sites now marked by the mounds of Khorsabad and Karamles. What remains have as yet been examined at Koyunjuk, were erected by the son of the builder at the two last mentioned sites, and they must have exceeded those of his predecessors in extent and magnificence.

Nineveh was thus a city of gradual growth, or, it might be more correctly expressed, of different sites. It was, however, only when the new palaces, temples, and strongholds of the second dynasty had arisen upon the plain, that it attained the dimensions assigned to it by the Book of Jonah and by Diodorus Siculus. We have then to take the four great mounds of Nuniyah, Nimrod, Khorsabad, and Karamles, as the corner of the square, to embrace the three days' journey of the prophet, and the 480 stadia, or sixty miles, of the geographer. To effect this arbitrary division, we have to expunge Kalah Shirgat, Hamman Ali, Husseini, Baasheikha, Baa Zani, Tel Kaif, Tel Escof, and Jerraiyah, all well-determined Assyrian sites, and with the exception of the first two, all on the plan of Aturia, and in the same category, precisely as those sites which, to meet the admeasurements of the Sicilian, are made to be comprised within the boundaries of Nineveh Proper. Dr. Layard includes some of the above sites within these boundaries, but let lines be drawn on his own map, from Nimrod to Karamles, from Karamles to Khorsabad, and from Khorsabad to Koyunjuk, and it will be found to be as we have put it.

The doctor also admits all that we have contested, when he says each quarter of the city may have had its distinct name: hence, the palace of Evorita, where Saracus destroyed himself, and the Mespila and Larissa of Xenophon. There can be little doubt, indeed, of this fact; and it is also extremely probable that there was more than one city of the same name, and that, like Babylon, it was rebuilt on a new site, after having been once destroyed. In this case, as Layard points out, Nimrod and Nuniyah may represent cities of different periods, but of the same name. But, under all and every circumstance, it still remains as it has ever stood-a question, rather of name than of reality. There has never been any doubt as to the proximate site of this famous city of the ancient world, and the capital of the great Assyrian Empire; that was, according to Mr. Layard's own showing, at Nuniyah; but there are also, in the same neighbourhood, ruins of greater antiquity, which would attest that the first structure in Assyria arose upon another spot― whether called Asshur or Nineveh it is difficult now to say, but now called Athur or Nimrod, in contradistinction to Nuniyah, or Nineveh the Great. Other palaces, temples, and strongholds, also arose upon the great plain, among which, Khorsabad, the Nineveh of M. Botta. Holy Writ speaks of all these sites apparently under the one denomination of Nineveh, equivalent in such a case to that of Assyria Proper, and hence the great confusion of language that has arisen, and which, as the ancient writing of the country becomes more readily decyphered, will, no doubt, be satisfactorily cleared away.

THE GOLD WASHINGS OF CALIFORNIA.

A JOURNAL of a long and trying expedition by the so-called emigrant route and south pass of the Rocky Mountains, across the continent of North America, the great desert basin, and through California, would at any time have peculiar claims to interest. The solitude of the prairiesthe difficulties of the way, and the sufferings of man and beast-buffaloes, wolves, bears, and hostile Indians-the mountains and storms to be encountered-the privations to be undergone-are features of such travel, to contemplate which excites a curiosity that is not easily satiated.

be

But at the present moment, all these points of interest must give way fore one all-absorbing topic-gold! just as the difficulties to be met with and the privations to be undergone will have to give way before the mania excited by the all-conquering hope of gain. Ever since California was discovered by Sir Francis Drake, it has been more or less suspected, as part of Mexico, to be a metalliferous region. A mine of copper, wrought on the western side of the Rio del Norte, in lat. 34 deg. N., and which produced 20,000 mule loads of copper annually, has been long known to contain gold, but it was not considered to be in sufficient quantity to pay for its extraction. The gold washings more recently discovered on the western and eastern aspects of the Sierra Neveda or del Sacramento, may be very productive, or very little so; they may extend over an immense tract of country, or may be confined to a comparatively limited area. They may embrace every valley and ravine of the rocky ranges that rise out of the Pacific, from Cape St. Lucas to the Oregon, or they may be confined to some few alluvia and rocky detritus brought down by one or two lonely tributaries of the Rio del Sacramento, and of the Rio Colorado and the great lakes north of the latter river. Nothing is more uncertain than the mineral wealth of detritus. A mine must be more or less productive-a washing is a matter of chance. Perhaps this lends to it its charm; it has almost the uncertainty and the excitement of gambling. When a lode or vein of precious metal is met with in granite with a veinstone of quartz, or in any other rock, its possible productiveness is determined in a brief space of time, -when a few ounces or as many grains of gold are dug out of the debris of rocks worn away by the lapse of ages, more may also be found in the same vicinity, but again it may not. It is not a necessary consequence, that because a gold washing is discovered that it must be continuously productive; it may be so for a greater or less time, sufficiently so to enrich many, but it is not necessarily so; the chances, from the examples of all past times, are that it will not be so. At all events, the great distinction between a gold mine and a gold washing is, that one tells its own tale, the other does not; in the one case you can calculate your profits, in the other you can never even measure your loss.†

*What I saw in California in 1846 and 1847. By Edwin Bryant, late Alcade of St. Francisco. Bentley's Cabinet Library, Nos. VI. and VII.

In the face of these facts Mr. Edwin Bryant or his annotator says the commercial value of the specimens of gold sent to the war department from California is about 4000 dollars, and that their geological value is incalculable, for they show that there must be a vast and inexhaustible deposit of gold in the mountain of Sierra Nevada. It is impossible that the specimens can shew anything of

Gold, mineralogically speaking, is by no means so rare as is generally imagined. We have seldom explored a granitic district with care without meeting with it; the Malvern Hills excepted. Between the mines of Strontian and Fort William, North Britain, we remember to have met with granite in which gold abounded almost as much as hornblende does in Sienitic granite. In Taurus it is quite common. It does not, however, in such instances pay to extricate it; whether, except in some few rare and accidental localities, it will pay to extricate it, when diffused en paillettes, over almost a continent of alluvium, it remains for time to tellthe chances are all against it.

Take for example the sand washings, so much more easy than gravel or mud washings, which gave their name to a portion of the African coast, and which enriched the loyal Sir Nicolas Crispe and a few others. Where are they now?

In a little book, printed in 1710, called, "Miscellanea Scotica," it is stated that in old times much gold was collected in different parts of Scotland. In the reign of James IV., 300 Germans were employed in gold washing, and about 100,000l. sterling were produced. The laird of Marcheston got gold in the Pentland Hills, some was found in Langham Waters, as also in Meggot Waters. Pennant, in his " Second Tour in Scotland," notices that gold has been frequently found at Leadhills, in the gravel beneath the peat, from which it was washed by rains, and collected in the gullies by persons who have employed themselves in search of the precious metal; but of late years, he adds, these adventurers have scarce been able to procure a livelihood. The sensation created among the excitable Irish by the discovery of a few pieces of native gold in the Wicklow mountains, is within the memory of many. The peasantry enjoyed all the excesses of the gold fever, and suffered also from the inevitable collapse.

Most of the rivers of South America descending from the Andes, when increased either by rains or by the melting of the snow, force along masses of rock, which are ground down, leaving grains of gold to be found after the flood has subsided. Ulloa mentions a case of a lump found in the Rio de la Paz in 1730, so large that the Marquis de CastelFuerte gave 12,000 pieces of eight for it! Yet the gold washings of La Paz have never been permanently wrought. The tradition of the Pactolus and other gold rivers of the ancients, lived to become a byword and a satire.

The history of discovery in America furnishes the most notable instances of grievous sacrifices made to the demon of cupidity. Nothing but a mania for gold, as is at the present moment instanced in the case of

the kind. Had it been a lump of granite, slate, or marble it might have been deduced that more or less extensive quarries of such material existed there, but not so of gold detritus, about which the utmost uncertainty must prevail. It appears from the official report of the mint of the United States, that "by far the larger deposits" are composed of small flat spangles, of which, on an average, it takes six or seven to weigh one grain! It is extremely doubtful if washings of this description will answer in the end The Mormons, who commenced the diggings on the American fork, as it is called, have already gone away to the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada, and to the Great Salt Lake, and a person writing from San Francisco, August 20th, concludes his letter by intimating that "it is now very sickly at the mines, and I dare not return there again."

Feb.-VOL. LXXXV, No. CCCXXXVIII.

S

California, can render many of the gold romances of the past credible. Towns with roofs and walls of golden plate, and lakes with sands of of gold, were among the phantoms created by this mania. The search for the fabled Golden Lake Parina, and the imaginary city Manoa del Dorado, was even carried on by Sir Walter Raleigh, and occasioned the death of many a gallant adventurer. Nicolas Hirtsman, a German, was probably the last who attempted the discovery of these visionary regions, in 1740. Altun Su's, or Golden rivers abound throughout the East. Even China has its Altan Kol, or Golden river, and its Kin-cha Kyang, or river with golden sands. We find in the "Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses," indited by the reverend missionaries in that country, that the gold of the Altan Kol makes a principal revenue of the Princess of Koko Nor!

The fact is, that examples innumerable prove that the search for gold is one of the most vain and illusive pursuits in which man can be engaged. Real wealth is only to be obtained by industry, or talent. Rice is gold to Carolina, sugar to the West Indies, cotton to Egypt, wine to France, and industry to Great Britain. The historians of the middle ages called the fishery the gold mine of Holland, "which," says one of them, "showeth us the great wisdom of God in his great works of providence, who bestoweth not all blessings upon every nation; but when He denieth, or giveth less of one blessing to one nation or country, He alloweth them more of another, which is also often observed with respect to particular persons. This variety," adds our worthy philosopher, "likewise showeth the necessity and advantage of one nation or kingdom's trading with another."

The providence of God is, undoubtedly, to be seen in all things. Even in apparently so wild and insane a movement as that now going on-the search for Californian gold-may be traced a means of peopling a rich and fertile country, hitherto neglected, and of diminishing the burthen of population in older countries. California is one of the most picturesque and promising countries known. The harbour of San Francisco is one of the finest in the world. The climate is much more mild than that of the same latitude on the eastern coast. The sky is foggy at times, but the fogs give vigour to vegetation, and fertilise the soil, which is covered with a black spongy earth. The monks of St. Francis have introduced all the fruits and vegetables of Europe; and wheat, maize, and beans abound. Good wine is made all along the coast. Oils, as good as those of Andalusia, are obtained from the abundant olives. Tobacco, cotton, rice, sugar, and mulberries for silk, might be cultivated to the south. The prairies are covered with herds of cattle and horses. These are advantages which will tempt the disappointed gold-grubber to settle permanently in the land of his disappointment; and we much doubt if this strange and eventful colonization of a far distant land, will not soon exhibit a more prosperous and genuine El Dorado, than ever the waters of the tributaries to the Sacramento or Colorado will pour into the laps of exhausted Yankees, or deluded Britons.

MITCHELL REDIVIVUS,

"WHEN does the London season begin?"

A very simple question, apparently, but a poser in reality, admitting of as many interpretations as a half-effaced Egyptian inscription, or a soliloquy in a syncretic drama.

Notez-bien, nevertheless, that the answers given to the above query are never uncertain or ambiguous, but most positive and dogmatical; answers, in short, oracular and incontrovertible, and from which there is to be no appeal.

For instance, the politician will tell you that the London season begins with the meeting of Parliament.

The chronicler of the Court Circular-with her Majesty's arrival at Buckingham Palace.

The young lady just out-with the first ball.

The epicure-with the new potatoes.

The dilettante-with Mr. Lumley's programme.

The habitué of Lovegrove or Quartermain-with the white bait.
And your humble servant-with the French play.

The French play! what a magical attraction is centred in those few words! what a revolution they create both in Old Bond Street and King Street-people first flocking to secure boxes and stalls, and then to take possession of them. How eagerly the opening night is anticipated as the first safe criterion whereby to ascertain who is in town, and how joyously nods and smiles of recognition are then exchanged between fashionables, who at a later period of the year will cut each other by mutual consent, and from sheer blasé listlessness.

A wondrous sorcerer is Mitchell! Robert Houdin's tricks are nothing to the marvels heralded by each successive opening of the King Street bonbonnière. How dim the Curaçoa, the Maraschino, and the Parfait Amour appear in the magician's glass, when compared to the sunny and sparkling glances ever shooting across la rampe in different directions, and finding their way equally through the white waistcoat of the stall and the paletot of the gallery.

Then how varied are his feats! Now we are called upon to tremble before the Pythonian inspirations of Rachel; now to split our sides in presence of Ravel and Grassot; now to feel our hearts go pit-a-pat responsively to the bright eyes of Désirée or Figeac; and now, presto, we find the good old repertoire of the Opéra Comique promised us; and we know from experience that Mr. Mitchell's promises-unlike pie-crusts -are not made to be broken.

In sober earnest, nothing could well be more gratifying than the first performance of the present troupe, which has been selected with that care and judgment which none possess in a more eminent degree than the manager of the St. James's. The orchestra, too, was au grand complet, and the choice of pieces extremely happy. It were difficult to name a pleasanter lever de rideau than Paër's" Maître de Chapelle," or a more alluring and memory-haunting pièce de resistance than "Le Domino Noir." Both operas are got up with that peculiar attention to appropriate scenery and costume, to which the subscribers have been so long accustomed that they look upon it as a prescriptive right-a kind of droit du seigneur.

But, like Sadak, we have apparently tasted the waters of oblivion, for