On the Sutherlandshire Gold Fields

Abstract

It is now about four years since I had the honour of reading, before this Society, a paper on the auriferous rocks and drifts of Victoria.* In concluding that paper I ventured to suggest, that as history showed there had been at one time remunerative gold mines in Scotland, it was quite possible that there might yet be found in this country places where, with improved modern appliances, the search for the precious metal could now be profitably carried on. What I then merely hazarded as a conjecture has since been realized as a fact; and it now affords me much pleasure to lay before the Society the results of some of the experiences of a practical digger on a modern Scottish gold field. Early in March of last year, accompanied by an old Australian companion, a thorough miner, I started for the Sutherland diggings, where we spent about five weeks in prosecuting our investigations as to the true nature and value of these fields. And I may state that every facility was afforded us by the agents and representatives of his Grace the Duke of Sutherland. I shall not take up your time with any narratives of personal adventure, further than to remark that gold digging in mid-winter, amongst northern snows and ice, is no fancy occupation, and that repudiating the role of feather-bed diggers we went to work in thorough earnest. The gold fields of Sutherland, so far as at present known, all lie within a radius of This 250-word extract was created in the absence of an abstract