His studies in political economy had taught David Morning that gold, like water, if fed to the land in proper proportions, would stimulate its fertility and add to its power of beneficent production, but if precipitated in an unregulated and mighty torrent, would, like the waterspout, prove a destructive power. Knowledge of the existence of the gold, if generally diffused, would be nearly as injurious to the world as to extract it and place it in the channels of finance. Yet how could the secret be kept? The ledge as it stood could not be worked without half a hundred men knowing its extent and value. No guards or bonds of secrecy would be adequate. The birds of the air would carry the tale. Even now a vagrant prospector or wandering mountain tourist might reveal the secret to the world. Not in any spirit of self-seeking did David Morning ask himself these questions. All his personal wants, and tastes, and aspirations might be gratified with a few millions, which could easily be mined and invested before knowledge of his discovery could destroy or lessen the value of gold. But the purpose now beginning to take possession of him was to use, not merely millions, but tens and hundreds and thousands of millions, to bring peace, and progress, and prosperity to the nations, to ameliorate the conditions under which humanity suffers, to raise the fallen, to aid the struggling, to curb the power of oppressors, to remedy public and private wrongs, to solve social problems, to uplift humanity, and comfort the bodies and souls of men. To accomplish this work it was necessary that he should have vast sums at his command, and it was also necessary that his possession of vaster reserves should not be known. The discoveries in California and Australia by which in ten years fourteen hundred millions of gold dollars were added to the world’s stock of the precious metals was a beneficent discovery. It lifted half the weight from the shoulders of every debtor; it made possible the payment of every farm mortgage; it delivered manhood from the evil embrace of Apathy, and wedded him to fair young Hope; it invigorated commerce, it inspired enterprise, it led the armies of peace to the conquest of forest and prairie; it caused furnaces to flame and spindles to hum; it brought plenty and progress to a people. But this addition to the gold money of civilization was gradually made, and the product of forty years of all the gold mines in the world was not equal to the sum which in less than four years might be taken from the Morning mine.