4. Report on the Gold-Districts of the Province of Nova Scotia. Made to the President and Directors of the Oldham Gold-Mining Company, December 28, 1863, by George I. Chace, Professor of Chemistry in Brown University, Providence, R.I. Manuscript.
5. Introductory Remarks on the Gold-Region of Nova Scotia. Prefixed to a Report made to the President and Directors of the Atlantic Mining Company, December 31, 1863. By Benjamin Silliman, Jr., Professor of General and Applied Chemistry in Yale College, New Haven, Ct. Manuscript.
6. Report on the Montague Gold-Field, near Halifax, N.S., by the Same, and on the Gold-Fields of the Waverley District, by the Same. Manuscript.
7. Quarterly Report of the Chief Gold-Commissioner of the Province of Nova Scotia. Made to the Provincial Secretary at Halifax, October 1, 1863.
8. The Royal Gazette, issued by the Chief Gold-Commissioner, Halifax, January 20, 1863. Published by Authority.
In confirmation of these documents, we shall only need to add the "testimony of the rocks" themselves, as shown in more than sixty specimens of the gold-bearing quartz of these remarkable mines. Some of these were brought to Boston by Professors Chace and Silliman, on their return a few weeks since from exploring the rich leads of the Provinces,—but by far the larger number were forwarded by some of the resident superintendents of the mines, by the Cunard steamer Africa, arriving in Boston, Sunday, January 10, 1864, to the care of Captain Field, then residing at the Tremont House. We may add that the eight finest of these specimens are now lying on the table before us, their mottled sides thickly crusted with arsenical pyrites and streaked through and through with veins and splashes of twenty-two-carat gold. Incredulity, when raised to its highest pitch, might perhaps discredit all written testimony, whether official or scientific; but we have as yet seen no case so confirmed that the sight of these extraordinary fragments did not compel belief.
In drawing our narrative from the authorities above cited, we shall prefer to follow as closely as possible the precise statements of the documents themselves,—interspersed only with such remarks of our own as may be necessary best to preserve an intelligible connection between the different portions. The agreement between all the authorities is so substantial, and in fact entire, that we shall experience none of the usual difficulties in the reconciling of contradictions or the balancing of conflicting theories or statements.
The gold-fields of Nova Scotia consist of some ten or twelve districts of quite limited area in themselves, but lying scattered along almost the whole southeastern coast of the Province. The whole of this coast, from Cape Sable on the west to Cape Canso on the east, a distance of about two hundred and fifty miles, is bordered by a fringe of hard, slaty rocks,—slate and sandstone in irregular alternations,—sometimes argillaceous, and occasionally granitic. These rocks, originally deposited on the grandest scale of Nature, are always, when stratified, found standing at a high angle,—sometimes almost vertical,—and with a course, in the main, very nearly due east and west. They seldom rise to any great elevation,—the promontory of Aspatogon, about five hundred feet high, being the highest land on the Atlantic coast of the Province. The general aspect of the shore is low, rocky, and desolate, strewn often with huge boulders of granite or quartzite,—and where not bleak and rocky, it is covered with thick forests of spruce and white birch.