Chartres Brew. 67

BritisH CoLUMBIA,
Fort YALE,
30th January, 1859.

S1r,—I have the honor to transmit to you a copy of a communi-

cation addressed by
missioner at Lytton,

Acknowledge the receipt of
this letter with correspon-
dence of Mr. Travaillot—
information useful and inter-
esting—and regret it did not
come sooner to hand.

Desire him to report carefully
by every opportunity direct to
this office.

Mention as a suggestion piece
of information that it is pro-
posed soon to let out on lease
all mining land in British
Columbia at a monthly rent.
Claims to be of the size now
fixed.17 One or more may be
held by lessee at their op-
tion, with power of arrange-
ment. Rent to be paid in ad-
vance in cash, at the Comm,
office, and leases renewed in
the same manner and by am-
ple endorsement of G. Comm.
Proposed rent for each claim
21s. a month, and if more
than one person be employed
on such claim a further pay-
ment of 10s. a month be made
for additional men over one
so employed.18 When the reg-
ulation comes into operation
no license tax will be levied.
To enforce the present regu-
lations until further instruc-
tions. To consider and give
his opinion of the proposed
measure.

me to Captain Travailoot,* Assist. Gold Com-
a few days after my arrival at Fort Yale, and I
also beg leave to submit for your information
Captain Travaillot’s reply which I received this
evening.

Although Captain Travaillot states that min-
ing operations are for the present stopped in his
District, Gold is coming down the River in large
quantities. The Gold brought down, too, is coarse
grain and scale gold,*® which may be collected at
any temperature unless when the Ground is so
frost-bound that it cannot be turned up with pick
and shovel, but the Ground should be very hard
indeed when miners in that remote District would
be deterred by the cold they would have to endure
or the amount of labour they would have to
undergo from seeking for Gold. They would
scarcely remain idle consuming their scanty stores
of provisions if they could earn only a dollar a
day. I know the cold weather affects the collect-
ing of fine or dust gold by amalgamation on the
lower River, as the Quicksilver will not take up
the Gold below a certain temperature, but I do
not as clearly understand how the cold can so

extensively affect the mining operations on the Upper River, where
the use of Quicksilver is unnecessary.

The accounts down River the last few days say that the Bars above
the “ Forks’’® are rich beyond anything that was ever known, and

(15) Mr. O. T. Travaillot, commonly known as Captain Travyaillot, a Frenchman who had
been mining and trading near Lytton, was in June, 1858, appointed by Douglas as Revenue
Officer for ‘‘ the District of Fort Dallas or Forks of Thompson’s River ’’ (Lytton). Doubtless he
is the person referred to in Ballantyne’s ‘‘ Handbook to the New Gold Fields ’’ (Edinburgh, 1858),

p. 24, as ‘‘ Trayill, a French

trader ’’ whom a party of gold-seekers met at Lytton early in 1858.

And see Downie’s ‘‘ Hunting for Gold,’’ p. 242.
(16) These constant reports of coarse gold higher up the river aided greatly in depleting the

mining population near Yale.

The miners’ settled conviction that the gold-deposits must be of

greater extent and coarser as the river was ascended led two years later to the discovery of

Cariboo.

(17) Claims on the bars were then twenty-five feet square; claims on the benches were of
twenty-five feet frontage. See Instructions to Assistant Gold Commissioners, July 1, 1858.

(18) This Proclamation was issued on February 8, 1859. It fixed the monthly payment at
twenty-one shillings, but did not include the proposed surtax.

(19) Lytton at the ‘‘ forks’’ of the Thompson River, named after Sir E. B. Lytton, the
novelist, then Secretary of State for the Colonies.

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