At Noranda, in western Quebec, an old prospector slammed down four bags of gold ore on a hotel bar and shouted: "You don't have to figure what this rock runs to the ton; it assays by the pound." At the O'Brien mine near Kirkland Lake, Ont., speculators caressed a new-found slab of what mining men call "jewelry"a ten-pound chunk of practically pure gold worth $2,000. At Noranda's golf course, golfers played around two gold-drilling sites smack in the middle of a fairway. The gold stock market reached its highest point in four years.
Gold fever ran its highest temperatures in Ontario's remote...