Mohave County miner., 1910-08-27
Famous Gold Bushes.

Stewart went mad. Walters drop ped their trays, workmen their tools, drivers their reins and stampeded."
 Thus daily paper, in its description of the excitement created in Stewart, B. C., when the report came that r miles distant, at a place called Bitter Creek, great discovery of gold had been made. It is the old, old story of human averice and greed. Reason dis appears when the gold levers seizes on man.
 Two years ago three mining prospec- tors tried their luck in the Nevada hills, 200 miles northeast of San Fran cisco, where they discovered a large deposit of gold. They told some ac- quaintances at the nearest town, whereupon 300 railroad laborers dropped their tools and began the mad rush for gold. The news spread like wildfre, and in few weeks the camp of the three prospectors, which had been named Rawhide, had population of 10000 persons, and miners were ar irving at the rate of POD day. Lots were sold at anything from 1,OOOe to 5,OOOe, while some mining magnates purchased one tclaim, which had been staked out by a syndicate of twenty miners and had made phenomenal yield, for 160,
 The story of Klondike is even more amazing. The first find of gold of any importance was made in 1S97-nOt by gold prospectors, but by fisherman at the junction of the Klondyke and Yukon rivers. Immediately the news of the rich deposits of gold which were to be found got abroad there was a mad rush, not only from all parts of America, but also from Europe. Soon 3O.OOO people were on their way to the diggings, many destined never to re- turn, for some 800 miles of the rough est Alaska country had to be traverSed and the route was literally paved with the bones of those who had joined in the mad rush without stopping to con- sider the difficulties the journey pre- sented.
 Hundreds deserted their wives, while clerks, merchants, doctors and lawyers sold all they possessed to pay their way to the Klondike. But where one impractical man succeeded in enriching himself, scores of American profes- slonal miners came away worth hun dreds ot thousands. In spite of the warnings issued, however, and the fact that it needed capital of some thing like 3OOs to get from England to the Klondike, hundreds of people went from this country on to return wrecked in health and pocket.
 It is a curious fact when Mir. Harry de Windt, the well-known explorer, returned from the Klondike in 1897, he said, during the course of an interview published in the Strand Magazine, that the Stewart region was even richer than the Klondike. And after dozen years there comes the recent dramatic corroboraUiOn.
 The fact is not generally known, per haps, that it was the discovery of gold in California in l847 which led to the discovery in Australia. Within four years the annual output from the fields of California reached l2,OOO, ,OOOS, and it was MT. Hargreaves, who went as a miner to California, who first discov- cred gold in Australia. He was struck by the rese mblance of the rocks near his home in Australia to the gold bearing rocks of California. He sys- tematIcally searched for signs of gold, and on February F, 1851, he found some of the precious metal for the first time.
 The excitement created by the dis covery was intense. Towns grew up as if by magic. Even police left their employment to try their luck at the diggings, while sailors deserted from their ships as soon as they arrived at port near the fields. Men focked in thousands to Ballarat and Bathurst, and it was at these places where the worlds biggest nuggets were found.
 Fifty miles north of Bathurst three quartz blocks containing 1l2 pounds of pure virgin gold were found, and the famous "Victoria nugget" a single mass of pure virgin gold weighing 34O ounces, was brought from Bendigo. But the largest nugget of all was that christened the Welcome" This was