The history of placer mining is full of romance. It is as old as the world itself, if any reliance can be placed upon the traditions that have come down to us from prehistoric times. Gold dust and nuggets came in exchange to the Greeks from the barbarians of the north centuries before the birth of Christ, and it has been surmised that the precious metal was taken out of the mines in Siberia and in the Ural Mountains, which still yield so generously. The first placer mining of which there is any record was carried on by digging the sand or gravel, mixing it thoroughly with water, and then pouring it over floating platforms covered with skins, in which. the gold settled, while the lighter sand flowed off with the water. To this practice we doubtless owe the mythological story of the journey of Jason with his Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece. The Golden Fleece, it has been surmised, was simply the skin of the sheep which was used to catch these golden products of the placer miners. And it is significant that the voyage of the Argonauts was up the Black Sea or the Euxine into the very region of the Ural Mountain gold fields which have already been mentioned.

In ancient times all gold was obtained by washing, and it has been only within recent years that the more difficult process of digging and smelting gold-bearing quartz has been resorted to. The wealth of the Indies consisted in golden sand, which their rivers washed down from the gold-bearing mountains. So it was with Russia, Africa, Australia and California. All the earlier mining, of which the records are so many and so fascinating, was done by placers in the old primitive manner. This was true especially of California. Mr. Preston, the Director of the United States Mint, estimates that 75 per cent .of the gold production of the United States between 1849 and 1865 was the result of placer mining. This would make a total of nearly $700,000,000 for the United States alone, to say nothing of the placers who are still at work in everdiminishing numbers as the ore becomes more difficult to find. Ore is still being washed out in almost all the gold districts. California, Russia and Alaska are examples in point. There is even a little placer mining in Colorado, which has been distinctively the home of quartz mining from the beginning. Mr. Preston estimates that between fifteen and twenty per cent. of the Cali

fornian product is still the result of placer mining, and gives other percentages as follows:

Oregon, Washington, Montana and Idaho, 12 per cent.; Utah, 8 per cent.; New Mexico, 6 per cent.; Colorado, I per cent.

The South African mines are almost entirely quartz deposits.

The beginning of placer mining in America may be said to date from the discovery by James W. Marshall of pieces of gold while digging a race for a saw mill at Coloma, California, January 19, 1848. The announcement of his discovery was the signal for an influx or argonauts, and those who first landed in California had for implements only the pick, shovel, rocker and wheelbarrow. This is about the outfit of a miner in the Klondike region to-day. It was only a few months, however, before the necessities of the case compelled the introduction of what is known as the "Long Tom." This is a rough trough ten or twelve feet in length, narrow at the top and wide at the lower end, set on an incline, with an iron plate on the bottom perforated so that the gold will drop through as it is washed along. The "Long Tom" is really a development of the rocker or cradle. The rocker is