The Sun.
London, England, 1859-01-04 00:00:00

some better foundation than mere surmise by
a State return which has just been officially
issued, showing " that the amount of gold from
that district deposited in the United States Mint of
this city from the 19th May to the 19th Nov.
inclusive, was, before melting, 9,092.86 oz. ; after
molting, 8,333:56 oz. ; the loss in melting being
759.30 oz., or 8.35 per cent., 5.14 per cent. more
than the average loss in Californian gold. The
total value of this lot was 146,380.35 dols. When
to this return is added the great amounts purchased
by the agents of the Hudson's Bay Company and
by merchants at Victoria. which are remitted direct
to England, as well as the large quantities carried
down by private hands and returning miners, we
arrive at an aggregate which must effectually silence
all gainsaying about the auriferous resources of
British Columbia, especially when computed in com-
parison with the fitful labours of scattered bands of
adventurers without proper instruments and bent on
prospecting.; rather than on steady work. I know I
am a sanguine man, but allowing for a liberal degree
of phlebotomy in that respect, I maintain that suffi-
cient proof has been elicited to give the new colony a
most alluring character as a gold-producing country.
As a specimen of further outside proof, I may mention
that the captains of the steamers engaged in that
trade declare they never carried diggers on any
other line who seemed so padded with gold, which
was displayed in heaps as they sat in groups gam-
bling on the decks. I was present myself on the
15th ult. at one of the district courts, where a re-
turned Frazerite was had up for drunkenness, with
1,760 dols. worth of gold in his belt, which caused
his worship to remark, when inflicting the usual
fine, " that he might set himself down as a con-
siderable lucky fellow in being picked up by a
policeman, instead of by a prostitute." It is not to
be expected, however, even should her resources
prove equal to either, that British Columbia will
rise with the rocket-like rapidity of California or
Victoria, for this simple reason, that there does
not now exist the same surplus population in the
old countries as in 1848 or 1851. ;the teeming mil-
lions of Ireland have been thinned down to a fair
working average, the redundancy in Great Britain
has also been reduced to the reacting standard.
France is not holding her own, deaths are beating
procreation, and it is said that even the German
States, so prolific in princes and people, taking the
alarm at the progress of emigration, are about to
repress it by legislative restrictions. So that no
matter how great soever may be the mineral wealth
of the new colony, she must go through the olden
process of creeping before walking erect, unlike her
precursors in the golden strife, who emerged from
their swaddling clothes into tailed coats and Wel-
lingtons. I have only further to remark about the
depreciatory and conflicting accounts concerning
the mew gold country, that precisely the same was
the case with respect to this State, even two years
after its start, for in 1849, when I wrote a long
letter home to the Times, the majority of the public
marvelled at the credulity of that paper not only
in publishing it, but in calling special attention to
it in a leader, while the great preponderance of
private communications designated the Californian
diggings as an American hoax.
It is tolerably clear that the private despatches
of Governor Douglass must have been both positive
and conclusive when Government, in the midst of
the busiest session on record, brought in a special
bill calling the new colony into existence, even in
anticipation of the extirpation of the charter, send-
ing troops and engineers there too, with two great
wars on hand in the _East, and establishing a Go-
vernment bank in the new capital besides. Such
energetic proceedings, so much at variance, too, with
the usual pace of Downing-street business, must
have had their proper warrant. But the curious
part of the matter is, that while the Go-
vernor's home despatches were blazoned in
characters of gold, his local sayings and
writings were of a hesitating, almost discouraging
tendency. The only explanation of the riddle
that I can arrive at is that he wanted to
excite rapid emigration from home, and to repreSs
the wholesale incursions of his filibustering neigh-
bours over the frontier, until, at least, he could se-
cure a counterbalancing British element to keep
them in order.

I will close this long letter with an agreeable and
reliable bit of information, to the effect that the
Plumper, surveying vessel, has discovered a channbl
over the bar of the Frazer River through which
vessels drawing 25 feet can pass. Capt. Provost,
of the Satellite, says he can take his vessel to Fort
Langly with ease, and she draws over 21 feet.
This discovery settles the question as to the site of
the future capital, which under these circumstances
must be on the main—an inevitable conclusion,
which must prove rather disastrous to those specu-
lative folks who invested largely in town lots,.at
fabulous prices, in and about Victoria and Esqui-
mault. I learn that we are soon to have steamers
out of great power and light draught to stem the
Frazer River rapids, but I would make two sug-
gestions to the company—first, to fit them with
high-pressure engines ; and, second, to have them
propelled by a stern wheel paddle; because, in the
first place, one in that position would be less likely
to come in contact with snags or floating timber
than two at the sides ; and, again, because while
side wheels revolving in the same direction with
a rapid current would lose much of their usual
effect, that at the stern, working in comparatively
still water, would have nearly its full propelling
power.