ordinarily states that the butcher has called for his orders? Aesop, in
his very first fable, (as arranged by good Archdeacon Croxall,) has
inculcated but a mean opinion of the cock who forbore to crow lustily
when he turned up a jewel of surpassing richness, in the course of his
ordinary scratching, and under his own very beak; why, then, should we
render ourselves liable to the same depreciatory moral? Something, at
least, must be pardoned to the _certaminis gaudia_ of this new-found
contest with the secrets of Nature,--and though the fact we have stated
be a startling one, the statements and authorities which go to support
it will, perhaps, in the end, surprise us still more. We shall give
them, at any rate, in such a form as "to challenge investigation and to
defy scrutiny." How far they will bear out our sensational opening
paragraph, then, the readers of the "Atlantic" cannot choose but judge.

But let us hasten, in the very outset, to warn the individual
gold-hunter that he, at least, will get no crumb of comfort from these
pages. That the precious metal is there,--to use Dr. Johnson's
expression, "the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of
avarice,"--no one, we think, after reading what we have now to offer,
will be inclined to deny. But it is to be sought successfully, as we
shall show, only by the expenditure of capital, and under the direction
of science and the most experienced skill. The solitary adventurer may
tickle the stern ribs of Acadia with his paltry hoe and pick in
vain,--she will laugh for him and such as he with no sign of a golden
harvest. Failure and vexation, disappointment, loss, and ruin, will be
again, as they have already been, his only reward. With this full
disclaimer, therefore, at the commencement of our remarks, we trust that
we shall, at least, have no sin of enticement laid at our door. If any
one chooses to go there and try it on his own individual responsibility,
and in the face of this energetic protest and solemn warning, it must