The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1897-08-28
Famous Gold "StrikeS"
of Earlier Times.
Hardships of Other Days Undergone by
Searchers for the Precious Metal.
From the New York Telegram.

The gold craze has been with human
ity from time immemorial. Periodi-
cally the report of some new discovery
OF the precious metal has caused the
widest excitement, and the scramble
to get rich quickly has been productive
OF many such sensations rs that
created by the recent reports from
the Klondike region. The hardships
endured by gold-seeking pioneers
have also been an important factor in
the opening up of civilization of hith-
erto comparatively unknown regions Of
the globe. To gold the entire Pacific
coast owes it's present prosperity. The
existence of gold had long been known
in California, and washings had been
carried on in the southern part, near
the San Fernando mission, as early as
1S41. No discovery had been made,
however, which attracted much atten-
tion or caused excitement previous to
the occupation of the country by the
Americans.
A piece Of native gold was picked
up in an excavation made for a mill
race on the south fork of the Ameri-
can river, at place now called Colona.
BY the end of December, 1S4S, washing
foothills of the Sierra from the Tuol-
umne river to the Feather, a distance
of $50 miles. The first Adventures
came from Mexico, the South Ameri
can coast, and even from the Sand
wich islands. The excitement even
tually spread East, and in the spring
of 1S49 the rush of emigration across
the plains and by way of the isthmus
90
mated that 100000 men reached Cali
fornia during that year, including
representatives of every state of the
Union. The emigration to the land of
gold continued with but little abate-
ment for three years, but the excite
ment fell off in marked degree in
1854.
California discoveries had given rise
to a general search for precious de-
posits in the Atlantic states, and this
had been followed by wild specula-
tions. A great deal Of money had been
sunk in opening new mines and in at
tempting to develop old ones which had
never yielded anything of value. Fifty
thousand men were engaged in mining
for gold in this country at the close
of 1850, and during 1852 and 1853 fully
100000 were at work. At this time the
California gold washings reached
about $65,O00000 in value a year. At
this period the diggings for gold were
chiefly along the rivers. These were
"fumed"-that is, the water was di-
verted from it's natural channel by
means OF wooden fiues-and the ac-
emulation Of sand and gravel in the
former beds was reached.
PLACERS.
The first and richest "placers," such
as the bars on the American Yuba,
Feather, Stanislus and other smaller
streams in the heart of the gold region
yielded each miner as much as $1,000
to $1,000 a day. The miners were ex-
citable and frequently left valuable
localities in search of something bet
ter. Occasionally a kind of frenzy
would seize on them and thousands
would flock to some very distant To-
cality on the strength of newspaper
and other reports. Many would then
perish from disease and starvation, the
rest returning in poverty and rags.
The Kern river fever ragged through
the states in 1855, and at least 5000
miners went to that distant region of
the Sierra. only to find that the gold
deposits were already worked out. The
Fraser river rush occurred in 1858 and
caused more suffering to the men of
California than a pestilence might
have done. Twenty thousand persons
left the states for that remote region,
where all suffered great privations.
Many died and the survivors went
back in state of destitution.
About the same time that the gold
fever was at its height on the western
coast of North America, just two years
after the rush of the forty miners, ,"
the great gold boom in Australia be-
gan. 1t was at Summerhill creek, 20
miles south of Bathurst, in the Mac
quarie plains, that Australian gold was
first found by E. Hargreaves, a gold
miner from California. The intelli-
gence was made known in April or
May, 1851, and then began a rush of
thousands. Men left their former en-
pigments in the bush or in the towns
10 search for the precious ore, which
has ranked almost as an idol in all
ages. Gold was found at Anderson's S
creek, near Melbourne, the following
August, and a few weeks later the
great Ballarat gold fields, so miles west
or the city, were opened, and after
that Bendigo, now called Sandhurst,
to the north.
Then came a gold fever which sur
passed that of California in intensity.
Not only in New South Wales and Vic
toria, where the auriferous deposits
had been revealed, but in every British
colony Of Australia all ordinary in
dustry was abandoned for the one ex-
citing pursuit The disturbance of So
cial, Industrial and commercial affairs
during the first two or three years OF
the gold craze was very great I'm
migration from Europe, North America
and China poured into Melbourne at
the rate of 5000 each week.
THE TRANsvAAL.
While there has never been a year
when the gold fever has not ragged with
more or less intensity in some quarter
of the globe, the next great era of in
tense excitement which attracted the
attention of the whole world was in the
early SOS, when the extraordinary gold
fields of the Transvaal, or South At
rican republic, were discovered. The
quartz formation of the famous Wit
watersand reef differed entirely from
any hitherto known gold-bearing ore
and at first many were skeptical of its
value. But when it became known
that the reef extended in an unbroken
half-circle of 40 miles and formed one
OF the richest fields in the world, the
rush across the "veldt" began. Thous-
ands traVersed the thousand miles
which separted "the Rand" from the
English colonies, and the peaceful lit
tie Dutch republic was invaded with
wild, greedy, excited mob of all ma
tionaiities' The town OF Johannesburg
rose from a single hut to a city OF
nearly 100000 inhabitants in less than