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Louis Davidson

Practical Graph Structures in SQL

Server and Azure SQL
Enabling Deeper Insights Using Highly Connected
Data
Louis Davidson
Cleveland, TN, USA

ISBN 978-1-4842-9458-1 e-ISBN 978-1-4842-9459-8

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-9459-8

© Louis Davidson 2023

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively
licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is
concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in
any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks,

service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the
absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the
relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general
use.

The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the
advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate
at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This Apress imprint is published by the registered company APress

Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
The registered company address is: 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY
10004, U.S.A.
To Val, what a life we have had so far… here’s to more of it.
Preface
I started working on my first book 23 years ago. It was on relational
database design. I had learned a little about graphs at that point from a
class I took by Dr. David Rozenshtein (his 1997 book The Essence of SQL
: A Guide to Learning Most of SQL in the Least Amount of Time was
essential). His class was very influential and taught me a lot about how
to think about SQL problems. This was a really long time ago (clearly),
but in that same class, one of the sections was on trees in SQL Server. I
was hooked on the subject.
In my 2012 edition of my database design book, I started to include
hierarchies as one of the topics. In my latest book, that came out after
SQL Server 2019 arrived, I promised a book of SQL Graph. This book in
your hands is the answer to that challenge.
This is my first programming-based book in many years. Usually I
am more interested in helping you shape a design, but in this case, I
want to show you the mechanics of building a graph database solution
using SQL Server and leave it more to you to decide what to do with it
from there. Part of this is due to the newness and relative complexity of
the topic, but also because graphs are meant to be very flexible
structures…way more flexible than the standard relational databases.
The chapters of the book are as follows:
Chapter 1: What a graph is and ways graphs can be used. I touch on
some of the underpinnings of what makes a graph a graph and a taste
of the theory that mathematicians use to describe and work with
graph data structures.
Chapter 2: How graphs are implemented and the algorithms that are
used to process them. While the basic structure of the graph is really
simple, there is some value to understanding how graph structures
are built in coding and having some idea of what you will see in the
rest of the book.
Chapter 3: The syntax that Microsoft has implemented for use with
graph data stored in SQL Server tables is similar to what you
probably already know from working with relational tables, but it is
so much more. In this chapter, I teach you how to use the syntax
provided by Microsoft to query graph tables in interesting ways.
 Chapter 4: Whereas in Chapter 3 I showed basic query techniques, in
this chapter I show methods that can help you load and protect the
integrity of the data in your SQL Graph tables.
Chapter 5: A tree structure built using SQL Graph objects, including
code to load and manipulate those nodes in ways that you will need
when building production systems. In this chapter, you explore the
code to create and manage a tree in SQL Server, along with an
example of how it all works.
Chapter 6: In this chapter, I dig into performance. You’ll examine a
new method of implementing a tree for comparison to the SQL Graph
objects and build some objects you can use to write queries to report
on data in your trees that operate faster. You will then build some
large, random data sets and compare how these methods perform
with certain larger sized data sets.
Chapter 7: The goal of this chapter is to build a data structure that
can show some of the concerns with working with directed graphs
that are not trees. You will build a fairly simple bill of materials data
structure to demonstrate the techniques you will need when you are
working with these structures, which are similar to trees but still
quite different.
Chapter 8: In this chapter, you will do some querying of larger data
sets in SQL Server’s graph objects. To do this, you will implement a
graph structure and data generation tools to try on large sets of data
to match your expected needs. Finally, you will explore a set of
performance tips for handling graph objects.
SQL Server’s relational engine may never be acceptable as a
complete replacement for a specific graph database system like
CosmosDB, but even in its relative infancy with just a few iterations
complete in the SQL Server lifecycle, it has become a nice way to extend
your data structures inside existing relational data structures quickly
and easily.
You can find the downloads in the book in two locations. First, on
Apress’s website you will find the original code for this book and any
errata that is reported:
https://github.com/Apress/practical-graph-
structures. Second, at
https://github.com/drsqlgithub/GraphBook1 you will find
that code plus any new code and projects I create that pertain to
learning graphs until I start working on a second edition of this book
someday.
If you have any direct questions about the content, send email to
[email protected] and I will do what I can.
Any source code or other supplementary material referenced by the
author in this book is available to readers on GitHub
(https://github.com/Apress). For more detailed information, please
visit www.apress.com/source-code.
Acknowledgments
My wife, for suffering through yet another long and painful book
writing process.
The Microsoft MVP Program for all the connections it has provided
me to meet wonderful, bizarrely smart people for 18 years. And my
lead, Rie Merritt, for all she has done for me through the years; amazing
how we met so many years ago. Just meeting Bob Ward and Conor
Cunningham is thrill enough, and there have been hundreds besides
them.
Shreya Verma and Arvind Shyamsundar for their help over the past
few years as I attempted to do crazy things with the graph objects on
my local personal computer.
Dr. David Rosenstein, who first got me interested in graphs in
relational structures so many years ago. Paul Nielsen for the talks we
had on graph structures.
Kathi Kellenberger for tech editing this book. I appreciate the hard
work!
All the doctors/medical professionals who kept me alive and kicking
these past few years. (If you want to know more, just ask, if you have a
while to talk. There is a reason this book took me over two years to
write.)
My coworkers at CBN whom I left during the writing of this book. I
hope the graph objects I left you with are serving you nicely.
My new coworkers at Redgate. I have been a friend of Redgate (as
well as a member of Friends of Redgate) for many years, writing for
them. My new manager and teammates have been nothing but
awesome.
Amber Davis, for giving me the chance to be a Dollywood Insider.
Obviously being a Dollywood insider has little to do with this book, but
I just wanted to say it again (which she may never see!) as I am writing
the acknowledgements in the Dollywood Dreammore lobby. I learned a
lot from her that has been useful writing some of this book and in my
new job at Redgate as Simple-Talk editor.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1:​Introduction to Graphs
Graph Fundamentals
Definition
Summary
Chapter 2:​Data Structures and Algorithms
Basic Implementation
Acyclic Graphs
Trees
Other Acyclic Graphs
Cyclic Graphs
Non-Directed Graphs
Summary
Chapter 3:​SQL Graph Table Basics
Object Creation
Creating Data
Querying Data
Node-to-Node Querying
Traversing Variable Level Paths
Summary
Chapter 4:​SQL Graph Tables:​Extended Topics
Advanced Data Creation Techniques
Building an Interface Layer
Loading Data Using Composable JSON Tags
Heterogenous Queries
Integrity Constraints and Indexes
 Edge Constraint
Uniqueness Constraints (and Indexes)
Additional Constraints
Metadata Roundup
List Graph Objects in the Database
Types of Graph Columns
Tools for Fetching Graph Information
Summary
Chapter 5:​Tree Data Structures
Creating the Data Structures
Base Table Structures
Demo Sales Structure
Essential Tree Maintenance Code
Code To Create New Nodes
Reparenting Nodes
Deleting a Node
Tree Output Code
Returning Part of the Tree
Determining If a Child Node Exists
Aggregating Child Activity at Every Level
Summary
Chapter 6:​Tree Structures, Algorithms, and Performance
Alternative Tree Implementation
Path Technique
Helper Table
Performance Comparison
 Summary
Chapter 7:​Other Directed Acyclic Graphs
The Problem Set
The Example
Determining If a Part Is Used in a Build
Picking Items for a Build
Printing Out the Parts List for a Build
Summary
Chapter 8:​A Graph For Testing
The Example
Creating the Tables
Loading the Data
The Queries
Performance Tuning Results
Performance Tuning Roundup
Test
Index the Internal Columns
Employ a Maximum Degree of Parallelism of One
Consider Breaking Up Some Queries
The End (or Is It the Beginning?​)
Index
About the Author
Louis Davidson
has been working with databases for
more than 25 years as a corporate
database developer and architect. He is
now the editor for the Redgate Simple
Talk website. He has been a Microsoft
MVP for 18 years. In addition to this
book on graphs in SQL Server, he has
written six editions of his general-
purpose SQL Server database design
book (Apress) and has worked on
multiple other book projects over the
years.
Louis has been active in speaking about database design and
implementation at many conferences over the past 25 years, including
SQL PASS, SQL Rally, SQL Saturday events, CA World, Music City Data,
and the devLink Technical Conference. He has a bachelor’s degree in
computer science from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. For
more information, please visit his website at drsql.org.
About the Technical Reviewer
Kathi Kellenberger
is a Customer Success Engineer at
Redgate and a Data Platform MVP. She
has worked with SQL Server since 1998
and has authored, co-authored, or tech
reviewed over 20 technical books. Kathi
is a longtime volunteer at LaunchCode in
St. Louis where she has taught T-SQL in
the LaunchCode Women + program.
When Kathi isn’t working, she enjoys
spending time with family and friends,
cycling, singing, and climbing the stairs
of tall buildings.
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
four feet was given to each rod, and the miners stepped to and fro
from a bracket or ledge on one rod to the parallel one on the other.
As one rod is always descending while the other is ascending, and
vice versâ, it is easy to understand how this alternate stepping on to
the little platforms must lead to the ascent or descent of the miner.
At the division between each two of the twenty-two portions, there
is a larger platform on which he may rest awhile; and nothing is lost
by his rest, for the reciprocal motion goes on, and is ready again for
his use when he is ready for it. This first machine surpassed
expectation. Short as the length of ascent was, many invalids of the
district were now able to resume their underground labours, as the
fatigue of mounting or descending was reduced, by the alternate
action of the machinery, to a mere easy lateral motion.
The advantages of this new method in saving both time and
power were so obvious that it was soon imitated in the other deep
metalliferous veins of the Hartz; and at present power-ladders or
man-engines of an improved construction, such as the substitution
of a single rod for the double apparatus above described, are in very
general use over the Continent, whence they have passed in a
modified form into Cornwall, where they are worked by steam. In
Fowey Consols Mine the machine extends to a depth of 1,680 feet.
The rod is eight inches square, with twelve-inch platforms at
intervals of twelve feet; and there are stationary platforms
equidistant at the side of the shaft. When a miner is about to
descend the steps on a movable platform, the rod descends and
carries him down twelve feet; he steps upon a fixed platform while
the rod rises again; he then steps upon another movable platform,
and descends another twelve feet, and so on to the bottom. In
ascending, there is simply a reversed process. It is a very interesting
sight to witness the ascent or descent of bodies of miners at certain
hours of the day and night. You see them passing each other in the
shafts, in a kind of zig-zag course, of as great regularity as any zig-
zag will permit. As one miner steps off the rod platform to one fixed
platform, another steps on to it from another fixed platform on the
other side. Thus there are two streams of miners moving in opposite
directions along the same rod at the same time, and this curious
spectacle is rendered doubly pleasing when we consider how much
distressing toil has been alleviated by the employment of the man-
engine. Machinery constructed on the same principle has been
latterly adopted in the mines of Anzin, for transporting the coal step
by step to the surface; and it is evident that when coal mines are
worked at greater depths than at present, ropes, however strong,
will no longer be able to sustain even their own weight, and the
whole transport up and down a shaft of perhaps 3,000 or 3,500 feet
must be performed by means of similar machines.
Wherever the excavated rock is not hard or
solid enough to bear the superincumbent
weight, the galleries of a mine must
necessarily be supported by timbering or
walling. Timbering is most used, frequently in
the form represented in the annexed woodcut;
and when we consider how miles upon miles
of galleries are thus supported, we can easily
imagine that whole forests must be engulfed
TIMBERING OF A in our mines. It has been calculated that for
MINE. the total quantity of timber in use for mining
purposes in Cornwall, it would require no less
than 140 square miles of forest of Norwegian
pine, averaging a growth of 120 years. The expense thus incurred is
enormous; the cost for timber, duty free, in Cornish and Devon
mines, amounted in 1836 to 94,138l. and is probably still larger at
the present time. For timbering, no tree is more esteemed than the
larch or the Norwegian pine, on account of its great durability in the
wet; but whatever wood may be employed, it is necessary to peel
off the bark, experience having shown that unless this is done the
wood rots much more easily, as the fibres of the rind attract a far
greater quantity of moisture than the smooth surface of the splint.
Like the potato and the grape, subterranean timbering is exposed to
the attacks of a fungus, producing what is called dry-rot. The
parasite germinates in the sap which remains in the wood, or at
least derives its nourishment from it. Its vegetation is at first
scarcely perceptible; but soon its white fibres multiply, and form at
length small sponges on the surface. The decomposition of the wood
now advances with rapid strides, and terminates at last in the total
destruction of the ligneous fibres. Not satisfied with depriving the
roof of its support, the dry-rot likewise produces a vitiation of the air,
so that wherever timbering is employed, it is reckoned among the
great enemies of the mine and of the miner. Many remedies have
been recommended, among which kyanizing, or saturating the wood
with a solution of corrosive sublimate, is one of the most efficacious,
though unfortunately too expensive to be of universal use.
Mushrooms of various kinds likewise flourish upon the moist surface
of the spars, and various insects collect near this parasitic
vegetation.
The timbering of a mine also affords
very convenient lurking-places to the
numerous rats which are met with
underground, where they contrive to live
upon the crumbs or offal of the miners’
meals, or upon candle-ends and remains
of wicks. Not seldom the timbering of a
gallery, weakened by rot, gives way TRANSVERSE SECTIONS
under the pressure of the roof, which OF WALLED DRAIN
falls in with a tremendous crash, and GALLERIES.
sometimes buries the unfortunate miner
under its ruins. Another disadvantage
attending timbering is its liability to catch fire, and thus, wherever
the cost is not found too great, the chief galleries of a mine are now
usually constructed of stone. Sometimes the two sides of a gallery
are lined with vertical walls, and its roof is supported by an ogival
vault or an arch. If the sides of the mine are solid, a simple arch is
sufficient to sustain the roof; and at other times the whole surface of
a gallery is formed of a single elliptic vault, the great axis of which is
vertical, and the bottom is surmounted by a wooden plank, under
which the waters run off.
 DRAINAGE OF A MINE BY ADIT LEVELS.
a. Shaft. b. Shallow adit. c. Deep adit. d.
Mineral lode.

The miner is generally in a state of perpetual warfare with the

water, which threatens to inundate the scene of his labours; and as
in a leaky ship the pumps must be kept continually working to
prevent the vessel from sinking, so here also perpetual efforts are
necessary to keep off the encroachments of this never-tiring foe.
When a mine is situated above the level of a valley or of the
neighbouring sea, its drainage may be effected in a comparatively
easy manner by means of sloping galleries, dry-levels or adits, which
in many cases serve also for the transport of the ore or coal. In
some mines these drainage levels are executed on a truly gigantic
scale. Thus the Great Cornish Adit, which extends through the large
mining district of Gwennap, begins in the valley above Carnon, and
receives the branch adits of fifty mines in the parish of Gwennap,
forming excavations and ramifications which have an aggregate
extent of between thirty and forty miles, and which are in some
places 400 feet below the surface of the ground. The longest branch
is from Cardrew mine, and is five and a half miles in length. This
great adit opens into the sea at Restronget Creek, and empties its
waters into Falmouth Harbour.
A similar great drain is Nent Force Level, in the north of England,
which drains the numerous mines in Alston Moor. It consists of a
stupendous aqueduct nine feet broad, and in some places from
sixteen to twenty feet high. For more than three miles it passes
under the course of the river Nent, to Nentsbury engine-shaft, and is
navigated underground by long narrow boats. At the distance of a
mile in the interior, daylight is seen at its mouth like a star, and this
star is continually enlarging upon you until you find yourself in open
daylight. The ramifications of the Great Adit Levels of the mines of
Freiberg in Saxony have a total length of seventy-two miles; but the
most stupendous works of this description are those in the district of
Clausthal and Zellerfeld, in the Hartz, where, as the mining
operations have been carried on deeper and deeper, adits have been
successively driven below adits. Four of these levels date from times
previous to the seventeenth century; but, as they were found
insufficient, the famous Georg Stollen was added to their number in
1777. This gigantic tunnel, which, piercing the hard rock, required
twenty-three years for its completion, is above five miles long, and
passes 900 feet below the church of Clausthal. It serves the double
purpose of a draining gallery and of a navigable canal. The water is
always kept at a height of from fifty to sixty inches; and the boats,
which carry about five tons, are propelled by means of a chain
attached to the vault, along which the boatmen drag or push them
forward. In this economical manner about 20,000 tons of ore are
annually brought to daylight. The boats are made and repaired in a
subterranean wharf, which, though far from being one of the largest,
may probably boast of being the deepest.
Until 1851 the Georg Stollen answered all the purposes for which
it was constructed, but at the end of that period the increased depth
and extension of the mines rendered necessary the addition of a
new great adit level, which has been named the ‘Ernst August
Stollen,’ in honour of the late king of Hanover. In spite of its vast
dimensions, this magnificent work, which is six and three-quarter
miles long, about ten feet high, and six and a half broad, required
only thirteen years for its completion, and may justly be considered
as one of the triumphs of modern engineering. The excavation was
begun simultaneously at ten different points, and such was the
admirable precision of the plans that all the junctions of the different
sections of the gallery fitted accurately into each other.
Below the Ernst August Gallery (437 yards), the form of the
country allows no deeper adit level to be driven; but to provide for
the increasing vertical extension of the workings, a new
underground gallery, without any opening to the surface, and at a
depth of 262 yards below the former, is already in contemplation.
The water is to be raised to the Ernst August Level by a special
hydraulic machine placed in a vertical shaft, which will serve at the
same time for raising the ore and for the passage of the miners. The
expense is calculated at about 60,000l. but will be amply repaid by
the new field of mineral wealth which it will open. Thus in the Hartz
one magnificent work is but the precursor of another.
When a mine is so situated that drainage galleries cannot be
established, engines must be employed for pumping up the waters.
Thus, in Cornwall, where most of the copper mines open almost at
the sea level, an enormous influx of water can be kept in check only
by an equally enormous steam-power. In the United and
Consolidated Mines between Truro and Redruth, seven steam-
pumps, working with the united strength of 2,000 horses, are kept
constantly in motion, and raise above 2,500,000 gallons of water in
twenty-four hours.
In 1837 the whole quantity of water pumped out of the earth by
sixty Cornish engines attained the amazing aggregate of close upon
thirty-seven millions of tons; but since then mining has been carried
on more extensively and deeper, and consequently additional steam-
power has become necessary to keep pace with the increasing
waters.
‘Even to the eye of an observer who is practised in machinery[38]
of great magnitude, the first sight and the subsequent examination
of such engines is very gratifying. To watch the labour of a giant
would be interesting; but to see the giant not only labouring at ease
amidst his enormous work but at the same time at the command of
a child, who should be able to stop him at any moment—this would
be doubly interesting. Such is the case with the great Cornish
engines, for even the largest of them may be stopped by a child of
ten or twelve years of age. Another peculiar feature, too, of these
engines is this, that they work with a quietness—or absence of clash
and clatter—which is in the inverse ratio of their magnitude. The
water makes a great rush in the pumps, but the engine itself is calm
and comparatively noiseless—like a great mountain reposing in calm
greatness while a perpetual spring brawls at its feet.’
In the coal-fields of the North equally gigantic efforts must be
made to keep down the water.
In sinking to the coal at Dalton-le-Dale, eight or nine miles from
Durham, the borers penetrated the vast bed of sand beneath the
magnesian limestone, which appears to contain the chief
subterranean water-stores of the district. In this case their outburst
was truly terrific, amounting, on June 1, 1840, to the enormous
quantity of 3,285 gallons every minute. To oppose this formidable
enemy the spirited proprietors of the mine at once proceeded to
erect the necessary steam-power for pumping off 3,000 or 4,000
gallons a minute; but, the waters still increasing, it became
necessary to meet them with a double and treble force, so that
finally the floods had to be kept down by steam engines of an
aggregate power equivalent to 1,584 horses and setting twenty-
seven sets of pumps in motion.
Sometimes the influx of water into a coal mine is so enormous
that no human contrivance can oppose it, and man is obliged to give
up the conflict in despair. During the progress of the attempted
winning of a pit at Haswell in the county of Durham, the engine
power erected pumped out the water to the amount of 26,700 tons
per day; but still the floods came in, and at last won the victory.
From the same cause many collieries have been closed, of late
years, on the banks of the Tyne, and among these the famous
Wallsend Colliery, which has given its name to the best kinds of coal.
The drowning of a coal mine not seldom occurs from the irruption
of water accumulated in old wastes or ancient workings occupying a
higher level in the vicinity. The growing pressure of such a body of
water upon the beds or barriers below becomes enormous; and then
the water, testing every weak point of the body opposed to its
escape, at length unexpectedly rushes into the space which it finds
open before it. All the works below are completely filled, and the
mines are for a time rendered useless, or, it may be, for ever
abandoned. This was the cause, in 1815, of the celebrated accident
at Heaton, near Newcastle-on-Tyne, in which ninety lives were lost.
The water flowed from two adjoining old collieries which had been
abandoned seventy years before. A barrier of six feet withstood a
pressure of thirty fathoms of water. But an irruption was aided at last
by a natural fissure of the rock, and the catastrophe followed before
any adequate protection could be interposed.
About thirty years later a tremendous calamity of the like kind,
after an outlay of 100,000l., totally ruined the Baghilt coal mines, in
Wales. The water came from adjoining mines, which had been long
abandoned.
If correct plans and descriptions of all the ancient workings had
been preserved, these accidents, which happen frequently, might
easily be prevented, as an exact knowledge of the localities would
enable the owners to leave sufficiently strong barriers in parts where
they are now often most inadequate. Such is the importance of
accurate mining records that thousands of pounds would be freely
given at this moment by many owners for a knowledge of old works
of which no plan exists and which no memory can now recall.
Fortunately, the legislature has now taken steps to introduce a
system of registration such as has already existed long ago in
Prussia, Austria, and Belgium, and which, at least, will answer the
purpose of obtaining greater security for the future.
Sometimes an enormous fall of rain, descending on the
neighbouring country, finds its way into the mines through fissures
in the ground or by breaking through galleries, and causes
irreparable mischief; sometimes even a whole river bursts into the
works and ruins them for ever. Thus, in 1856, the South Tamar
Consols, in Devonshire, was flooded by the giving way of the bed of
the Tamar, under which the workings were carried.
Even the Sea has been known to take fatal vengeance for the
undermining of her domain.
Workington Colliery extended to the distance of 1,500 yards under
the Irish Channel, and the workings, being driven considerably to
the rise, were brought at length within fifteen fathoms of the bottom
of the sea. The pillars of coal which supported the overlying strata
were hardly strong enough to support the roof, but the imprudence
of a manager eager to produce a larger quantity of coal weakened
even this insufficient support by working it partly away. Heavy falls
of the roof, accompanied by discharges of salt water, gave repeated
warnings of the impending catastrophe, which took place on July 30,
1837. So violent was the irruption that many persons at a distance of
hundreds of yards observed the whirlpool commotion of the sea as it
rushed into the gulf beneath. Some few workmen near the shaft had
time to escape, but thirty-six men and boys and as many horses
were destroyed by the waters, which in a few hours entirely filled
the excavations, the extension of which had tasked the labour of
years.
The heroic devotion of a miner has invested with a more than
ordinary interest the inundation of the mine of Beaujonc, near Liège,
which took place on February 28, 1812. One hundred and twenty-
seven persons were in the pit when the waters burst in from some
old workings. Thirty-five had time to make their escape through the
shaft; twenty-two were drowned in their eagerness to reach it; the
majority, severed from the upper world by an impassable gulf,
remained behind. Hubert Goffin, the overman, could have ascended
in the tub; but, though the father of six children, his sense of duty
would not allow him to desert his post, and he resolved to save all
his men or to perish with them. As the rising waters forced the
prisoners to seek a higher level, the boys burst out weeping and the
boldest began to despair; but Goffin revived their courage by
reminding them that their friends without would make every effort to
save them. As one day after another passed, the prisoners suffered
all the horrors of hunger, which some of them endeavoured to
appease by devouring the candles they had brought with them.
Others went to the water in the hopes of finding the body of some
drowned comrade. Two of the pitmen quarrelled, and were on the
point of coming to blows. ‘Let them fight,’ said the others; ‘if one of
them is killed we will eat him’—a declaration which at once put an
end to the dispute. To satisfy their thirst they had nothing but the
foul water of the pit. Some made vows to all the saints, others
complained in their delirium that they had to wait for their meals. In
the midst of these scenes of horror, Goffin alone retained his
courage, and, exhorting, consoling, encouraging, and reproving on
all sides, appeared as the guardian angel of his despairing comrades.
Meanwhile every effort was being made from without to bring
them succour. Although as soon as the accident took place the
pumps were incessantly at work, the water had risen to a height of
14 metres in the shaft on the following morning, and as it was still
rising there was reason to fear that the captives, blocked up in a
constantly narrowing space, would soon be suffocated. It was
resolved to strike a gallery from the neighbouring pit of Mamouster
to Beaujonc, a distance of 175 metres. Unfortunately, only two men
could hew at a time, but such was the ardour with which the work
was prosecuted that on the morning of March 4 a shout of triumph
announced that the longed-for communication was effected, and
that the prisoners were alive. Crawling through the narrow passage,
they were wrapped up in woollen blankets and strengthened with
soup and wine before being hoisted to the surface. Goffin and his
son, a lad of twelve, were the last to leave the pit; as a brave sea
captain, after some great catastrophe, never thinks of his own safety
till he has satisfied himself of that of his men. With the exception of
those who were drowned immediately after the accident took place,
all were saved. The joy of some families, the despair of others, may
be imagined when the final count was made. As a reward for Goffin’s
admirable conduct, he was decorated with the cross of the Legion of
Honour and received a pension of 600 francs. Nine years later he
was killed by an explosion of fire-damp, and thus the hostile
elements with which he had so long waged a successful war
triumphed over him at last.
The sudden irruption of an immense body of water into a mine
naturally causes a compression of the air in those galleries which are
cut off from all communication with the shaft. This pressure, which
may rise to three or four atmospheres—or, in other words, may be
three or four times greater than that of the external air—not only
produces symptoms of suffocation and cerebral congestion in the
unfortunate miners who are exposed to it, but, forcing its way
through fissures in the roof or violently rupturing it, sometimes
produces the effect of an explosion of gunpowder, throwing the
earth to a distance, and even overturning houses. One of the most
interesting of the accidents of this kind on record occurred in 1833,
in an extensive Scotch colliery, into which the waters of the river
Garnock had broken through a cavity in its bed. As the stream
poured into the mine the opening gradually enlarged, until at length
the whole body of the river plunged into the excavations beneath.
The river was affected by the tides, and this engulfment took place
at low water; but as the tide rose the sea entered with prodigious
force, until the whole workings, extending for many miles, were
completely filled. No sooner, however, had this taken place, than the
pressure of the water in the pits became so great that the confined
air, which had been forced back into the high workings, burst
through the surface of the earth in a thousand places, and many
acres of ground were seen to bubble up like the boiling of a
cauldron. Great quantities of sand and water were also thrown up,
like showers of rain, during a period of five hours, and an extensive
tract of land was laid waste.
Besides the danger of being crushed to death by a fall of rock, or
immured in a living tomb by an obstruction of the shaft or an
irruption of water, the miner has another, and often still more
formidable, enemy to encounter in the noxious gases frequently
evolved in coal-pits. Thus in all well-regulated mines the greatest
attention is paid to ventilation, so that no part of the workings may
be left without a proper supply of air. In ordinary cases the natural
currents, which set in different directions through the shafts and
galleries, may sufficiently purify the atmosphere; but in the coal
mines which are peculiarly subject to the evolution of foul gases,
artificial or mechanical means must be resorted to for driving away
the hurtful vapours as quickly as they form. To establish a proper air
current, the usual method is to keep a large fire continually burning
at the bottom of one of the two shafts of the pit, or of one of the
two compartments of the single shaft, and the difference of
temperature thus caused between the column of air of the upcast
shaft and the downcast becomes the motive power which impels or
drags the air current in obedience to it.[39] Yet this meets but half the
difficulty; for the air current, which naturally tends to the shortest
passage, must be forced to do its duty in every corner of the pit, and
not suffered to escape through the upcast shaft before it has
performed the longest circuit. For this purpose a great number of
mechanical contrivances are adopted, in the shape of ‘stoppings,’ of
brick, or wood, or stone, all so placed as to divert
and drive the air current into the several galleries of the pit, and
to make it perform every kind of complex movement, from turning
back upon its own right or left to turning over in a somersault upon
itself. The most curious and admirably simple contrivance is that of
splitting the air by means of a wooden erection, which meets and
cuts the current in two, and sends one part on the one hand and
another on the other hand. In fact, what is commonly practised in
minutely irrigating a meadow is also effected in thoroughly airing a
mine. We may form some idea of the underground travels which the
air is thus obliged to perform, by being forced along from split to
split, when we hear that at Hetton Colliery the ventilating current in
the total equals no less than 196,000 cubic feet of air per minute
circulating through the mine at a velocity of 18 feet 3 inches per
second.
The foul gases or damps evolved in mines are either heavy or
light. The most remarkable of the former is the choke-damp, or
black-damp, the name given by the miners to carbonic acid gas.
From its great specific gravity (1·527), this gas rests on the floor of
the mine and gradually accumulates, having no tendency to escape
beyond a slow mixture which takes place with atmospheric air; while
the light fire-damp, or carburetted hydrogen, which, though not
immediately fatal when breathed, explodes on the slightest contact
with flame, tends to rise to the surface. The quantity of fire-damp
which is poured out into the workings of some mines is very
considerable, and constantly varying. Some seams of coal are much
more full of it than others, and in working these, which are
technically called fiery seams, it is not uncommon for a jet of
inflammable air to issue out at every hole made for the reception of
the gunpowder before blasting.
In the celebrated Wallsend Colliery, in an attempt made to work
the Bensham Seam (an attempt which ended in a fearful accident),
Mr. Buddle said, in evidence before a committee of the House of
Commons:—‘I simply drilled a hole into the solid coal, stuck a tin
pipe into the aperture, surrounded it with clay, and lighted it. I had
immediately a gas light. The quantity evolved from the coal was
such that in every one of those places I had nothing to do but to
apply a candle, and then could set a thousand pipes on fire. The
whole face of the working was a gas-pipe from every pore of coal.’
The force with which the gas escapes on some occasions from
clefts or joints is so great as to prove much previous compression.
These sudden outbursts are locally termed blowers. Their issues and
effects are surprising. In one minute they have been known to foul
the air to a distance of 300 yards, and their noise is described as like
that of rushing waters, or the roar of a blast furnace. They are not
merely dangerous from their inflammable vapours, but also from the
pieces of coal which their tension not seldom forces from the roof,
and whose fall maims or kills the unfortunate workmen beneath.
The fire-damp is very liable to accumulate in old workings, or
goaves, which thus, unless completely isolated by stone and mortar,
become a highly dangerous neighbourhood to the other parts of the
mine. The immense quantity of gas evolved from a goaf of about
five acres in Wallsend old pit affords a striking example of the
danger of all such accumulations. A four-inch metallic pipe was
conducted from the bottom of the pit to the surface of the ground
and a few feet above it, when, a light being applied, a hissing
streamer of flame flashed forth and burned night and day. The
amount of gas thus drawn off from the mine was at first computed
at about 15,000 hogsheads in twenty-four hours. Long did the little
pipe continue to pour out in streaming flame thousands upon
thousands of hogsheads of escaping fire-damp. The total issue might
have illuminated a little town.
The explosion of inflammable gas is the most fearful enemy the
collier has to encounter. Three or four cubic inches of carburetted
hydrogen, when ignited, produce a detonation like that of a pistol-
shot; half a cubic foot, enclosed in a bottle and set fire to, shivers
the bottle into fragments; hence we may judge how terrific the
effects must be when a blower pours forth its thousands of cubic
feet into the galleries of a mine, and the careless approach of a light
lets loose the demons of destruction. The explosion of a large
subterranean powder magazine would not be more terrific. Often
without a moment’s warning the unfortunate pitman is scorched and
shrivelled to a blackened mass, or is literally shattered to pieces
against the rugged sides of the mine.
It may easily be imagined that many efforts have
been made, and many contrivances suggested, to
disarm the fire-damp of its terrors; but Sir Humphry
Davy’s safety-lamp was the first invention which
successfully coped with it. The power of the safety-
lamp lies in the non-communication of explosions
through small apertures, and the discovery of this
natural law, as well as its practical application, is one of
the greatest exploits of Sir Humphry Davy. A cylinder
an inch and a half in diameter and seven inches long,
formed of wire gauze, with 784 apertures to the square
inch, surrounds the light of the lamp. When the miner,
armed with this apparatus, enters an atmosphere
tainted with fire-damp, a light blue flame fills the
cylinder; but, as if chained by some magic power, it is
SAFETY unable to transgress its bounds; and as in our
LAMP. Zoological Gardens we quietly view the beasts of the
forest behind their iron grating, so the miner looks
calmly upon his powerless foe.
Unfortunately, the negligence or the obstinate and blind perversity
of the miner too often renders even this splendid invention
ineffectual.
The safety-lamp requires to be kept in perfect order, and unless
certain precautions are taken while using it, it loses its protecting
power. Thus, although perfectly secure when at rest, it seems
certain that the rapid motion communicated by the swing of the arm
during a hurried transit through the mine has in many cases
produced an explosion. Blowing out the lamp is likewise attended
with danger, as the flame is then easily driven through the gauze,
and, like a tiger escaping from his den, may spread terror and havoc
around; but the chief cause of accidents consists in the small
quantity of light diffused by the safety-lamp, and the consequent
dislike acquired by the miners to its use.
Though in all well-regulated coal-pits one or several workmen are
exclusively employed in keeping the lamps in the most perfect order,
though they are handed to the miners burning and well closed, and
fines are imposed upon any attempt to remove the gauze, yet the
best regulations cannot possibly exclude the chance of accident
resulting from the almost inconceivable carelessness of men whose
daily tasks lead them into imminent danger. Thus it is a melancholy
but unquestionable fact that the number of accidents from fire-damp
since the introduction of the Davy lamp has been many more in a
given number of years than before that invention. This has, no
doubt, partly arisen from the larger number of persons employed on
the whole; but it is to be feared that it has chiefly happened from
dangerous portions of a mine being taken into work which without
the Davy could not have been attempted, and partly also from the
extreme carelessness of the workmen in removing the wire gauze.[40]
Unfortunately, the fatal effects of this rashness are not confined to
the foolhardy miner who thus casts away the shield that preserves
him from danger, but generally extend to many of his innocent
comrades. In the year 1856 an explosion which took place in the
Cymmer coal-pit killed 110 persons, and in the year 1857 170
workmen in the Lundshill colliery were swept from life to death with
the rapidity of lightning. In the year 1858 the fire-damp levied a
contribution of 215 victims in the coal-pits of England, while in 1859
it was satisfied with 95. But in 1860, as if to make up for this
deficiency, it raged with double violence; for, after having already
claimed a tribute of 80 lives, the dreadful explosion which took place
in the Risca Colliery on December 1 destroyed no less than 142 men
and boys. The fire-damp explosion which occurred at the Oaks
Colliery in 1866 swept away the unprecedented number of 361
victims, and in the same year 91 workmen perished from the same
cause at Talk-o’-th’-Hill Colliery.
In these dreadful catastrophes the most terrible agent of
destruction is not always the burning and concussion of the actual
blast of fire-damp, but the choke-damp which succeeds the
explosion. For the carbon of the inflammable gas, uniting with the
oxygen of the air, produces that deadly poison, carbonic acid gas,
which, from the disturbed ventilation of the pit, soon spreads far and
wide through the galleries; so that the poor colliers who are caught
in an exploded pit have two chances of death against them—one
from burning, and the other from suffocation. The effect of death by
the one gas or the other is very distinctly seen in the countenances
of the dead. The men killed by the fire-damp are marked with burns
and scorching, and their features are more or less distorted or
disfigured. On the other hand, where men have been suffocated by
choke-damp, their features are placid and simply inanimate. The
fragile and faulty separations (whether doors or stoppings of any
kind) having been broken down, there is an end to a hope of safe
retreat even for men totally unharmed by the flames, for at once the
air takes the shortest course between the entrance and exit, and
leaves the shattered parts unventilated. Whatever after-damp is then
and there generated exerts its effects in full, and those who cannot
rush to the shaft are suffocated. In the explosion at Risca it was
declared by the surgeon to the pit that of those who were killed no
less than seventy persons died from the effects of after-damp who
had not been near the fire. In the great Haswell explosion, several
years since, seventy-one deaths out of ninety-five were occasioned
by choke-damp; and at the explosion in the Middle Dyffryn Pit in
1852 no less than seven-eighths of the deaths proceeded from this
cause. Persons of great experience attribute at least seventy per
cent. of the deaths in fiery mines to after-damp, while some advance
them even to ninety per cent.
After relating so many frightful disasters, too frequently caused by
imprudence and rashness, it is a more pleasing task to mention a
few instances of warnings taken in time. At Walker Colliery on the
Tyne, in the year 1846, a huge mass of coal weighing about eleven
tons was forced from its bed, and a great discharge of gas
succeeded. Two men who were furnished with Davy lamps were
working where this discharge took place; one of them had his lamp
covered with the falling coal, and the other had his extinguished.
They groped their way to warn the other miners, and then all,
extinguishing their lamps as they went, safely escaped to the bottom
of the shaft, and were drawn up.
A few months after a second discharge from another part of the
same colliery took place. A bore-hole having been made, a violent
noise like the blowing off of steam was heard, and a heavy
discharge of gas filled the air courses for a distance of 641 yards and
over an area of 86,306 cubic feet. At 400 yards from the point of
efflux a mining officer met the foul air, felt it blowing against him,
saw the safety-lamp in his hand enlarge its flame, and drew down
the wick. Still the gas continued to burn in his lamp for ten minutes,
making the wires red hot, and then the light went out—a hint not
lost on the owner, who quickly followed its example. At a distance of
641 yards from the efflux of the gas he met four men and boys
whose lamps were rapidly reddening. At once they had the self-
possession to immerse them in water, and thus escaped all danger
of explosion.
The disastrous effects of the fire-damp are not confined to the
loss of human life; they are also extremely injurious to the workings,
tearing up galleries, shattering machinery, or even setting fire to the
mine—an accident which may also be caused by spontaneous
combustion[41] or by the negligence of the workmen. These fires are
often subdued by isolating the burning coal seam, by means of dams
or clay walls, or by filling the mine with water; but not seldom they
last for years, and assume dimensions which mock all human efforts
to extinguish them.
At Brûlé, near St. Etienne, a coal mine has been on fire for ages.
The soil on the surface is barren and calcined, and the dense
sulphurous fumes, escaping from innumerable crevices, give the
country a complete volcanic aspect.
In the carboniferous basins of Staffordshire and of Saarbrück and
Silesia there are likewise coal mines which have been on fire for a
long period. At Zwickau in Saxony the first accounts of one of these
subterranean conflagrations date as far back as the fifteenth century,
and the fire still burns on. The hot vapours which rise from the
surface have since 1837 been put to an ingenious use. Conducted
through pipes into conservatories, they ripen the choicest fruits of
the south, and produce a tropical climate under a northern sky.
In a Staffordshire colliery which had been on fire for many years,
and which was called by the inhabitants Burning Hill, it was noticed
that the snow melted on reaching the ground, and that the grass in
the meadows was always green. Some speculators conceived the
idea of establishing a school of horticulture on the spot, and
imported colonial plants at a heavy expense. These flourished for a
time, but one day the subterranean fire went out, and as the heat it
had imparted to the soil gradually diminished and departed, the
exotic vegetation likewise drooped and died.
 CHAPTER XXIV.
GOLD.

The Golden Fleece—Golden Statues in ancient Temples—A Free-

thinking Soldier—Treasures of ancient Monarchs—First Gold Coins
—Ophir—Spanish Gold Mines—Bohemian Gold Mines—Discovery of
America—Siberian Gold Mines—California—Marshall—Rush to the
Placers—Discovery of Gold in Australia—The Chinaman’s Hole—
New Eldorados—Alluvial Gold Deposits in California and Australia—
Washing—Quartz-crushing.

Gold is probably the metal which has been longest known to man.
For as it is found only in the metallic state, its weight and brilliancy
most naturally have attracted attention or awakened greed at a very
early age. Thus we read in the Bible that one of the rivers flowing
from Paradise ‘compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is
gold, and the gold of that land is good.’ Gold is also mentioned
among the riches of Abraham, and when the patriarch’s servant met
Rebekah at the fountain of Nahor, he presented the damsel with a
‘golden earring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her
hands of ten shekels weight of gold,’ undoubtedly the first trinkets
on record.
The mythical history of Greece has likewise been thought to point
to a very ancient knowledge of gold, and the story of the search for
the ‘Golden Fleece’ has by some been explained as an expedition
undertaken in quest of the metal; for the use of sheepskins or
woollen coverings, to collect and retain the minutest particles of gold
during the operation of washing, is common in many auriferous
countries. From the great value which the ancient nations attached
to its possession, gold was largely used for the decoration of their
temples, and many of their idols were made of gold. Such, among
others, was the image of Belus, seated on a golden throne in the
great temple of Babylon; that of Apollo at Delphi, and the
magnificent statue of the Olympian Zeus, composed, by the hand of
Phidias, of ivory and gold, and still less remarkable for its costly
materials than for the consummate beauty of its workmanship.
Pliny relates that a massive golden statue of the goddess Anaitis
was taken by Marc Antony in his war against the Parthians. The
Emperor Augustus, dining one day at Bononia with an old veteran
who had taken part in the campaign, asked him whether it was true
that the sacrilegious soldier who had first laid hands on the goddess
had been suddenly deprived of the use of his eyes and limbs, and
had thus miserably perished. ‘I myself am the man,’ answered the
smiling host; ‘you are dining from off her thigh, and to her am I
indebted for all the plate in my possession.’
The wealth of monarchs was estimated less by the extent of their
domains than by the gold which they possessed, and as each
successive conqueror added to the spoils of vanquished nations, the
treasures accumulated by single despots grew to an almost fabulous
amount. Every schoolboy knows that the vast treasures of Crœsus
fell into the hands of Cyrus, who, according to the rather
questionable authority of Pliny, acquired in Asia Minor no less than
24,000 pounds weight of gold, without reckoning the vases and the
wrought metal. To this treasure his son Cambyses added the gold of
Egypt, and Darius Hystaspis the tribute of the frontier nations of
India. Thus the gold of almost the whole known world was
accumulated in one single hoard, which, after the taking of
Persepolis, fell into the hands of Alexander the Great. Plutarch
relates that 10,000 teams of mules and 500 camels were needed for
the transport of this wealth to Susa, where Alexander was cheated
out of a great part of it by his treasurer. Rome, the subsequent
mistress of the world, naturally absorbed the greater part of the
riches of Tyre and Carthage, of Asia and Egypt. Sixty-six years after
the third Punic war the public treasury contained 1,620,831 pounds
weight of gold, and still greater wealth was accumulated under the
Cæsars. As the empire declined, the hoards amassed in the times of
its increasing power were once more dispersed. A considerable part,
however, found its way to Constantinople, and after many a loss,
caused by the repeated disasters of a thousand years, the remnant
fell at length into the hands of the victorious Turks.
The time when gold was first coined is unknown. The oldest
specimen in the Imperial Cabinet at Vienna is from Cyzicus, a town
of Mysia, and bears the date of the seventh century before Christ;
the next coin in point of antiquity is Persian, and was probably struck
under the reign of Cyrus. According to Pliny, gold was first coined by
the Romans in the year 547 after the foundation of the city. During
the empire of the Chalifes Abuschafar-al-Monsur established a mint
at Bagdad, in which silver coins (dirhems) and gold coins (dinars)[42]
were struck. The Visigoths in Spain likewise had golden coins; but in
the other western mediæval States they first appear, after a long
interval, under Lewis the Pious, son of Charlemagne, in Venice, in
1290; and in Bohemia, under John of Luxembourg. The gold of the
Carolingian monarch probably proceeded from the spoils of the old
west Roman Empire; that of the Venetians (zecchins or ducats) was,
no doubt, obtained, like that of the Phœnicians of old, by trading
with the gold countries of Africa and of the distant East. The
Florentines, the rivals of Venice, likewise obtained wealth by trade,
and struck gold coins, which, from their being stamped with a flower,
the arms of Florence, were called fiorini, or florins.
The coins of the kings of Bohemia were made from indigenous
gold. It is hardly necessary to remark that since those times the use
of gold coins has been constantly increasing with the progress of
trade and civilisation; but even now, in many African and Asiatic
countries which possess large quantities of gold, no coins are struck,
but the metal is weighed, and thus serves as a medium of exchange,
in the same manner as in the times of Abraham or Jacob.
The countries from which the ancients obtained their chief supply
of gold were the Indian Highlands, Colchis, and Africa. The seat of
Ophir, which furnished this precious metal to the Phœnician and
Jewish traders, is unknown. While some authorities place it on the
east coast of Africa, others fix its situation somewhere on the west
coast of the Indian peninsula; and Humboldt is even of opinion that
the name had only a general signification, and that a voyage to
Ophir meant no more than a commercial expedition to any of the
coasts or isles of the Indian Ocean, just as at present we speak of a
voyage to the Levant or the West Indies. The golden sands over
which the Pactolus, a small river of Lydia, rolled, gave rise, it has
been said, to the wealth of Crœsus.
The richest auriferous land in Europe was the Iberian peninsula,
which for centuries yielded a golden harvest, first to the
Carthaginians, then to the Romans, and at a still later period to the
Visigoths and the Moors. During the middle ages Bohemia was
renowned for its gold, and the accounts that have reached us of the
times when her auriferous deposits first began to be extensively
worked remind us of the scenes which our own age has witnessed in
California or Australia. Bloody conflicts frequently arose between
gold-diggers and peasants because the former devastated the fields
and meadows and left them permanently sterile. Even now in many
parts of the country long ranges of sand hillocks and rubbish
mounds remain as memorials of the mediæval gold-diggers.
Frequent famines arose in the land, as many of the inhabitants gave
up agriculture for mining.
A new epoch in the history of gold began with the discovery of
America. We all know by what prodigies of valour the Spaniards
obtained possession of the treasures of Montezuma and of the
Peruvian Incas, and how frequently acts of a fiendish cruelty,
inspired by the love of gold, and aggravated by a bloodthirsty
fanaticism, tarnished the lustre of their arms.
More recently, about the year 1836, rich deposits of auriferous
sand were discovered in Siberia, and soon raised the frozen regions
of the Jenisei to the rank of the first gold-producing country in the
world.[43] But the fame of the Russian mines was soon eclipsed by
the eventful discovery of the Californian placers.
It was in January 1848, a short time after the incorporation of the
province with the United States, that one James Marshall, who had
contracted to build a saw-mill on the land of Captain Sutter, about
sixty miles east of Sacramento, discovered the glittering particles in
the mud of the brook on which he was at work. Trembling with
excitement, he hurried to his employer, and told his story. Captain
Sutter at first thought it was a fiction, or the wild dream of a
maniac; but his doubts were soon at an end when Marshall laid on
the table before him a few ounces of the shining dust. The two
agreed to keep the matter secret, and quietly to share the golden
harvest between them. But, as they afterwards searched more
narrowly, their eager gestures and looks happened to be closely
watched by a Mormon labourer employed about the neighbourhood.
He followed their movements, and the secret was speedily divulged.
It appears that Marshall did not escape the ordinary lot of
discoverers, for a few years later he was wandering, poor and
homeless, over the land which was first indebted to him for its
enormous development.
The intelligence of the Californian gold treasures soon spread over
the world, and a wonderful flood of immigration began into the
newly-proclaimed Eldorado. An innumerable crowd of adventurers
from every part of the New World, from the Sandwich Islands, from
Europe, from Australia, came pouring in over the Rocky Mountains,
through Mexico, round Cape Horn, or across the Pacific, all eager to
seize fortune in a bound or to perish in the attempt. Every week
dispatched its thousands to the diggings, and saw its hundreds of
successful adventurers return to dissipate their earnings in the
gambling saloons of the infant metropolis. In less than ten years
California numbered more than half a million of inhabitants, and San
Francisco, from an obscure hamlet, had risen to the rank of one of
the great commercial emporiums of the world.
Science had little to do with the discovery of gold in California; but
the case was different in Australia. As early as 1844 Sir Roderick
Murchison directed attention to the remarkable resemblance
between the Australian cordillera and the auriferous Uralian chain.
Two years later, his surmises about the hidden treasures of that
distant colony were confirmed by some samples of auriferous quartz
sent to him from Australia. Relying upon this fact, he advised some
Cornish emigrants to choose Australia for their new home, and to
seek for gold among the débris of the primitive rocks. His opinion
having become known at Sydney, through the newspapers,
researches were made, which proved so far successful that in 1848
gold was found in several places in South Australia.
The first important discovery was, however, not made before the
year 1851, when Mr. Hargraves made known to Government that
rich gold deposits were situated to the north-west of Bathurst, on
the Summerhill and Lewis rivulets, which flow into the Macquarie.
When the geological Government inspector arrived at Summerhill
Creek, on May 19, he found that about four hundred persons had
already assembled there, who, without any other mining apparatus
than a shovel and a simple tin pot, gained, on an average, from one
to two ounces of gold daily.
Soon after, still richer deposits were found near the Turon and the
Meroo, two other branches of the Macquarie. Here a native
shepherd, in the service of Dr. Kerr, found three quartz blocks, of
which the largest contained sixty pounds weight of pure gold. It may
easily be supposed that the whole neighbourhood became at once
the scene of active researches, which at first proved fruitless, until at
length a fourth quartz block was discovered, and publicly sold for a
thousand pounds. Other discoveries were made within the bounds of
New South Wales; but even the richest of them were soon to be
obscured by the treasures of the neighbouring colony.
As late as 1836 Port Philip had remained an unknown land, for it
was not until then that its first settlers, attracted by the richness of
the pastures, arrived from Tasmania. Soon a small town arose on the
Yarra-Yarra, and, though badly chosen as a port, Melbourne soon
rose to importance. In 1850 the district was made an independent
colony, which received the name of Victoria. Here the traders and
sheep-drivers now mourned over the news from Sydney. The best
workmen had already left for the gold-fields, and if the exodus went
on increasing, nothing remained for them but to follow the example,
or quietly to await the ruin of their hopes—a patience which agrees
but little with the Anglo-Saxon character.
To prevent the impending evil, a reward of 200 guineas was
immediately set upon the discovery of a gold-field within 120 miles
from Melbourne, and soon after the world was astonished by the
intelligence of the fabulous riches of Ballarat, at the source of the
River Lea. The first consequence of this discovery was that the
towns of Geelong and Melbourne, both not above sixty miles from
Ballarat, were immediately deserted by their inhabitants, and that,
within a few weeks, more than 3,000 gold-diggers had collected on
the spot, who were gaining, on an average, their ten or twenty
pounds a day. But here also there was no definite resting-place, for
new prospects of dazzling wealth constantly allured the crowd to
new and still more distant fields of enterprise. Twenty thousand
people, meeting with fair success, would migrate in a day, abandon
their claims, and rush upon the new tract. The passions of human
nature were roused by one of the strongest of its instincts; and
madness and suicide, arising from excess of joy and wild despair,
were far from uncommon occurrences. The whole order of society
was inverted, and the labourer became of more importance than the
employer of labour. The scum of the adjoining colonies boiled over
and deluged the land with vice and crime. Bush-ranging extended
over every portion of the country, and even the streets of Melbourne
became the scenes of robbery and murder. The diggers were of all
nations: Germans, French, Italians, American-Irish, Californians, and
Chinese—these last being the best conducted of this motley
population, who as early as 1860 numbered 50,000. To this strange
people one of the most remarkable of the Australian gold discoveries
is due. The immigration-tax, which had been vainly devised to check
their influx (for they are objects of the greatest antipathy to the
white gold-diggers), drove them to a surreptitious mode of entering
the colony; and, landing at Gurchen Bay in South Australia, and
taking a course thence over the frontier across the Grampian ranges,
they came upon a deposit of marvellous richness, in the
neighbourhood of Mount Ararat. In one of their first encampments,
while picking up the roots of grass and prying for gold, they found
the celebrated ‘Chinaman’s Hole,’ which yielded 3,000 ounces in a
few hours. This led to the greatest rush which had ever been known
in the gold-fields, for 60,000 people congregated there in a few
weeks, and before a month had elapsed an immense town was
systematically laid out. Shops, taverns and hotels, theatres and
billiard-rooms, sprang up in the desert, like the mystic trees of
Indian jugglers, and were quickly followed by a daily mail and a daily
newspaper. Thus, within the space of two months, the magical
power of gold converted a wild mountain gorge into a teeming city,
where frontages were nearly as valuable as in the heart of London.

GOLD-WASHING IN AUSTRALIA.

The great social disorganisation which distinguished the first few

years of the Australian gold discoveries has long since passed away,
together with much of the excitement natural to a transition state.
Order now universally prevails, and the occupations of life are
pursued with as much regularity as in the oldest States. The growth
of the colony, which scarcely thirty years since was a mere unknown
waste, is not the least marvellous of the many marvels that have
been worked by gold. In the year 1851 the population of the
province was 77,345 persons, of whom 28,143 were located in
Melbourne. In 1860, it had already increased to 462,000, and
probably the next few years will find it augmented to a million, while
Melbourne already rivals our larger cities in size and wealth.
The wonderful discoveries in California and Australia having made
gold the all-absorbing topic of the day, it is not surprising that new
Eldorados were now eagerly sought for wherever the geological
formation of a country held out the hope of similar treasures.
Fresh and highly-productive gold-fields have, within the last few
years, been opened in British Columbia, and, still further to the
north, in the Arctic wilds of the infant colony of Stikeen. Numerous
diggers are at work in New Zealand, and in the deserts to the north
of the Cape. A system of auriferous veins has been discovered in
North Wales; the county of Sutherland, the Ultima Thule of our isle,
claims to be ranked among the gold-producing regions; and
numerous adventurers are on their way to the frozen deserts of
Lapland, where the glittering metal is said to abound in the basin of
the Ivalo.
At no former period of the world’s history has gold been so
eagerly sought for over such extensive areas in all parts of the
globe; never have larger quantities of the precious metal been
added to the accumulated hoards of ages. No doubt this vast influx
of wealth has in many cases been productive of evil consequences;
but its beneficial influence upon the progress and happiness of
mankind far outweighs the injury it may too frequently have caused
by rousing the worst passions of our nature. An astonishing impetus
has already been given to commerce and industry; competence and
wealth have been diffused over many lands; deserts have been
transformed into growing empires; and a vast continent, long
despised as the convict’s prison, has been raised in the social scale
to a height almost commensurate with its geographical importance.
The mineral formations in which gold originally occurs are the
crystalline primitive rocks, the compact transition rocks, and the
trachytic and trap rocks, which, by their disintegration have, in the
course of ages, enriched large alluvial tracts with particles of the
precious metal. Torrents and rivers washed them down from the
heights, along with the worthless rubbish of their original matrix,
and finally deposited them in the gulleys and ravines of the lower
grounds. Hence the alluvial territories have always been the chief
sources of auriferous wealth, and this circumstance explains how
countries which at one time abounded in gold have long since
ceased to be of importance. For the comparative ease with which
the metal could generally be obtained by digging and washing, and
the greed which stimulated the researches of thousands, could not
fail to exhaust even the richest placers. No one now dreams of
searching for gold in the sands of the Pactolus or of the Golden
Tagus; no modern Argonaut sails to Colchis in quest of the golden
fleece; the fields of Bohemia are no longer ransacked by gold-
seekers; and a like fate probably awaits many of our modern
Eldorados.
A marked difference between the gold deposits of Australia and
California deserves to be noticed. The gold of California is found in
the midst of, or contiguous to, the existing great mountain ranges,
amidst regions of peaked, jagged, irregular crests, and upheaved
and distorted strata, the undoubted effects of internal convulsions. It
has not, however, selected as its resting-place the smooth levels and
hanging slopes of the contiguous hills. The metal, ground finer and
finer as it is carried forward by the torrents that year after year tear
up the river-beds, finally settles in the form of fine flakes or dust
along the banks and at the bottoms of the great streams of the
country. Hence the Californian diggers generally find the drifts of the
precious metal in the strata immediately under the surface, either
associated with the subsoil, or in the holes or ‘pockets’ of water-
worn rocks.
In Victoria the most prolific gold-fields are in regions where the
old formations are pierced by igneous rocks which have flowed from
extinct volcanoes; and some of the richest alluvial deposits have
been found on the pipe-clay bottom of flat, wide-spread plains, or
settled in great subterranean gutters, under broad, elongated slopes,
which the miner can reach only by sinking his shaft through stratum
after stratum, from fifty to three hundred feet down, before he
reaches the buried treasure. The inference necessarily is that much
of the gold-drift of Australia is of an earlier origin than the deposits
of California, which are the products of the existing mountain
ranges, and therefore will be exhausted in a comparatively brief
period.
In Victoria, not seldom three distinct auriferous deposits, the
result of successive upheavals and depressions, occur in the same
locality; and the miner finds, in the course of his working, a first,
second, and third bottom, the last being always on the solid and
unmoved palæozoic rock, from which all the gold has been derived.
Rich as the auriferous drifts of the deep alluvial deposits are
frequently found to be, they must be within definite limits, having
been deposited by currents and the continuous action of waves not
far from the localities where the gold was originally formed. But the
alluvial gold of Victoria and New South Wales is not confined to drifts
and gutters. There are hundreds, probably thousands, of square
miles, where the clay, earth, and sand are impregnated with gold in
sufficient quantities to pay well for washing. Besides these deposits
of incalculable wealth, there are vast reserves of gold locked up in
the great mountain ranges both of Victoria and New South Wales,
the hidden wealth of which will eventually be brought to light by
systematic mining.
As even the richest auriferous drift would be comparatively
worthless without the assistance of water, the diversion of a running
stream through a ‘placer’ is often one of the most laborious
undertakings of the gold-digger.
Pliny speaks of ‘the bringing of the rivers from the mountains, in
many instances for a hundred miles, for the purpose of washing the
débris,’ and this method of hydraulic mining is now carried on in
California on a stupendous scale. Thus, north of Mariposa County,
the thick deposits, often semi-indurated, are now washed down by
vast streams of water (thrown by the pressure of a column of water
of 150 feet), that do the work of running off the earth and gravel
and gathering the gold in an incredibly short time.
The ores of auriferous quartz are treated in a different way from
the alluvial débris. After having been crushed and pulverised by
powerful machinery, the finely powdered quartz is then treated with
mercury, a method well known to the ancients. This metal dissolves
out the gold, producing an amalgam, which, by straining and
distillation, yields the gold.