The Lomond Hills, in the shires of Fife and Kinross, were known in
ancient times as the hunting-grounds of the kings of Scotland, when
these monarchs resided in their summer-palace at Falkland, a village
on their north-eastern declivity. At a period intermediate between
these and the present times, they were the haunt of the persecuted
Covenanters, and often resounded with the voice of psalms raised at
conventicles. Since then, their solitude and silence have seldom been
disturbed, save by the bark of the shepherd's dog, or the echoes
caused by the blasting of rocks in the limestone quarries which run
along their southern and western ridges. But during the month of May
last, this solitude and silence were completely destroyed, by
thousands of persons plying every kind of instrument upon them, from
the ponderous crowbar and pickaxe, to the easily-wielded trowel and
hammer, in search of gold, which they believed to be hidden in their
recesses. The information on which they acted seemed to them to come
from an authentic source, and to be confirmed by competent authority.
On the southern base of the hills, overlooking the far-famed
Lochleven, lies the village of Kinnesswood, noted as the birthplace of
the poet Michael Bruce. A native of this village entered the army, and
there learned manners at war with good morals, which, after his
discharge, brought upon him the vengeance of the law, and he was
banished 'beyond seas.' His subsequent good-conduct, however, procured
him 'a ticket-of-leave,' and he became servant to the commissariat for
the convicts in Van Diemen's Land. In this capacity he had frequent
opportunities of seeing the substance brought from the Bathurst
'diggings,' containing the gold which is now arriving in this country
in such large quantities. It at once struck him that he had seen
abundance of the same material in his native hills, when visiting the
quarries in which several of his friends and acquaintances earned
their livelihood. This impression he conveyed in a letter to his
mother, who, as a matter of course, afforded the information to all to
whom she had an opportunity of communicating it. The intelligence
spread with the rapidity of an electric telegraph; and an excitement
was produced such as is seen among bees when their hive has received
a sudden shock. The mountain pathways became immediately alive with
human beings, and noises arose like the hum of a city heard at a
distance during the busiest hours of the day. In the villages
immediately adjoining the place of resort, the excitement was wholly
confined to youngsters and idlers, who are ever ready to seize upon
novelty and enter upon bustle; but further off, it extended to old and
young, hale and infirm, asthmatic and long-winded, grave and gay,
taught and untaught, respectable and disreputable, industrious and
idle, till it reached a compass of twenty miles at least, extending
not only to the Forth and Tay, but stretching inland from their
opposite shores. In short, men who had never climbed a mountain all
their lives before, though living in close proximity to one, were seen
on its loftiest peaks, and toiling there with all the ardour of
Cyclops.
Meanwhile, some of the less impulsive minds in the district, not
altogether untouched by the prevailing mania, began to cast about for
warrants to justify their appropriation of some of this much-coveted
material, and assure their confidence that it was really gold. Memory,
research, tradition, testimony, all came to their help. They
recollected how their fathers had told them that the Laird of Lathrisk
had wrought a lead-mine on the northern declivity of the East Law,
which yielded also a considerable proportion of silver, and which was
abandoned only because of the high tax government had put upon the
latter metal. Then came the ready query: That since there is silver in
these hills, why not also gold, seeing they frequently go together?
Then it was found that the mineral formations in which this metal
occurs are the crystalline primitive rocks; and with these the Lomond
Hills were held to correspond. Then it had been told them, that in
days of yore shepherds had found pieces of gold while tending their
flocks on the hills, and that gold had been frequently met with in the
whole district of country between the Forth and the Tay. Last of all
came the testimony of a man who had returned to the neighbourhood from
California, and who assured them, that the substance they submitted to
his inspection was in all respects similar to that which was dug out
of the hills in the gold regions of America. Singularly enough, though
they did not reflect upon the facts, this man had returned home as
poor as he had departed, and manifested no desire to accompany them to
the new El Dorado at their doors. Other persons were meanwhile pushing
inquiries in a more certain direction, and subjecting the supposed
precious treasure to infallible tests.
The chief centre of attraction is a partially-wrought limestone
quarry, known by the name of the Sheethiehead, right above the village
of Kinnesswood, and about a gunshot back from the brow of the Bishop
Hill. It is surrounded on all sides by immense heaps of débris, which
has been repeatedly dug into during the last thirty years by
geologising students, in search of fossils connected with the
carboniferous system, and who must have frequently met with the
substance which has caused all this excitement, but never imagined it
to be gold. The face of the quarry, to the depth of twenty feet from
the top, is an accumulation of shale or slate, lying in regular
layers, and easily broken. It has been turned to good account of late
in the manufacture of slate-pencils of superior quality. Among this
shaly accumulation, there are frequent layers of a soft, wet clay or
ochre; and it is in this that the brilliants which have dazzled the
imagination of so many are chiefly found, and which, accordingly, are
frequently thrown out among the débris, of which it comes to form a
part. In this quarry, then, and in the heaps around it, hundreds are
earnestly busy in laying bare what is beneath; while scores of men,
women, and children are silently and earnestly looking on. One has
just brought out a ball of stone, or something like stone, about the
size of a man's hand, known among the quarrymen as 'a fairy ball;' it
is composed of a hard crust, like rusted iron, which, on being broken,
is found to contain a yellow shining metal of various shapes and
sizes--grains, octohedrons, cubes, and their allied forms, as is the
case with gold; and what else can it be but the precious metal, thinks
the finder, as he places it in his receptacle, and applies himself
anew to his vocation. In a little while he stumbles on another of
these balls, as big as a man's hat, which he breaks, and opens with
increasing eagerness; when, lo! it is as empty as a 'deaf nut'--the
water which percolated through the shale having rusted the iron that
goes to form the crust along with the ochre, but failed, as in the
previous case, to form crystals in the interior. A third, fourth, and
fifth are found to be as hollow as the last, and the 'digger' begins
to look a little crestfallen, and abate his eagerness.
But here is an Irishman, who has been vastly more lucky, dancing a
jig, with a footless stocking near him, tied at each end, packed as
full as it can hold of 'the fine stuff,' as he calls it, while with
wonderful agility he flourishes a heavy pickaxe and spade over his
head, and screams at the highest pitch of his voice: 'Sure, now, and
isn't my fortune made!' By and by, getting at once hoarse and tired,
he desists from his exertions, and entreats a boy near him 'to go into
the bog beyont there, and get him some poteen, which he is sure is
making in the stills among the turf;' offering him at the same time a
lump of his 'treasure' as payment for his trouble.
Here is a tall, grave, shrewd-looking man, very like an elder of the
kirk, throwing away part of his accumulation, but somewhat stealthily
retaining a portion in the large cotton handkerchief in which he had
placed it, while a respectable-looking woman is saying to him: 'John,
the minister says, it's no gold, but only brimstone.' To which he
answers, with an audible sigh: 'Well hath the wise man said, all is
vanity and vexation of spirit.' Here is a strong-built but
lumpish-looking fellow, seemingly a ploughman or day-labourer, leaving
the scene of action in evident disgust, who, on being asked if he had
been successful, answers roughly: 'No!' and adds: 'I'll sell you this
pick for a glass of ale or a dram of whisky.' Here are angry words
passing between a middle-aged man and a youth, respecting the right of
possession, the former having driven the latter away from a
promising-looking place on which he was employed, and commenced
operations upon it himself.
It is Saturday; and the mills on the river Leven are stopped at noon,
to allow the water in the lake from which it flows to accumulate its
supplies for the following week's operations. Freed thus from labour,
the spinners hasten to the scene of attraction, and largely swell the
crowd already assembled there. The men begin the search with
eagerness, while the women content themselves with looking on; but it
is evident that they are unaccustomed to the use of the instruments
they have assumed, and that long practice will be necessary before
they can turn them to much account. Here are bands of colliers able to
wield them to purpose, yet how unwilling they appear to be to put
forth their strength. They came in the expectation of getting gold for
the lifting, which is nowhere the case; and are evidently disappointed
in finding that both effort and perseverance are necessary. Indeed, it
surprised us to see so little disposition to make and maintain
exertion on the part of those who fancied that certain riches would be
the result. Notwithstanding the numerous traces of picking, hammering,
and shovelling they have left behind them, there is not an excavation
a foot deep; while over a crevice in the rock, three inches square, 'a
digger' has left the words, scratched with a piece of slate: 'There
is no gold here,' as if he had done all that was necessary to prove
it. Even in the loose débris around the quarry--with which the
substance referred to abounds--there is no trace of a digging wider or
deeper than a man's hat. We have seen a student make greater and
longer-continued exertion to get a fossil shell, and a terrier dog to
get a rat or a rabbit, than any of the gold-seekers have. Burns the
poet, in his lament, entitled _Man was made to Mourn_, complains, with
more pathos and sentiment than truth and justice, that the landlords
will not 'give him leave to toil.' That is not the leave most men
desire, but the leave to be idle. If gold were to be got for the
lifting, and bread were as easily procured as water, man would not be
disposed to take healthful exercise, much less labour or toil.
We shall not describe the scene as it developed itself on Sunday. It
was at total variance with the reputation Scotchmen have acquired for
the observance of that day, but in perfect keeping with the notoriety
they have gained for their love of strong drink. Monday was the
fifteenth day of the gold-fever; and, like most other fevers, it was
then at its height. Parties had been on the hill soon after the
previous midnight awaiting the dawn, resolved to be the first at the
diggings that morning, and 'have their fortunes made before others
arrived.' But the lark had not got many yards high in his heavenward
ascent, and only struck the first note of his morning-carol, when the
mountain concaves sent back echoes of music from a whole band of men,
marching at the head of a still greater number, who might have been
taken for a regiment of sappers and miners. They have come from a
distance; and, like the others who have preceded them, can have known
little or nothing of 'balmy sleep, kind nature's sweet restorer,'
unless they have taken it at church the preceding day, or in their
beds, when they should have been there. The morning has grown apace,
and shews the mountain-sides and table-land teeming with life. 'The
cry is still, they come;' and long before mid-day, it is calculated
that there are at least 1200 persons on the hill--many of them
spectators of the scene, but most of them actors in it.
To a curious observer, it was at once an amusing, interesting,
instructive, and painful spectacle. It developed character; shewed to
some extent the state of society among certain classes and
professions; and exhibited human nature in some of its peculiar and
less agreeable phases. The most striking and unlikeable manifestations
were--ignorance, credulity, superstition, recklessness, and disregard
for all that is 'lovely and of good report.' We were particularly
struck with the want of foresight, observation, and reflection shewn
by a great number of the persons concerned, and of whom other things
might have been expected. They had come to 'the diggings' without
instruments of any kind with which to bring forth the supposed gold
from its recesses; and, more wonderful still, without food to sustain
them while employed in finding it. What an easy prey these persons
would have been to any one willing to take advantage of them! They
willingly parted with much of their supposed treasure for a few crumbs
of cake from a boy's pocket, and with still more for a slice of poor
cheese from a quarryman's wallet. The man who brought intoxicating
drink to them, would have received in return whatever he would have
been pleased to demand. One party, and one only, so far as we could
learn, was more provident than the rest, having provisions with it
equal to its necessities for one day at least, among which whisky held
a prominent place.
The substance found and supposed to be gold is very similar to that
found in the coal-mines and iron-bands of Fife, which are known to
'crop out' in the Lomond Hills--none being found further north--yet
the colliers and miners did not identify the substance when found in
other circumstances than those in which they are accustomed to meet
with it. The inhabitants of the district in which it is found shewed
little sympathy with the excitement produced, a fact which should have
led the gold-hunters to pause and ponder; for they were as likely to
know the nature of the substance sought as persons at a distance, and
just as likely to appropriate it, if it really were gold. But under
the influence of their credulity, our adventurers drew a conclusion
quite different--namely, that the people at the foot of the hill
affected indifference, in order to deceive those at a distance, and
keep all the treasure to themselves. It was of no use to tell them,
that this said gold had been tested half a century ago, and been
'found wanting.' They wished it to be gold, and they were determined
to believe it such. Much advantage was taken of this credulity, even
by those who had themselves been its dupes. The most daring falsehoods
were invented by them, in order to induce others to befool themselves
as they had done. One, according to his own account, had received 30s.
for his 'findings;' and another had been offered L.2 for as much as he
had collected in half an hour. Such are specimens of the fables they
devised, with a view to deceive their acquaintances, and they had
manifest pleasure in seeing them produce the desired effect.
Meanwhile, every test known to or conceivable by the amateur
chemists--of which there are not few in the counties in which the
hills are situated--was put in requisition, and a voice evoked by
them, but it would not speak as desired. Others, who knew nothing of
chemistry, were torturing it in every possible way--beating it with
hammers, to see if it would expand, like gold, into leaf; but instead
of this, it only flew off in splinters: then putting it into the
smith's forge, to see if it would liquefy and separate from the dross,
but it only evaporated in fumes, which drove them from the smithy by
their offensive odour. Not one of these experimenters, whether more or
less skilled, thought of subjecting it to the simple and certain test
of cutting it with a knife, of which the substance in question is not
susceptible, whereas gold cuts like tough cheese. Enough, however, had
been done to confirm suspicions which had been floating in the minds
of many of the diggers, that this rapid wealth-finding was a delusion
and a lie. All doubts upon the subject were finally set at rest by the
professors of mineralogy in the colleges, and the practical chemists
in Edinburgh and Glasgow, informing certain inquirers as to the real
nature of this deceptive substance. It is of two kinds: the one with a
gray, the other with a brown base--the latter much more common than
the former; the one shining with a whitish, the other, with a
yellowish lustre. The one is _galena_, a sulphuret of lead; the other,
_pyrites_, a sulphuret of iron. These pyrites are very extensively
diffused, and are said to be worth about L.2 a ton. Pity it is that
even this trifle should be lost to the poor quarryman, who has only to
lay them aside when wheeling away his rubbish till they accumulate to
such a quantity as to be worth a purchaser's notice, but who does not
know where to find a customer.
The Lomonds were now again left to their solitude and silence, a few
stray persons visiting them only from curiosity, to see the place and
its productions which had caused such excitement. But the mania did
not abate all at once. A village patriarch, skilled in fairy lore,
entertained some of the gold-seekers with the following legend, which
had the effect of sending them in search of the precious metal
elsewhere. According to this ancient, a fairy, in times long gone by,
appeared on a summer gloaming to a boy herding cattle in the place
indicated by the following doggrel, and told him that--
If Auchindownie cock does not craw,
If Balmain horn does not blaw,
I'll shew you the gold in _Largo Law_.
'But,' added this benevolent son of Puck, 'if I leave you when these
happen--for I must then return home immediately--take you notice where
the brindled ox lies down, and there you will find the gold.' The cock
crew and the horn blew. The fairy vanished, but the boy observed where
the brindled ox lay down; but then he did not reflect upon the need of
marking the place, but ran home, in his impatience to communicate the
delightful information he had received, and on his return found that
the brindled ox had risen and left the place; and as he could not
determine the spot, the gold still awaits the search of some more
reflective and painstaking person. Of course, one and another of the
narrator's auditors thought himself such a person, and hied him away
to the conical hill that rises so conspicuously at the entrance to the
estuary of the Forth. What success attended them there we have not the
means of knowing, but we have seen it stated in a local newspaper,
that a specimen of the shining substance found in that place had been
sent to the editor, and he pronounces it more like gold than the
crystals brought him from the Lomond Hills. But 'like,' says the
proverb, 'is an ill mark;' and we hope the gold-diggers of Fife will
consider themselves as having been already sufficiently deceived by
appearances.
The mania lasted fully three weeks, not that any one person was under
its influence all that time--for, singularly enough, the man who had
been once there rarely if ever returned--but, like an epidemic, it
spread wide, and only ceased by a change in the intellectual
atmosphere. There could not be less than 300 persons upon an average
each day upon the hill, either searching for the supposed treasure, or
waiting to ascertain the result from those that did. This would make
an aggregate of 6300 in the whole time; but let us keep much within
the mark, and take the number convened during that period at 5000.
Many of these were men earning 15s. a week; but let us put them all
down at 1s. 6d per day each, and allow 1s. for the expense incurred in
their going to and from the place. This will make half-a-crown lost
and expended by every one of them. This calculation makes L.30 a day,
and L.630 for the whole period. Now, we are fully persuaded, that
though all the pyrites carried off had been gold in the proportion in
which it seemed in the substance, it would not have realised this sum,
which is about the price of 200 ounces of gold; so that, in the
aggregate, the diggers would have been losers, though some of them
individually might have been gainers. But the gainers would have been
few in proportion to the whole, for we observed that not more than one
man in twenty found even the pyrites, which are probably still more
extensively diffused than gold itself ever is, even in the regions
where it is now known to prevail: so that the wages of the nineteen
unsuccessful men are to be calculated along with those of the
successful one; and then it follows, that unless the 'findings' of the
latter at the close of the day are equal to the wages of twenty men,
there is no increase of capital to the country, no gain upon the
whole. Then the man who was lucky at one time, was unlucky at
another--like a poacher who snares three hares in a night, but does
not snare another for a week, while he has been unable to work during
the day, and, in the end, his losses have counterbalanced his gains.
Then if this phantom had proved a reality, all the mines and mills
within a wide range of the place would have been instantly abandoned,
and it must have taken a long time, indeed, to reproduce the capital
thus lost to the country. In fine, it must have become necessary to
fix a rent upon the diggings, in order to constitute a right to labour
in them; and still further, to levy a tax to provide a police, if not
a military force, to preserve order; and after these deductions are
made, together with the incomes derived from previous occupations, and
the great uncertainty connected with the vocation--to say nothing of
the labour and discomforts to be endured--we cannot think gold-digging
a profitable or desirable pursuit.