GOLD AND SILVER.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2232, 28 May 1881, Page 4

GOLD AND SILVER.

The other evening a lecture at the London Institution was delivered by Mr G. Phillips Sevan, F.G.S., F. 8.8., the subject being the “ Gold and Silver Mines of the World.” It was replete with interesting facts and figures. Speaking of the early discoveries in the colony of Victoria, he cited Mr Brough Smyth for the facts that three diggers at Forest Creek obtained in nineteen days 3600zs of gold ; a party of five cleared 2Jlb in a single day; another of four got lloz from sunrise till 3 p.m. j while another of three obtained £IOOO in fourteen days. The same authority mentioned that at Ballarat, the head quarters of the deep mining district in that colony, a party of six got 13440 z of gold for ten weeks' work, while in four months another gang earned £24,000, The winnings of forty-two Ballarat companies up to the date of Mr Smyth’s writing were no less than £4,305,463, one of them—the Band of Hope having washed 14,9750 z. in forty-four working days. Of colossal nuggets the lecturer mentioned the Welcome Stranger, weighing 22800 z., 21in long and lOin thick, a lump of solid gold found by the merest chance, yet worth £9534; the Welcome Nugget, which weighed 22170 z., and was sold for £IO,OOO ; the Blanche Barkley, 17430 z. in weight, and sold for £6905 5 the Heron, weighing IOOSoz., which fetched £4OBO. The Victoria goldfields now covered an area of 1241 square miles, which in 1879 yielded 715,0000 z,, valued at £3,000,000. Queensland was traversed by a chain of gold rooks from north to south, and at least 4000 square miles were being worked with all the experience gained from the failures of the sister colony. The yield for 1879 was over a million sterling. South Australia was more a copper than a gold country, but the gold fields of Port Darwin were being industriously worked by the Chinese. After mentioning South Aus tralia and New Zealand, the present rage for speculation in Indian gold mines was touched on, with a due caution to perplexed investors. The Russian mines in the Ural range were interesting, both as having been probably referred to by Herodotus, and as having, enabled Murchison to forecast the suocess of gold mining at the Antipodes. Passing over to the American continent, the lecturer spoke of the goldfields of North Carolina and Virginia, the Californian discoveries, and the rich silver mines of Nevada and New Mexico. He gave an elaborate description of the Great Comstock lode, the two mines of which bad yielded in twenty years 363,671,605 dols. He spoke further of the immense wealth of the Arizona and Colorado silver mines, as well as of the Bolivian mine long known by the name Potoei, and of those worked in Peru, Chili, and Mexico. The European mines were the last to pass in review. It had been computed, Mr Bevan said, that the grand total amount of gold produced during the historic ages was £3,517,093,500, and that of silver £2,826,250.000, making for both the precious metals together no less than £6,343,343,500.