been in
operation at any of the mines, and we have not yet any real
good ones, although great preparations for the coming
spring are in progress. If we may believe accounts which
appear to be well-authenticated, average lots of quartz from
the Tangier gold leads have yielded, under a very rude
crushing process, £8 per ton. The place is easily accessible,
being upon the shore of a good harbour, and within six
hours' steaming distance of Halifax.
Proceeding still further eastward, at a distance of about
100 miles from Halifax, we come to the mouth of St. Mary's
river. Near the western bank of the river, about nine miles
from its mouth, is what is called the Sherbrooke goldfield.
This goldfield was not discovered until October last, and
consequently little mining has been done there, but it
promises to be one of the richest and most reliable yet dis-
covered. The popular belief in this is shown by the fact
that not less than 100 acres have already been taken up in
mining lots, and the applications for " claims" still continue.
At one spot here the Government mining agents took the
trouble to number and measure the thickness of the parallel
quartz veins found cropping out upon the surface within a
distance of 2.50 feet. There were no less than 21 of them,
varying in thickness from one to 15 inches, and averaging
six inches. These had all been ascertained to be gold bear-
ing. On either side of this band of 250 feet in width, the
rock, wherever exposed upon the surface, exhibited nume-
rous similar quartz veins, followed the same direction as
those already named. These veins have been traced, both
laterally and longitudinally, as far as explorations have yet
gone. In the first week of December last only one of these
veins had been opened below the surface; that one was 8
inches in thickness. As an instance of its productiveness I
may state that from a trench about 15 feet in length and 8
feet in depth the mining proprietor informed me, about a
month since, that he had taken over 61b. of gold. This was
avoirdupois weight, the niceties of grains and pennyweights
not having come into vogue there at that time. This had
been extracted by means of the hand hammer and suchlike
rude appliances, the fragments of the quartz still remaining
to be subjected to the crusher, when it would probably yield
as much more gold. Other miners upon the same vein were
doing equally well. In the same vicinity and at the same
time I saw three men washing the surface earth by means
of an ill-constructed sluice, the water for which had been
obtained, at a few dollars' expense, by damming a small
rivulet. Much of the finer particles of gold could not but
escape through this sluice. I should think that a third of it
must have been lost in this way. Yet one of the proprietors
of this lot informed me that three men used upon a daily
average to clean up 2oz. of gold from this sluice—this, too,
a season when they could not manage to work more than
seven hours a day. Ono of the earliest miners upon this
ground declares that upon an area of 30 feet by 33feet from
boulders and fragments of quartz found on the surface he
obtained £lOO worth of gold.

At various other points along the St. Mary's river, from
its mouth to a distance of 20 miles up stream, fair " pro-
spects" have been obtained, and there are good indications
of more important discoveries. Again, upon the coast, four
miles eastward of the mouth of St. Mary's river, at Wine
Harbour, there is a thriving mining field, resembling rangier
in many characteristics. Gold• bearing quartz veins are here
found extending along the shore for about three miles,
while they have also been discovered at various spots ex-
tending back from the shore to a distance of a mile, or even
more. The surface earth in this neighbourhood is, as a
general rule, found to be more or less auriferous ; but the
greater part of the gold yet obtained there has been taken
ceom quartz veins. From one of the earliest occupied
mining lots, upon which six men, on an average, had worked
daily for six weeks, there had been taken at the time of my
information, in December last—and, as usual, without any
quartz-crushing machinery—gold to the value of £560 ster-
ling. Tbis was rather a better yield than that of any other
claim there down to that period ; but few others had been
worked so, long, and upon some of the lots operations had
scarcely more than commenced. Quite recently some new
" leads" have been discovered at Wine Harbour which are
said to exceed in richness any previously known to exist
there.

From 10 to 15 miles eastward of Wino Harbour is a deep
inlet called County Harbour. Up this inlet, near the head
of tide water in County Harbour Proper, and also upon an
arm of the inlet, known as Isaac's Harbour, there are gold
mines. At the latter place they have been worked ever
since the latter part of summer ; at the former, gold was
only discovered within the last month. Highly gratifying
accounts are received from both places ; but 1 am not in
possession of any particular facts affording important evi-
dence of the richness or extent of either.

The Lawrence town mines are far to the westward of any
of those mentioned above, being only about 12 miles east-
ward of Halifax and near the coast. The prospeets at this
place are good, but operations have thus far been upon a
comparatively limited scale, although extensive prepara-
tions are being made for the coming spring.
The Ovens, or Lunenburg mines, are about as far to the
westward of Halifax as Tangier is to the eastward. They
are siimated upon a peninsula, forming the western side of
Lunenburg Harbour, and the first discoveries there were
made above the cliffs of the shore rear some shallow caves
called the Ovens. Upon a strip of sea beach at this spot
the gold, in the form of coarse dust, is found mixed with
the sand, from which it is easily 'washed. The richness of
these " washings" is surpassed by those of few places in the
world. Unfortunately, the beach which is composed in
great part of these gold-bearing sands is of small extent;
but it is a well-established fact that after every violent
storm from the Atlantic the sands thrown up by the surf at
this spot contain a new crop of the precious metal. Upon
the uplands in the vicinity of the Ovens quartz mining is
carried on as in other localities I have named. I have but
few data to indicate the measure of success of the Ovens
quartz miners during the past season ; but the belief,
founded upon the acknowledgments of many of the miners
themselves, is that they have made fair profits as gold
mixers having only the rudest appliances for carrying on
their work.
The last place which I shall name—although gold has
been found by " prospectors" at numerous other localities—
is known as Laidlaw's Farm. It is about 10 miles north of
Halifax, and within a few hundred yards of the main post
road leading to New Brunswick. The quartz is here found
a few feet below the surface of the enclosing rock, in broad,
compact, and nearly horizontal beds of, as yet, unknown
thickness. Some of the richest specin:ens of gold-bearing
I quartz that I have yet seen have been obtained here; but
the gold seems to be less evenly distributed through the
quartz than it is at some of the other mines I have named.
A few days since about half a ton of quartz from this place
was put through the crusher, and the gold extracted from
it. The yield of gold was at the rate of £lOO sterling per
ton of quartz. I am unprepared to say with certainty
whether this was an average specimen of the quartz of Laid-
law's Farm or not, it being the first that has thus been
tested in such large quantity ; but I believe it will be found
to be above the average in richness.