Jill Cox, age 10, of McGregor, Minn., for her question:
WHAT WAS THE GOLD RUSH?
Gold is a metallic element that was one of the first known of all metals. Early cave man collected the metal as did his ancestors all through the years. Possession of the
bright yellow metal has been a mark of wealth for many thousands of years. Mining of gold is an important industry today and it is carefully supervised by the governements of all gold producing countries.
The ancient Egyptians knew all about gold and treasured the precious yellow metal. The craftsmen also perfected the art of hammering gold out into thin sheets which could be used to cover wooden art objects. Egyptian gold leaf was so thin that it took 367 individual leaves to make a pile one inch high.
Gold has always been expensive because it has always been rare. Only limited amounts are available, and great effort must be made to produce the finished product.
But many people through the years have had the dream that someday they would find rich veins of the valuable metal and that they would immediately become rich. When the word ''gold'' was whispered, it often acted on men like a fever. News of the discovery of a new gold field would draw thousands of prospectors into what was called a gold rush.
Perhaps the most famous gold rush in North America was the one that started on January 24, 1848. A man named James Marshall discovered gold at Sutter's Mill in California and the news spread like wildfire. By 1849 a large scale gold rush was under way. In less than a year San Francisco grew from a small town to a city of 25,000. Gold was abundant and commodities were scarce, so food and lodging prices went sky high. So many miners moved to California from all parts of the country that the territory had enough people to be admitted as a state in 1850.
Another famous gold rush was the one in Colorado in 1858 that was marked by the slogan "Pikes Peak or Bust." One of the first newspapers of the West, the Rocky Mountain News, was started in Denver in 1859 at the height of the rush.
Gold was discovered in the Klondike district of the Yukon in 1896 and the gold rush was on in 1897. Skagway grew from a dock and a general store to a town of 4,000 in three weeks as eggs sbld for a dollar each and ham and eggs for breakfast cost a prospector $10.
The Klondike gold rush saw over 10,000 prospectors start for the north, from Skagway to Dawson, but only 2,000 finished the trip. Many died along the way from cold and disease. But others made as much as $5,000 in three days of panning gold.
Other important gold rushes have been held in many parts of the world including Australia, South Africa, West Africa, Mexico, Siberia and Malaya.