am, the
operator added a little water, and caused the contents of the bowl to
take a circular motion, somewhat as the modern digger does with his tin
dish, with this difference, that his ancient prototype allowed the water
and lighter particles to escape over the rim as he swirled the stuff
round and round. I presume, in finishing the operation, he collected
the golden grains by gently lapping the water over the reduced material,
much as we do now.

I have already spoken of the mode in which auriferous lode-stuff was
treated in early times--i.e., by grinding between stones. This is also
practised in Africa to-day, and we have seen that the Koreans, with
Mongolian acuteness, have gone a step farther, and pulverise the quartz
by rocking one stone on another. In South America the arrastra is still
used, which is simply the application of horse or mule power to the
stone-grinding process, with use of mercury.

The principal sources of the gold supply of the modern world have
been, first, South America, Transylvania in Europe, Siberia in Asia,
California in North America, and Australia. Africa has always produced
gold from time immemorial.

The later development in the Johannesburg district, Transvaal, which has
absorbed during the last few years so many millions of English capital,
is now, after much difficulty and disappointment--thanks to British
pluck and skill--producing splendidly. The yield for 1896 was 2,281,874
ounces--a yield never before equalled by lode-mining from one field.

In the year 1847 gold was discovered in California, at Sutor's sawmill,
Sacramento Valley, where, on the water being cut off, yellow specks and
small nuggets were found in the tail race. The enormous "rush" which
followed is a matter of history and the subject of many romances, though
the truth has, in this instance, been stranger than fiction.

The yield of the precious metal in California since that date up to 1888
amounts to 256,000,000 pounds.

Following close on the American discovery came that of Australia, the
credit of which has usually been accorded to Hargraves, a returned
Californian digger, who washed out payable gold at Lewis Ponds Creek,
near Bathurst, in 1851. But there is now no reason to doubt that gold
had previously been discovered in several parts of that great island
continent. It may be news to many that the first gold mine worked in
Australia was opened about twelve miles from Adelaide city, S.A., in the
year 1