CARIBOO 49

nent by inland lakes and seas, the gold settled
to the bottom and was buried beneath the
deposits of countless centuries. Then con-
vulsive changes shook the earth’s surface.
Mountains heaved up where had been: sea
bottom and swamp and watery plain. In the
upheaval these subterranean creek beds were
hoisted and thrown towards the surface.
Floods from the eternal snows then grooved
out watercourses down the scarred mountain-
sides. Frost and rain split away loose debris.
And man found gold in these prehistoric, per-
haps preglacial, creek beds. However this
may be, there was no possible scientific way
of knowing how the gold-bearing area would
run. A fortune might come out of one claim
of a hundred feet and its next-door neighbour
might not yield an atom of gold. Only the
genii of the hidden earth held the secret; and
modern science derides the invisible pixies of
superstition, just as these invisible spirits of
the earth seem to laugh at man’s best efforts
to ferret out their secrets.

What became of the lucky prospectorsP I
have talked with some of them on the lower
reaches of the Cariboo Road. They are old
and poor to-day, and the memory of their for-
tune is as a dream. Have they not lived at

GT, D

cr ain et
map ten °