30 ANCIENT WARRIORS

Columbia, and for a short time created considerable
excitement. Captain Mitchell being the first arrival
obtained from $20,000 to $75,000 from the vein referred
to. The following description of the finding of this
gold is given by the historian of the expedition.

‘‘In the year 1852 the Hudson Bay Company
dispatched the Una to Queen Charlotte Islands with
a party of miners provided with every requisite for
blasting gold-bearing quartz on a large scale. They
anchored in Gold Harbour, on the Western side of the
islands. A valuable quartz vein was soon discovered.
It was traced for eighty feet, and contained twenty-five
per cent. of gold in many places. For several days the
vein was worked but at every blast the natives scrambled
with the miners and with one another for the fragments.
As neither side was armed, these arrangements were
conducted with perfect good humour. By way of
episode to the general arrangements, both parties
occasionally paused to witness a fair wrestling match
between some sturdy Scotchman who had the science,
and any Indian who was ambitious to distinguish him-
self; and the miners afterwards admitted that nakedness
and fish oil often carried the day. At length the vein
was abandoned, anchor weighed, the Una being un-
fortunately wrecked and burned on her way to Victoria.
The heaviest ‘specimens of pure gold that were obtained
during the expedition weighed from 14 to 16 ounces.”

During the same year H.M.S. Thetis visited Port
Kuper, or Gold Harbour as it is now called, and a chart
was made by Commander G. Moore.

Copper has been found in many places on Moresby
and Burnaby Islands, but the first lode of any con-
sequence that was discovered came under public notice
in a casual manner. An Indian was passing the office
of an assayer in Victoria in 1860 with specimens of