The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-04-21
BRITISH GOLD MINES.

Various Discoveries Made From An. cient Times Down to the Present.
 Every six months or so the British
 public is startled by report that gold
 in workable quantities has been found ir
 some part or other of Great Britain
 There was rumor of this kind respect ling gold and silver mine in the Isle of
 Man some short time back, and at the
 date of writing there is another rumor
 of this variety due. But in the matter
 of results those of the Isle of Man mine
 dq not appear to have been very great,
 for the public has heard little or nothing
 of it since. The rumor will probably,
 like the one before it. which related to
 a new mine in Wales, die natural
 death, and there is every likelihood that
 the next will be like unto i> and also
 the next after that. In fact, every ru-
 mor of the kind this century, with only one solitary exception, has demised in tho same way
 The exception was the Welsh gold
 mine, the discovery of which was, we believe, due to Pritchard Morgan, M P
 This, from all accounts, was a really valuable find, and one which would have returned very handsome profits indeed
 had it not been for the government eX-
 ercising its rights and claiming royal
 ty on the output. Wales, however,
 abounds in gold, though in SO scattered
 state as to be unavoidable. But at
 one time there was plenty of the pre-
 ir q pjn
 ted form to attract the Phosncians, who did not come to England orly for tin,
 copper and lead, but for gold also, and
 for anything else they could find Nor did this race confine their efforts to such
 mines as the Poltimore and the Oogafen, in Carmap pthenshira, with the silver producing lead ores of Cornwall They were very probably the original workers of the mines at Lanark, which were af- terward worked by the Romans in the time of Commodus. These mines were very extensively worked. and one can even trace more or less the method of working from the galleries cut in the rock They were so shaped that one man could walk along them carrying a basket of ore on his head, but we do not know what method of extraction was used. The whole mine is surrounded by Roman camp, and is intersected by a Roman road
 But the Romans knew long before the time of Commodus that gold in fairly plentiful quantities was to be found in Britain. In Tacitus' Life of Agricola' we read: "Fert Britannia aurum ct ar gentum ct alia metalla, pretium victo- riae gignit ct oceanus margarita, sed obfusca ct liventia," etc. There was once plenty of gold, comparatively speaking, in Essex, for at Camelodunum gold coins were once struck made from metal found in the district. All over England and Wales, too, the British barrows which have been opened have usually contained articles of gold, such as breastplates, handles of swords. and so forth; while in Ireland there was found, in 1854, large collection of solid golden breastplates, brides, gorgets, etc., the intrinsic value of which | to over twenty thousand | pounds sterling, these being probably the spells of some battle, hidden until a | more convenient time should arise to re- move them, and left there through the | ieath of the hider and his secret at the | same time.
 The county of Westmoreland has for l long time past been known as gold | bearing district. According to MT. Cal vert, who is an authority upon aurifer- JUS Britain, the chief localities are Gold scroop, Borrowdale, Bullermere, High [reley, Bassenthwaite Keswick and but the metal may be | ound in small grains in almost every part of the county. This being so, it is lot at all impossible that there is a rich leposit somewhere which has not yet )een discovered, and that an expert pocket" miner might perhaps reap a ich harvest by little judicious pros- scotland has plenty of gold in t, and it has been worked in fits and tarts for over two thousand years 'he Duke of Sutherland recently made n attempt to work the Kildonan mines nd, though the amount of success at ending his efforts has not been made ubic, it was probably not very great. r it would have been heard about. till, the district was al one time eX- eedingly rich in gold. In the Clydes- ale district alone there were recovered | I the reign of James V. of Scotland no sss than one hundred thousand ounces. he value of which amounted to nearly 1 ve hundred thousand pounds, this be- lg all obtained in small grains by l' the Clyde and it's tributaries. 't