THE FRASER RIVER DIGGINGS. VANCOUVER ISLAND.

Colonist, Issue 133, 28 January 1859, Page 4

THE FRASER RIVER DIGGINGS. VANCOUVER ISLAND.

(From the Weekly Victoria V. I. Gazette, \Wi Sept.)

A Truthful Statement.

It has been the misfortune of this colony that the statements relative to its mining region which have appeared as "correspondence" in the California journals, have, with few exceptions, been of an extreme character. While the Fraser fever was raging, nothing could exceed the glowing accounts thus' furnished, but as soon as "reaction" took place, they seemed to be plunged, by that contingency^ into the lowest depths of depression and discouragement. A creditable contrast lo these fictions is presented by the letter of Mr. Adolph Sutro to the Evening Bulletin of San' Francisco on the 27th of August. We regret our inability to give place to it entire, on account of its length, for its views are as worthy publication here as abroad, there being many of our residents whose vision is as unreasonably tinged with despondency as that of many who have returned hence to California. The letter commences with a truthful picture of the inception ofthe excitement, its culmination, and the reaction consequent on the discovery that the lower Fraser could not be worked at the existing stage of water, andthat its upper portions were unattainable with any amount of provisions. Even those who had set out with a determination to explore and examine the country, were deterred by these obstacles, and turned back. Mr. Sutro says in this connection :—" This is the state"' of affairs at the present moment. Frazer River has been put down as a 1 humbug' by a majority of the California people, and why ? Have they carried out their original intention to explore the country above? No, they have not. They have met some obstacles, and shrunk back from them, giving up all their original ideas." A description and commendation of the Lillooet Harrison route follows, and the following conclusions are arrived at as to the period when our doubts respecting the extent of the mining region may reasonably be expected to be solved: —" The work of opening this new route was commenced about the middle of August. Give the parties two months to finish it, allow the miners one month more to prospect and locate their claims, give them two months further to work and take out the gold, and another fortnight for the report of their doings and result of their labours to reach San Francisco, and in all, five or six months will elapse—which would make it about lhe first day of February, next year —before we can reasonably expect any definite and satisfactory information from the Upper Fraser River—the acknowledged real mining district of New Caledonia. In the meanwhile, the river will fall, and probably a large amount of gold will be taken out near and below Fort Yale, the supposed tail-end of the grand sluice of Fraser river. The winter will set in and stop operations for a short time; and in spring the country will Fairly commence to be developed. One fact must be remembered; the Lower Fraser can only be worked at low , water, and this not over three or four months in the year; while the upper mining country can likely be worked the whole year round, excepting, probably, a few of the extreme winter months." The above we think incorrect, in placing the period so remote at which we will learn the character of the Upper Fraser, though with the information in his possession, Mr. Sutro was wise iv allowing a wide margin. The river route to the Upper Frazer has been and is being materially improved, and there is every reason to believe that the Lillooet-Harrison route will be opened within two weeks. Definite information may therefore be fairly expected to reach this point from the Upper Fraser by the Ist of November—partial news from there much sooner. But before the end of that month, we are confident that enough will be known to., settle the question whether New Caledonia is to rival California and Australia or not. Heitsrated Advice. Unless present indications are altogether deceptive, we are in the last stage of the depression that has prevailed iv this vicinity since the cessation, of immigration hither from California. Before a fortnight passes away we may have entered upon another period of inflation and excitement similar to that which preceded our present condition. It is, therefore, not an inappropriate season to renew the suggestions which the Gazette has hitherto frequently made as to the policy and duty of residents in Victoria, even though that repetition may not be an interesting theme to all its readers. Real estate is the thermometer of apparent prosperity in cities. Town lots rise and fall in proportion to a community's confidence in the future well-being of the j locality in which they are resident. If a| community were never or seldom deceived, 'or if deliberate plans were not frequently laid to produce inflation in the bubble of speculation, the rise or fall in value of real property would'be an indication of a city's condition as reliable as it now is uncertain and deceptive. As it is, no delusions are more plausible than those of which it is the subject—and in its relation even experience . seems to be an unsuccessful, an ..unheeded teacher. One of the first results of the falling of Frazer River, if it continue, will be a revival in real estate transactions here. The battledore and shuttlecock operations of a few months since will be renewed. Men will grow crazy again at the prospect of sudden wealth, and will rush madly into speculation, as if mere transfer of property from hand to hand, unimproved and unproductive, could possibly result in permanent profit. Winter will come on, when, as a shrewd observer of affairs here recently observed, " shelter is everything, and bare ground nothing," and the deluded seekers after the philosopher's stone will find the real estate thermometer down ■to zero, and wonder how they could have overlooked a real market in chasing a •fictitious one. . This is an extreme, but not

an improbable:picture.. Improvements of a substantial and serviceable character, which might have been made immediately and profitably productive, were ■in the early part of. last summer overlooked and neglected as opportunities for investment, because " enterprising" individuals • were victims of the "town lot fever.1' Later, the same class of undertakings were not gone into, because a want of confidence in the future pervaded the community. Thus the two extremes of elation and depression produced the same result —an indefinite postponement of improvements really needed and permanently valuable, such, as residences for families comfortably constructed and capable of being rented at a reasonable rate, &c. Such has been the past history of Victoria; and the efforts of* this journal were employed against its continuance then.—Whether, in spite of counsel repeated again and again, the future will once more place it in our experience, remains to be scon. Frazer Siver Gold-Dast. The amount of gold that has been extracted from Fraser River is much more considerable than is generally believed, and we-venture the opinion that up to the present writing, more gold' has been shipped from Fraser River during the few months of its being known as a gold producing stream, than there was from California during the first twelve months after the golddiscovery in that State. A reliable gentleman assures us that the books of the United States Branch Mint at San Francisco, showed the receipt of 94,000 dollars' worth of Fraser River gold-dust, six weeks ago, which is nearly equal to the amount estimated to have been exported from California in 18-13, though the gold discovery was made in May. We do not think 50,000 dollars, or even 75,000 dollars a high estimate of the amount of Fraser River dust received at the Mint for the last six weeks. Almost every person going back has taken small amounts, and we are assured by a gentleman who has every means of knowing, that 100,000 dollars could be purchased in dust on Fraser River near Fort Yale, if the buyer were willing to pay the miners' price for it, (16 dollars.) Our merchants even now ship considerable sums on each steamer. In a little while we expect to see gold-dust plenty in Victoria, as the miners cannot much longer hold out for the rate they are asking, and as soon as they come down, the traders will buy largely, both as a matter of speculation and to afford ocular demonstration of the richness of the Frazer River diggings to doubters in California and elsewhere.