5 dollars each. Some of the pieces had quartz among
them. Hill, who was the first miner on the bar bearing his name, just
above spoken of, with his partner, has made some 600 dollars on it in
almost sixteen days' work. Three men just arrived from Sailor Diggings
have brought down 670 dollars in dust, the result of twelve days' work.
Gold very fine. Rising of the river driving the miners off for a time."

Correspondents from several places on the Sound, both on the British and
American territories, men of various nationalities, have since written
that the country on the Fraser River is rich in gold, and "equal to any
discoveries ever made in California." The _Times'_ correspondent,
writing from Vancouver's Island on 10th June, says, "The gold exists
from the mouth of Fraser River for at least 200 miles up, and most
likely much further, but it has not been explored; hitherto any one
working on its banks has been able to obtain gold in abundance and
without extraordinary labour; the gold at present obtained has been
within a foot of the surface, and is supposed to have averaged about ten
dollars per diem to each man engaged in mining. Of course, some obtain
more, some less, but all get gold. Thompson River is quite as rich in
gold as Fraser River. The land about Thompson River consists of
extensive sandy prairies, which are loaded with gold also; in fact, the
whole country about Fraser and Thompson Rivers are mere beds of gold, so
abundant as to make it quite disgusting. I have already seen pounds and
pounds of it, and hope before long to feast my eyes upon tons of the
precious metal." And the same high authority writes on 17th
June,--"There is no longer room to doubt that all the country bordering
on Fraser River is one continuous gold bed. Miners abandoning the
partially exhausted _placers_ of California, are thronging to this new
_Dorado_, and the heretofore tranquil precincts of Victoria are now the
scene of an excitement such as was witnessed at San Francisco in 1849,
or since in Melbourne. Land has run up to prices fabulously high; and
patches that six months ago were, perhaps, grudgingly purchased at the
colonial price of 20 shillings the acre, are re-selling daily at a
hundred times that amount. The small number of steam ships hitherto
found sufficient for the commerce between San Francisco and these
vicinities no longer suffices to convey a tithe of the eager applicants
for passage. An opening for th