Peeps at Many Lands: Canada

by J. T. Bealby

"And does he never come down? Does he always live by himself?"

Then you will be told all that is known about Coal-Oil Johnnie—namely, that he is slightly affected in his mind, that for seventeen years he has with unwavering perseverance worked away at a gold-bearing vein, worked in solitude, doggedly, perseveringly, drilling, cutting, and blasting a tunnel to wealth and fortune, which he implicitly believes is locked fast in the granite heart of the mountain.

Then will come your next question: "But why do you call him Coal-Oil Johnnie?"

"Oh, that's because, when he wants money to buy himself bread or more dynamite for blasting, he comes down into the town, and peddles round coal-oil to people's houses."

"Coal-oil! That's what they call petroleum in England, isn't it?"

"Sure."

Now, Coal-Oil Johnnie has not yet found his fortune, but who knows how soon he may do so? Scores of other men have worked away with the same faith and the same hope, and have reaped the rewards they have toiled for in a much shorter time than Coal-Oil Johnnie has devoted to the one great object of his life. And yet others have laboured longer, and are still living on the faith, hope, and perseverance that is in them.

An ordinary Italian labourer, who came out to Canada and found employment in a gold-mine, worked on there until the mine was given up as being exhausted. But Pietro Lavoro was of a different opinion. After a while he went to the owners and asked them to grant him a lease of the mine. They agreed. Shouldering his pick, therefore, and lashing his tent and axe, his rock-drills, his miner's hammer, and some sticks of dynamite, as well as a bag of flour and a case or two of tinned meat, upon a small hand-sleigh—the whole of his fortune, in fact—Pietro set off to trudge up the mountain-side, and for several hours toiled along the steep trail leading to the Auro Rosso mine. At the end of two years Pietro Lavoro was a wealthy man. He had a big mining camp up at the Auro Rosso, and over forty men were employed in getting out the ore. At the bank down in the town below there was a sum of $50,000 standing to his credit, and packed in bags, close to the entrance to the gallery that pierced the mountain, was sufficient ore to yield him another $50,000. Pietro is only waiting for the snow to come to "raw-hide" the ore down to the lake, that he may get it transported to the smelter, where the gold will be separated for him from the stone.

The ore from which the gold is extracted is packed into bags each about a foot long, and weighing two or three hundredweight. The way these heavy bags are taken down the steep mountain-side, where it is utterly impossible for a vehicle on wheels to move, is to pack them into a bullock's raw hide spread out on the ground. The corners are then gathered up and tied together. After that the hide, harnessed to horses, is dragged down over the frozen snow. In that way a horse is able to take down a much larger quantity of ore than it could possibly carry on its back, and with much greater safety to itself. This is called "raw-hiding."

An even greater degree of faith and hope and perseverance was shown by the man who laboured for nine years at the opening up and development of another mine, working, not with his own hands, but in directing the systematic construction of galleries, the erection of stamp-mills, and the building of all the other appurtenances of a scientifically-equipped and up-to-date mine. This man risked very much more than the other—than Pietro Lavoro—namely, a large amount of capital. But at the end of nine years he, too, reaped his reward, for he sold his mine as a going concern to a party of American capitalists for a goodly sum.