Forty dollars a share
Forty dollars a share, four million for the whole property: Henry Janin considers the investment safe and attractive. An engineer engaged to examine the field for investors, he adds the weight of a technical report to the prospectors’ promise. The Engineering and Mining Journal reprints it in September 1872.
During the visit, less than three thousand pounds of gravel were washed by hand in ordinary gold pans. Janin reports 824 carats of diamonds, valued at $5,800. There are rubies as well. He distinguishes grades and prices and presents his estimate as conservative.
The calculation then changes scale. If only half an acre proved as rich as the gravel already washed, Janin estimates that its yield would cover the purchase price and working expenses. Even simple machinery, he predicts, would multiply the work done by hand. A few pans of stones become a business on paper.
The report also describes a seven-day camp, numbered points on a plan and samples taken from the surface. Janin acknowledges that important questions remain unanswered. He nevertheless ends with the prospect of further discoveries beyond the places already examined.
Clipped adaptation of Janin’s favorable report, reprinted from the August 10 Bulletin: p. 156, cols. 2–3. The first three pieces share this text. The announced plan and samples do not appear on this page. King’s report, p. 380, identifies Janin as an engineer.