Nova Scotian Goldfields: Laidlaws Farm, near Halifax, [Canada], 1862. Engraving of a photograph by Captain W. D. Tompson, of the 17th Regiment. This auriferous deposit is entirely different from any hitherto discovered, and, when laid open, presents the appearance of trees or logs of wood laid together side by side...From this circumstance the miners have applied the name of "barrel quartz" to the formation, which in many cases presents an appearance not unlike a series of small casks laid together side by side and end on end. The rock covering this remarkable horizontal vein is exceedingly hard, but beneath it for some little distance it is softer and somewhat more fissile. The quartz is itself foliated parallel to the lines of curvature, and exhibits a tendency to break in accordance with these striae. Large yields have lately been realised by many of the claims at those mines, but it is impossible to form any trustworthy estimate of the total amount of gold which has hitherto resulted from the mining operations, as the claims are for the most part worked by private individuals, who are generally indisposed to furnish information either as to their success or failure, and no official returns on the subject have as yet appeared. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.