6

Golden State, which has been declared to be 'unsurpassed in the world for climate, scenery, and soil. It is a busy scene, as well as beautiful. The plain is studded with miners' huts; and men in every variety of costume, of many nations, and all periods of life beyond childhood and short of actual old age, are pursuing their unvarying, absorbing task-gold-finding in Placer County. All stages of the operation are going on simultaneously over the vast space occupied by the valley. The claim belonging to Lawrence Daly and Walter Clint is one of those known as 'river- | bed,' and their hut is situated on a little strip of stony land, like a slab of stone embedded in shallow earth, which juts out at the foot of the huge mass of rock already mentioned, and overhangs the rivulet, a few hundred yards below the basin and cascade. Behind the hut, which is of adobe, and in nowise different from the others in the valley, the rock rises abruptly, with its scattered covering of fir and pine, and stretches on for many miles, its ancient surface furrowed and seamed by the relentless search of the gold-seekers.

The door of the hut is closely shut, and there is no sign of activity or life about it or in its immediate neighbourhood, in which are all the appliances of the occupation of the inmates. For the moment, stillness and idleness reign, and the only living creature visible is a large dog, which lies across the doorway, in an attitude of quiet vigilance, his pointed muzzle resting on his outstretched fore-paws.

About a mile farther down the valley, there is a cluster of huts, forming a kind of little town, with a rough palisade enclosing it; and in the centre, is a long, low, shed-like building, as large as six huts put together, from whose roof floats the banner of the Stars and Stripes. A motley crowd of men, horses, wagons, unyoked oxen, bales, casks, and inquisitive dogs, occupies the space around this the most imposing building in the locality. It is known as 'the store,' and it contains everything, and is the general resort of everybody. Between this cluster of huts and the solitary one with the sentinel dog, the rivulet sweeps round, and enormous boulders jut out from the body of the rocky hill, so that the hut is isolated on that side, and shut out from all knowledge of the busy, swarming crowd beyond it. It looks very quiet and peaceful with the evening coming on, fall of the indescribable beauty of that hour on the Pacific shores; and there is something of neatness and order about it, which indicates that it is not tenanted by low, fierce, or ignorant specimens of the miner population.

As the evening advances, two figures make their appearance, coming round the jutting boulders, and advancing to the cottage. The sentinel dog pricks up his ears, rises, and inspects them. One is familiar to him, the other is not, but the stranger arrives in company with Walter Clint, and Sambo accepts the fact as a certificate of his character, and a guarantee of his intentions. The stranger is a young man, very little older than Walter, but taller and stouter. He has red hair, a red bushy beard, and small sharp gray eyes, with sagacity of the cunning sort in them. He wears a motley costume, in which, through the roughness and carelessness characteristic of the manners of the place in this respect, there shews the former 'fastness' of a peculiar type of man, less harmless than

the 'loafer' proper, and yet not belonging either to the avowedly dangerous classes. He wears a checked shirt, and a flashy tie with a horse-shoe pin in it, and though his boots are high, and pulled over his trousers, they are not miners' boots. Walter Clint is altered in appearance since that day on which he took silent leave of his wife and his sister at the railway station at London Bridge. He could not personate a candidate for a lady'smaid's place now, with any hope of success. His fair skin is tanned to a healthy brown; his hands are more than ever muscular and hirsute; and his figure has developed into undisguisable manliness, under the influence of constant exercise and hard work. There is no mingling of the past and present in his attire; the red shirt, wide-leaved strawhat, and capacious boots, all mean business, and nothing but business. The two walk briskly on, and Walter enters the hut, preceding his companion, who looks curiously about him, with a sharp observant glance, into the room on the right of the doorway. A bare, plain room, but clean, and not quite devoid of comforts, though they are of a makeshift kind, and testify to the ingenuity rather than to the means of the inmates. From stout iron hooks in the rafters, which form the ceiling and the roof at once, a hammock is slung. In the hammock lies Lawrence Daly, dozing, not sleeping, in the uneasy semi-consciousness of low fever. He lifts his heavy eyelids, and looks stupidly at Walter, as he says to him:

'I have succeeded in finding Dr Deering, and have brought him in with me.'

CHAPTER XVI.-SPOILED FIVE.

'Has he been long ill?' asked the man who had come in with Walter, after he had looked closely at the sick man in the hammock, who made no effort to speak, and seemed almost unconscious of his presence.

'Only two days. I went to look for you, as soon as he fell ill, but I could not find you. They said you had gone to Placer Ville.'

"They were wrong; I was out prospecting with some new chums. How was he taken?'

'Shivering and sickness, just at sundown; and light-headed during the night. I dared not trust myself, in this climate, though I have done some doctoring in my time in England, and was very uneasy until I made you out this evening.'

Walter then proceeded to tell Deering how he had ventured to administer only the simplest remedies, and Deering approved.

'It's fever,' he said; the regular thing, and no mistake; but he'll do; he 'll pull through. Has a fine constitution, I should say. Doesn't drink, now?'

'Never,' said Walter; little at any time.'

eats and drinks very

'So much the better. That will stand to him now. He will be much worse than this, though; you must be prepared for that. He has been lightheaded, you say?'

'Yes, very; rambling in his talk trying to jump out of his hammock; distressed in his mind. Went on so all night.'

'Ah, indeed. You are very tired, yourself, are you not? No rest, I suppose?'

'Not much. There's no one here to help, except

Daly shouting to him. He ran quickly to the turn of the ravine where his partner was at work, and found him bending over a mass of mud and clay, which he was knocking about with a pick.

What is it?' said Walter, scrambling to Daly's side through the abounding clay and slush.

'It is a nugget!' replied Daly; and unless I am very much mistaken, it means home for us, Walter at least home for you, and England for me!'

'Ye're lookin' mighty cheerful to-night, Misther Clint,' said Spoiled Five to his patron, late that evening, when he dropped in upon one of his innumerable errands. He might have lived in their hut altogether; but he never would be persuaded to do so, preferring his own 'little bit of a place,' a curiously tiny cabin under an abutting crag half-way between the solitary hut and the 'town.' 'Maybe it's letters has come, somehow; though I haven't heard of any?'

'No, Five,' said Walter, laughing; there are no letters, that I know of. Do I look very jolly?' 'Bedad, ye do, sir; ye look as if ye'd found the four-laved shamrock.'

'Don't know the vegetable in question, Five. What's it like? What colour is it? Yellow? Anything like what we're looking for all day long here, and find so precious seldom, and so little of it? Eh?'

Walter was going on in his gay, reckless way, when he was checked by a look from Daly, and stopped, rather awkwardly. Spoiled Five, busily engaged in feeding the dog, was not so much occupied as to prevent his seeing this look. He replied as if he had not seen it.

Misther Daly can tell you. Sure, he's offen hard tell of it at home. More-be-token, there's them here that's seen it, and afther it, other things that was plazin' to them, and brought out the luck. Don't ye mind the fella that struck goold down in Mariposa County?'

'No,' said Walter. 'At least, I don't know whether I've heard of the chum you mean.'

'It was long before you came. He was attacked by a robber, an' he got his arm loose an' fired at him. Didn't the first bullet hit a spot of rock just behind the robber's showldher; and didn't he get another offer at him, and do for him wid the other one! And then, didn't he look to see what it was makin' the rock shine so mighty bright where it was sthruck, and didn't he find quarts of goold

in it!'

'Maybe so, Misther Daly; but anyhow, it was a boy from County Westmathe that done it, and he had a four-laved shamrock round his neck, along wid his scap'lar; and if Misther Clint doesn't know what that is, sure you do, sir.'

'Yes, yes; I know all about it, Five; but I don't think the shamrock is a growth of these parts. Take your glass, Five; it's there on the locker.'

Spoiled Five took up the small pewter measure, called by courtesy a glass, and having pulled a lock of his shock hair to the gentlemen-for he had not discarded the customary courtesies of his country, even amid such discouraging surroundings -said, as he slowly turned the liquor round and round: Thank ye, sir; and here's yer health, an' Misther Clint's' (his once bright brown eye was full of fun and meaning); and whatsomever yez has

found, here's wishin' ye full and plenty of them.' Whereupon he promptly departed, and took his way to his own little bit of a place.'

THE MONTH:

SCIENCE AND ARTS.

TALK is now growing lively, for the talk of parliament augments it; and the Tichborne case, and Prince Arthur's rarities at the S. K. M., and the lack of business habits at the Admiralty, and all the other questions mooted in our great Vanity Fair, acquire a point and vigour unknown in vacation-time. Those who have anything to do for science or art are preparing to reap their harvest: the Royal Academy are building an additional story for a picture-gallery on the top of Burlington House, in readiness for their taking possession when the learned societies migrate from that venerable edifice to their new quarters; and the preliminaries for the International Exhibition of 1872 are making progress.

Heliotype, the new process for printing photographs in a permanent form, of which we gave a brief account in our Month' for April 1871, appears likely to become a permanent branch of trade as well as of art. In that interesting periodical, Art, Pictorial and Industrial, may be seen admirable specimens of what can be accomplished by this new process, which is already one that has been largely improved by time and experience. Among its latest achievements is a reproduction of Terburg's celebrated picture, 'The Congress of Münster,' which can be bought for one shilling. Heliotype reproduces every line and touch of the originals, and thus is perhaps the best method that could be used for making true art popular.

The triennial Telegraph Conference has been held in Rome, where many interesting questions were debated: the sending of 'packed' messagesthat is, messages in which one word stands for ten or twenty words; the sending of messages in cipher; the claims of rival companies; and, not least, a proposition was made that private (and of course innocent) messages should not be suppressed or hindered in time of war. This last exemplifies the growing conviction that peaceful folk ought not to be molested in time of war; and though the proposition was not agreed to at Rome, who knows whether it may not be received with acclamation if put forward at St Petersburg when the Conference meets there in May 1875? By that time, we may believe, there will be two or three round-theworld telegraphs; and some progress will have been made with the 'new route of commerce,' as it is called-namely, a straight line from Liverpool to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, from the farther side of which another straight line will present the shortest route to Australia.

The Channel ferry, it seems, must give way to the Channel tunnel, and announcement is made that a shaft will shortly be sunk near Dover, from which a drift-way will be excavated beneath the sea, by way of experiment. Should success attend the enterprise, the drift-way will be pushed all across, and afterwards enlarged into a tunnel. That is the latest scheme for crossing, with speed and without sea-sickness, from England to the continent.

We hear that future sea-fights are to be fought, not with guns, but with torpedoes, and that a new

kind of vessel, a torpedo-ship, is to be built which will destroy everything she comes near by discharges and explosions under water. It would be something new to have a battle without smoke; and if no enemy can survive a brief interview with a torpedo-ship, the result ought to be a complete disappearance of enemies everywhere, and an end to war once for all. Some people, of whom the late Mr Cobden and the eminent Frenchman just deceased were examples, prefer, however, to believe that wars will cease through the influence of trade, and especially of agriculture. To them the invention, by a man in Essex, of a machine for making thatch for ricks, will be more important than the invention of a torpedo, or of the most murderous 16-pounder gun in the world.

Spring is coming on, and the companies who, in different counties on both sides of the Tweed, undertake tillage by steam, are preparing for another season of activity. The existence of these companies, the large amount of capital which they represent, to say nothing of their dividends, are satisfactory evidence that mechanical appliances driven by steam can be used with profit in the cultivation of the land. Ploughs of the present day would amaze a farmer of the last generation, particularly that ingenious implement which makes four furrows at once, and that other which digs or grubs as may be required. A contrivance, too, has been exhibited by which the driver of a dogcart, on ascending or descending a hill, can alter the balance of the vehicle by turning a crank; and enterprising carriage-builders offer a new brougham which can be readily converted into an open barouche by the lady riding inside. Among Yankee novelties we hear of a locustmachine, intended for use on prairie-farms in the Far West; the fore-part is fitted with an apron, which collects the focusts as it is drawn over the ground, and from that they are passed to a roller in the rear, by which they are completely 'demoralised.'

A paper On the Elimination of Alcohol, by Dr Dupré, Lecturer on Chemistry at Westminster Hospital, has been read before the Royal Society. It is important, inasmuch as it sets aside a conclusion originated by French experimentalists, that alcohol, when taken into the body, is not consumed or assimilated, but is passed off, scarcely altered in quality or diminished in quantity. Dr Dupré's experiments shew that the reverse is the fact, and that the quantity of alcohol actually eliminated by the breath and in other ways is but a minute fraction only of the whole amount of alcohol which has been swallowed.' Thus chemists and physiologists will have to revert to the view announced many years ago by Liebig -that alcohol when taken into the body is for the most part oxidised, in other words, that it is in some way converted into heat and force. But it does not follow from this fact that spirit-drinking is beneficial.

Dr Dupré mentions a remarkable fact which he discovered in the course of his experiments: there is in the breath and other excretions of persons who drink no alcohol for weeks, and even of teetotallers, a substance so much like alcohol, that when treated chemically it gives the same reactions as alcohol itself. He thinks that there is an apparent connection between this substance and alcohol, and that a careful study thereof might throw some

light on the physiological action of alcohol. The results of such a study ought to be interesting, and we shall not fail to notice them when they appear. We mentioned some months ago the deep boring at Middlesborough into what was thought to be a great spring or river of brine, but this proves to be exhaustible, and is now pumped out. Good rock-salt is, however, worth digging for; so two shafts have been sunk, and by-and-by there will be a salt mine in Cleveland, near the bank of the Tees. The extent of the salt is not known, but it is probably large, as the deposit is supposed to have taken place in a lagoon. We may reasonably expect that it is not the only one. Another valuable mineral is thus added to the resources of that important section of Yorkshire, where, as was stated at a recent meeting of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the abundant ironstone was probably deposited in a liassic ocean, as a stratum of carbonate of lime, and the lime had been subsequently replaced by iron. It will surprise some of our readers to be told that the best Cleveland ironstone covers an area of nearly 30 square miles, with a stratum from 10 to 14 feet thick; and competent authorities declare that at the present rate of extraction, there is sufficient to keep all the blast-furnaces going for a hundred years. The number of blast-furnaces in the Cleveland district is 139; and it was calculated that in 1871 they would turn out more than 2,000,000 tons of iron. The consumption of coal in the district is 2,500,000 tons yearly.

Professor Hilgard is studying the geological history of the Gulf of Mexico, and his observations lead him to infer that before the period of the Drift, the gulf was, by some means, cut off from the Atlantic Ocean, or that, at least, the communication between the two was so imperfect that the gulf had more the character of a brackish or fresh-water lake, than of a salt sea. This would account for the absence of marine deposits in the strata which now form the shores of the gulf. There are many clever geologists in the United States who will most likely have something to say upon this question.

As our readers are aware, scientific men have of late bestowed great attention upon the sun. An observer in the United States was looking through his telespectroscope at a large hydrogen cloud that hung quietly for a long time at about 15,000 miles above the sun's surface, when, after an interval of repose, the whole cloud was blown to shreds by some inconceivable uprush, and the air was filled with flying filaments, which continued an upward flight, perceptible to the eye, until the uppermost were 200,000 miles distant from the sun. The rate of ascent was 166 miles in a second, and after the films had reached their greatest height, they gradually faded away. While this was going on, a small dull-looking cloud, resting apparently on the edge of the sun, swelled wonderfully in size, and became a mass of rolling and changeful flame, forming at times huge heaps on the sun's surface, then shooting up somewhat in the shape of a pyramid to a height of 50,000 miles. Shortly afterwards, its summit was drawn out into long filaments and threads, which presently rolled curiously backwards, and were turned down like the volutes of an Ionic capital. These strange appearances (and it must be understood that they are spoken of only as appearances)