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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 47

Gold Mining

Gold Mining.

It will not be expected that, in this handbook, I should give an account of the numerous regulations respecting so special an industry as gold-mining.

The mining camps of British Columbia are as orderly as English villages. Gold claims are taken up anywhere on payment of 5 dollars (20s. English) per annum. A 25-dollar (5l. English) licence secures a miner in his rights. No page 75 further tax is levied. The nature and size of British Columbia gold claims are as follows:—

For "Bar diggings," a strip of land, 100 feet wide at high-water mark, and thence extending into the river to its lowest water-level.

For "Dry diggings," 100 feet square.

"Creek claims," 100 feet long, measured in the direction of the general course of the stream, and extending in width from base to base of the hill on each side.

"Bench claims," 100 feet square.

"Quartz claims," 150 feet in length, measured along the lode or vein, with power to follow the lode or vein, and its spurs, dips, and angles, anywhere on or below the surface included between the two extremities of such length of 150 feet.

When a creek has "prospected" well for gold, it is usual for miners to form themselves into companies of from four to eight, or upwards, to take up their claims in proximity to one another, and to work the whole ground thus claimed for the benefit of the company. If rich "pay-dirt" be struck, and the mine be in a sufficiently advanced state, companies, anxious to obtain the greatest possible quantity of gold in the shortest possible space of time, will frequently employ additional working-hands, and work during the whole 24 hours.

These hired men often get high wages. Usual wages at Cariboo are as follows:—
  • Carpenter 7 dollars (28s. English) per day.
  • Foreman 6 dollars (24s. English) per day.
  • Workman 5 dollars (20s. English) per day.
  • Chinaman 3½ dollars (14s. English) per day.

The reader will remember that the mining season does not last the whole year.

The gold-bearing districts extend over several thousand miles of country (see Map). Indications of gold are also found generally in Vancouver and Queen Charlotte Islands; but very good paying diggings have not yet been found there.

Within twelve years nearly five millions sterling worth of gold have been exported, and unless common and scientific opinion is entirely wrong, the gold-fields of the province have hardly yet been touched. In various spots, discovered by chance, gold-miners have collected. These spots, generally, have been so remote, that the necessaries of life have been very dear; and in consequence, diggings that yielded 3 to 5 dollars (12s. to 20s. English) per day, have not been considered attractive.

The conditions of gold-mining, however, have changed of late years in several important respects. The steady improvement of communications and the growth of farming settlements in the interior have reduced the price of necessaries at the diggings. The miners themselves have long ago given up fancy-mining, and come down to economy and hard work. It would be too much to say that the shallow diggings in British Columbia are worked out as those of California and Australia have long been, but it is true that in several important gold-fields the more easily worked places have been exhausted.

This is a very different thing from the exhaustion of the gold-fields. It is simply saying that in those particular places in British Columbia, a stage has been reached which was reached long ago in California and Australia.

page 76

The deep channels and beds of streams must now be examined, and are being examined. The era of real "gold-digging" is about to follow the era of mere "gold-lifting." A different kind of mining is being adopted—deep mining, with more machinery, and consequently larger expense.