2-888-420 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Royal Institution - Sir Roderick Murchison's Lecture on the Distribution of Gold Ore, 1850. Geological talk in London. 'Upon the table were several specimens of gold ore...Sir Roderick inveighed against what he might almost designate as the popular delusion, that all the Californian region would prove equally productive of gold...From the Ural Mountains and the twenty-five districts of Siberia...nearly the value of £3,800,000 in gold is annually derived...California has not hitherto produced more than £1,500,000 annually..."If, however," said Sir Roderick, in conclusion, "we allow ourselves to speculate on the moral effects of this golden shower, we must, I apprehend, admit, with an ancient historian (Diodorus Siculus - but no geologist), that gold is obtained with toil, is retained with difficulty, creates everywhere anxiety, and in its use produces both pleasure and pain". From "Illustrated London News", 1850.