Gloucester, Somerset, Northumberland,
and Westmorland, are the counties
included, and more especially mentioned in
these grants; but we have not any evidence
that a single gold-mine was ever discovered
by the eager seekers, or contributed the
desired royalty to the anxious monarchs.

The Black Prince certainly removed several
hundred miners from Derbyshire to Devonshire,
and from the mines about Combmartin,
it is said that he obtained wealth sufficient to
pay the expenses of his wars in France; but
there is no evidence that this wealth was in
gold. The lead-ores of this part of Devonshire
were, and are, exceedingly rich in silver;
and the treasure obtained by Edward's miners
was probably in that metal. We have
distinct evidence of the discovery of silver,
lead, copper, and tin, in numerous law-suits
between the adventurers, and in the claims
made by the crown for unpaid royalties; but
there is no mention of the actual discovery of
gold. We know a district in Devonshire
bearing the name of Gold Street, which was,
in the days of Elizabeth, zealously worked
over, as the numerous existing shafts show;
but all these shafts are on a load of
argentiferous silver.

"The Discoverie and Historic of the Gold-
mynes in Scotland" is the title of a book
published by the Bannatyne Club, from a
manuscript written by Stephen Atkinson in
sixteen hundred and nineteen. This Atkinson
son was a finer in the Tower of London
about the year fifteen hundred and eighty-
six. In sixteen hundred and sixteen
Atkinson obtained leave to search for gold
and silver in Crawford Moor on paying the
king one tenth of the metals found. This gold-
seeker was evidently not successful, and
the object of his treatise was to induce James
to embark in gold-mining. Atkinson
compares King James to Job, David, and
Solomon—and argues that he may build a second
temple more glorious than the first, if he will
but fairly explore the gold, silver, and lead-
mines, in Crawford, or Friar's Moor, and
Glengonnar. The king does not appear to
have yielded to the persuasions of the
enthusiast; but in sixteen hundred and twenty-
one, he granted a lease for twenty-one years
to John Hendlie, physician, of the gold
mynes in the districts of Lead Hills and
Wanlock Head, which "has been thir divers
yeiris bygane neglectit." Laing, in his History
of Scotland, informs us that King James
expended three thousand pounds on the
gold-mines of Crawford Moor, and obtained
not quite three ounces of gold. Beyond this
we cannot learn that either Atkinson or Sir
Bevis Bulmer, and others who were adventurers
in these gold-schemes, ever made any
satisfactory discovery. Pennant indeed says,
"In the reigns of James the Fourth and
James the Fifth of Scotland, vast wealth was
procured in the Lead Hills, from gold found
in the sands washed from the mountains; in
the reign of the latter, not less than to the
value of three hundred thousand pounds
sterling." We cannot discover the slightest
authority, which could have warranted
Pennant in making this bold assertion. Gold
has been found in the Lead Hills, and other
parts Scotland: occasionally good-sized
nuggets have been discovered—one is said to
have weighed thirty ounces,—but, on several
occasions, the gold fever has set in upon the
people, and large expenditures of money have
had no other reward than the ruin and
disappointment of enthusiastic hopes.

Yet more recently we have examples of a
like character. In seventeen hundred and
ninety-five, it transpired that lumps of gold
had been picked up in a valley on the flank
of the mountain called Croghan Kinshela, in
the southern part of the county of Wicklow.
Crowds of the Irish peasantry were soon
employed upon the banks of the stream in
which the gold had been found—and some
appear to have made a productive harvest.
The government then obtained a special act
of parliament, and a systematic course of
streaming for gold was instituted under the
direction of three commissioners, Messrs.
Mills, King, and Weaver. Up to the breaking
out of the rebellion, in May, seventeen
hundred and ninety-eight, these gold works
were remunerative; but, during that unfortunate
period the works were abandoned, and
they remained idle until eighteen hundred and
one, when washings again commenced. These
were persevered in for some years, and nine
hundred and forty-four ounces of gold were
obtained; the ingots of which were from
twenty-one and three-eighths to twenty-one
and seven-eighths carats fine, the alloy being
silver—and the total value at the time three
thousand six hundred and seventy-five
pounds. This, however, was obtained at a
cost exceeding fifteen thousand pounds, and
the government was advised to abandon the
undertaking. The gold was disseminated
throughout an irregular bed composed of
clay, sand, and fragments of rock more or
less rounded; the particles were generally
minute scales, but large solid lumps were
found from time to time, the heaviest of
which weighed twenty-two ounces.

Within the last few years, we have been
told that "Pactolean streams flow through
the beautiful valleys of Devonshire." The
Britannia and Poltimore mines were set to
work upon the strength of the discovery of
some small pieces of gold in the waste heaps
of some old mine workings. The search for
gold in Devonshire appears to have been
zealously made,—and the result is, that the
search is abandoned.

The gold-bearing district of Merionethshire,
in North Wales, has been the most
recent of the auriferous discoveries; and the
curious quartz lodes near Dolgelly still
attract attention. In eighteen hundred and
thirty-six, gold was detected in one of these