The Kanzas news., 1858-09-04
End of the Fraser River Mania.

The depopulation of California, which has
been going on ever since the beginning of
the Fraser River excitement, was too violent
and unnatural a condition of things to last.
As was to be expected, it has come to a
sudden end. Nearly every city and county
of any size in California has suffered greatly,
both from the withdrawal of its population
and from the ruinous downfall in the prices
of houses and real estate. Comparatively
little was known of the prospect for miners,
the nature of the new country or Its govern
ment, or the means of access to the gold re-
gion; but Notwithstanding these drawbacks,
which should have delayed prudent men.
California has for three months been sub
ject to depletion which has drawn off 30,-
600 of her population, and will leave hun
dreds of them to perish from the hardships
of travel to the gold region, the jealousy of
the Indian tribes, the want of provisions,
and the want of money to buy the common
est necessaries of life. One would have
supposed the Californians-tha whom none
know more intimately the color and exag-
gerations that gold-digging stories take on
would be the last to be carried away BY
such an unreasonable mania But thev
were first. Happily they were the first to
return to their senses.
There are now in New Caledonia, or Brit
ish Columbia, as it will be called, many
more mouths than can be fed by the linn
tied supplies which the exclusive and inad-
equate trade of the Hudson Bay Company
furnish, many more bodies than can be shell
tered from the coming winters cold by the
few houses of the traders or the huts of the
Indians. For the present year emigration
thither is, therefore, unwise, not to say
wicked. Whoever reaches there before next
spring, will either starye himself, or make
somebody else starve.
1t is a remarkable fact that this sudden
collapse of the Fraser River mania followed
hard upon news confirming the richness of
the dry diggings, and was not fastened by
any adverse news from the river-bed dig
gings. 1t is clearly the natural and healthy
reaction from very unnatural and unheal
thy excitement, which if long continued.
would have retarded the prosperity of Cali
fornia materially.
The reliable information concerning the
productiveness of the Fraser river mines.
still continues somewhat limited, and will
be so until the subsidence of the present
high water. Numerous and very profitable
dry diggings are said to have been discov-
cred
An important feature of the news by this
arrival is large discoveries of gold in Oregon
and Washington Territories. These dis
coveries, of course, are merely confrma-
tory of those made several years ago by
Indians and the early settlers, and only cer-
tify the opinion we have several times ex-
pressed, that the gold producing region
would be found in greater or less degree
to include the territory between California
and British Columbia. With the added
publicity which they will receive at this op
perfume time, and from their nearness to
the Fraser River region, it is more than
probable that the miners who find it impos-
sible to sustain thmselves in that crowded
section, in the lack of tools and provisions,
will betake themselves to a less occupied
territory, where they may secure both sat
low prices, and aid in developing the miner
al resources and gold producing areas of
our own most northern Pacific States.-New
York .EUening Post.