Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 27, 2025
We are at no loss to understand the abundance of our old goldsmiths' work when we know that even now, after being worked for centuries, the Wicklow gold-mines have an average yearly yield of some five hundred ounces, found, for the most part, in nuggets in the beds of streams flowing into the two Avons.
Never had I guessed that the sordid little puss was turning over every stone in the creek in her search for the shining flakes. "Why did you think you should find gold here?" I asked. "Because they do say it lies in all these mountain streams," she answered sullenly; "and I'm always dreaming of nuggets. Not that a girl with my face and figure wants 'dust' to set her off, however.
But during the nine years that it took to bore the great tunnel, what juvenile activity there was here, what feverish eagerness in this village, crowded, inundated, overflowed by workmen from Italy, from Tessin, from Germany and France! One would have thought that out of that dark hole, dug out in the mountain, they were bringing nuggets of gold.
The mining-camp of Tough Case, though small, had its excitements, as well as did many camps of half a dozen saloon-power; and on the first day of November, 1850, it was convulsed by the crisis of by far the greatest excitement it had ever enjoyed. It was not a lucky "find," for some of the largest nuggets in the State had been taken out at Tough Case.
The floor of this cave was carpeted with gold dust, and nuggets of the same precious metal were piled high against its walls. But what caused me to rub my eyes in wonder was a slab of opal, which seemed ablaze with the fire it contained.
Negroes are and have been accustomed to go out to the creeks and wash on Saturdays, frequently bringing in two or three dollars' worth, and not unfrequently negroes come to town with little nuggets of the pure ore to trade. The iron and copper mines were developed only to a limited extent before the war.
I hope it will turn out a lump of quartz, gilt on the face, as those big nuggets do, ninety-nine out of a hundred. I have had no faith in it all along." "Because I found it, Mr. Firm, I suppose," I answered, rather pettishly, for I never had liked Firm's incessant bitterness about my nugget. "Perhaps if you had found it, Mr. Firm, you would have had great faith in it."
Now, with that pay gravel within reach, and the gold running twenty-five cents to the pan, and the occasional tiny nuggets jumping up the yield now and then, he could go ahead and do the things he wanted to do. And he could dream about having a certain gray-eyed girl for his wife, without calling himself names afterward.
But this was not all; for beyond this pile of gold bricks they came upon row after row of great leather sacks which, upon being opened, were found to contain more gold, either in the form of rough nuggets, just as they had been taken from the mine, or dust which had evidently been washed out of the sand of some river.
Almost in the same breath he told of their unexpected good fortune. "Now, then," he added, "we'll cut off the claws of this fellow as a trophy, and then to camp and supper." "Stop a bit, not so fast," said Wilkins, who had descended the tree and was sitting on the ground with a most lugubrious countenance; "we must gather up my nuggets before going.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking