We now reach the Gold Coast proper, which amply deserves its glorious golden name. I have shown that the whole seaboard of West Africa, between it and Morocco, produces more or less gold; here, however, the precious metal comes down to the very shore and is washed upon the sands. Its length from the Assini boundary-line to the Volta [Footnote: Chapter XIV. I would not assert that gold is not found east of the Volta River. M. Colonna, of Lagos, told me that he had good reason to suspect its presence on the seaboard of Dahome, and promised me to make further enquiries.] has been laid down at 220 direct geographical miles by a depth of about 100. The area of the Protectorate, which has been a British colony since 1874, is assumed to be 16,620 instead of 24,500 square miles, and the population may exceed half a million. Its surface is divided into twelve petty kingdoms; and its strand is studded with forts and ruins of forts, a total of twenty-five, or one to every eight miles. This small section of West Africa poured a flood of gold into Europe; and, until the mineral discoveries of California and Australia, it continued to be the principal source of supply to the civilised world. The older writers give us ample details about gold-digging and trading two centuries ago. Bosnian (Letter VI.) shows that the people prospected for the illustrious metal in three forms of ground. The first was in, or between, particular hills, where they sank pits; the second was about the rivers and waterfalls; and the third was on the seashore near the mouths of rivulets after violent night-rains. He ends his letter with these sensible words: 'I would refer to any intelligent metallist whether a vast deal of ore must not of necessity be lost here, from which a great deal of gold might be separated, from want of skill in the metallic art; and not only so, but I firmly believe that vast quantities of pure gold are left behind; for the negroes only ignorantly dig at random, without the least knowledge of the veins of the mine. [Footnote: The origin of these mineral veins is still disputed, science being as yet too young for the task of solving the mystery. Probably, as Mr. Davies remarks, 'the mode of the origin and means of the deposition are not one only but many,' and we have the Huttonian (igneous) and Wernerian (aqueous) theories, the sublimation of Necker, the electricity of Mr. R. W. Fox, the infiltration and gravitation of fluid metals towards cracks, vughs (cavities), and shrinkages, and the law of replacement. 'If a steel plate be removed atom by atom,' says Mr. R. Brough Smyth (_Gold Fields of Victoria_, Melbourne, 1869), 'and each atom be replaced by a corresponding atom of silver--a fact established by direct experiment--it will be readily seen that a mineral vein may be formed in the same way.'] And I doubt not that if the land belonged to Europeans they would soon find it to produce much richer treasures than the negroes obtain from it.