What will be the effects produced by this expansion of gold on those countries where the discoveries and working have occurred, and on the great centres of wealth and industry, where competition is in active operation, and where the gold may, when in the shape of coin, fix a new value on commodities? First, as regards the gold-producing countries themselves. It is clear that the attraction to the “diggings” must retard, if not put a temporary stop, to really productive labour, that of the cultivation of the land: but this demoralizing influence may not be of long duration. The “placers” will become exhausted, the gold of alluvial deposit, that which the rains and other causes have spread over the surface of the soil, has hitherto been the chief feeder of the supply. The thousands of miners working at the various sources, and turning over and over again every part of the surface, will soon have picked out every particle of the metal. The remainder of the gold must then be sought for in the quartz; whence it can be obtained only by the aid of scientific processes, and effectually extracted only by the application of capital: which is hardly likely to be supplied to an adequate extent, excepting by companies, in the same way as has been the case in the working of silver mines. Then individual enterprize will be again directed to the cultivation of the soil. Out of the crowds of emigrants in Australia and California, now attracted to the “diggings,” the number required for agricultural purposes will no longer be deficient. Amongst the adventurers who are expatriating themselves to seek fortunes in new countries, there will be numbers of poor families who will consider themselves adequately repaid by being able to obtain in a distant land, a fair remuneration for their services, and the ownership of land, with the means of a comfortable livelihood. The Spaniards, in the early days of conquest in South America, began by abandoning all other pursuits than the search of gold and silver; they ended however, by building cities, forming harbours, constructing churches, planting the land, and rearing flocks. After the soldiers came the miners, after the miners came the colonists: swords were turned into plough-shares. That which occurred in the 17th century will recur in the 19th. Australia, California, and the colder regions of the Altai, will be covered with people. It may readily be believed that Providence, in the accumulation of treasures like loadstones in the hearts of the mountains and in the depths of the valleys, has contemplated the attraction of a superabundant population, and of the genius of colonization throughout the civilized world.