But it is not only about the Blue Mountains, and in other districts, where the gold is now sought, that the geologic conditions under which gold may be sought reasonably are fulfilled. Take, for example, the Ural Mountains. In very ancient times the Scythian natives supplied gold from thence; and gold was supplied also by European tribes in Germany and elsewhere. Most of those sources were worked out, or forgotten. Russia for centuries possessed the Ural, and forgot its gold. Many of us were boys when that was rediscovered. The mountains had been worked for their iron and copper by German miners, who accidentally hit upon a vein of gold. The solid vein was worked near Ekatrinburg--a process expensive and, comparatively, unproductive, as we shall presently explain. Then gold being discovered accidentally in the superficial drift, the more profitable work commenced. It is only within the last very few years that Russia has discovered gold in another portion of her soil, among the spurs of the Altai Mountains, between the Jena and the Lenisei, and along the shores of Lake Baikal. This district has been enormously productive, and, for about four years before the discovery of gold in California, had been adding largely to the gross amount of that metal annually supplied for the uses of society. The extent of this new district now worked is equal to the whole area of France; but all the gold-bearing land in Russia is not yet by any means discovered. The whole area of country in Russia which fulfills the conditions of a gold-bearing district is immense. Eastward of the Ural Chain it includes a large part of Siberia; and also in Russian America there is nearly equal reason for believing that hereafter gold will be discovered. Before we quit Asia, we may observe, that the Chinese produce gold out of their soil; and although many of the mountain ranges in that country tend from east to west, yet the conditions of the surface, and the meridional directions of the mountains too, would indicate in China some extensive districts over which gold would probably be found in tolerable abundance. Gold exists also in Lydia and Hindostan.