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John Dunmore Lang devoted a chapter in his book to this subject and the following extracts are from his An Historical and Statistical Account of New South Wales, from the founding of the colony in 1788 to the present day, Vol. II, (Fourth Ed.); Sampson Low, Marston Low, Low & Searle, London, 1875.
pp. 326-329.
“ ‘The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of Hosts.’
- Haggai ii. 8.
“It surely cannot have been without some beneficent design on the part of Divine Providence that extensive gold-fields should have been discovered almost simultaneously on the opposite coasts of the cast Pacific. It seems as if it had been divinely intended, - for the accomplishment of some mighty, and at the same time salutary revolution in the history of mankind, which it had never entered into the hearts of mere politicians to conceive, - to concentrate simultaneously on the opposite shores of that vast ocean a population the most distinguished, from its sources, for intelligence, for enterprise, and for public and private virtue in the whole civilized world. In the contemplation of a moral phenomenon so truly wonderful, and especially in the prospect of its certain effects on the vast Pacific, one may well exclaim with the Psalmist, The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof.* [Footnote - * Psalm xcvii. 1]
“it is doubtless creditable to the cause of science that the auriferous character of the gold regions, both of California and of Australia, had been distinctly declared by eminent geologists, before the discovery was made in either country.
“The description of the auriferous rocks of California, given by Mr. Dana, naturalist of the ‘Exploring Expedition of the United States,’ in the year 1846, might almost be taken for a description of the gold-bearing regions of Australia.
“ ‘The talcose and allied rocks of the Umpqua and Shaste districts of California,’ observes that gentleman, ‘resemble, in many parts, the gold-bearing rocks of other regions: BUT THE GOLD, IF ANY THERE BE, remains to be discovered.’
“The discovery of gold in California was made by the merest accident in the year 1848, and it was that accident that subsequently led to its discovery in Australia. During his residence in New South Wales, Count Strzelecki had intimated his belief that the Australian Andes were auriferous, and had even mentioned indications of gold having been observed by himself to the westward of the Blue Mountains; but the impression upon his own mind must have been very slight and transient, as he does not allude to the subject in his book. I have already observed that Dr. Leichhardt, when residing at the German Mission Station at Moreton Bay, in the year 1844, previous to his departure for Port Essington, had recommended the missionaries to search for gold towards the sources of the ‘Brook Kildron,’ on which their station is situated, as he thought it highly probable that they would find the precious metal in that locality. The late Sir Roderick Murchison, also, President of the Royal Geographical Society of London, affirmed very positively. from the description he had received of the Australian Andes, as compared with the Ural Mountains of Russia, which he had personally visited, that the Australian mountains would be found to be auriferous. And the Rev. W.B. Clarke, a geologist of the highest standing in New South Wales, had repeatedly expressed his belief and conviction that the country to the westward of Bathurst was auriferous. Nay, small quantities of gold had repeatedly been found in the western country, especially by a Scotch shepherd of the name of M’Gregor; and a nugget of three ounces and a half had been forwarded to the Local Government by an individual who proposed to open a mine for gold if he could obtain certain privileges from the Government beforehand. None of these circumstances or statements, however, had made the slightest impression upon the public mind, or contributed in any way to the actual result.
“Among the numerous body of adventurers who crossed over from the Australian colonies to California, on the report of the discovery of gold in that country, was Mr. Edward Hammond Hargraves, a highly intelligent and respectable colonist, who had resided in New South Wales. During his stay in California, Mr. Hargraves was employed, like most of the other Australian adventurers, in mining; and in the course of his researches with that view he was greatly struck with the striking resemblance of the California gold country generally to a region with which he was quite familiar in New South Wales, and he naturally concluded that if gold was found so extensively in such a country on the eastern coast of the Pacific, it would in all probability be found in a similarly formed country on the western. The more he saw of the country, the more strongly was his idea impressed upon his mind, till he resolved at length to return to New South Wales, to ascertain whether it was well founded. He did so accordingly, and on the 12th of February, 1851, he succeeded in discovering gold in Australia, in the very ;ocality in which he was so strongly persuaded it would be found, viz. in the Lewis Ponds and Summerhill Creeks, and in the Macquarie and Turon Rivers, in the districts of Bathurst and Wellington. Mr. Hargraves makes no pretensions to geological science. He is merely a practical miner; but his powers of observation are evidently of the first order, and his conduct throughout the whole affair does him the highest credit. The Local Government presented Mr. Hargraves, at his own suggestion 500l. to cover expenses, in part payment for his important discovery; referring it to the Home Government to determine what his proper remuneration should be, and in the meantime appointing him a Commissioner of Crown Lands to prospect in the gold regions.”
pp. 331-355.
“The discovery was announced in Sydney on the 6th of May, 1851, and from that period there was a constant flow of adventurers to the Australian mines, many of whom - after abandoning their proper occupations, and expending, perhaps, all their previous savings upon their outfit - were doubtless unsuccessful, while many others met with extraordinary success. So early as the 25th May, 1851, Samuel Stutchbury, Esq., Geological Surveyor, writes as follows to the Colonial Secretary : -
“ ‘The number of people at the Diggings on the Summerhill Creek has greatly increased, and is daily increasing, upon an extent of about a mile. I estimate the number to be not less than 1000, and with few exceptions they appear to be doing well, many of them getting large quantities of gold.
“ ‘Lumps have been obtained varying in weight from 1 oz. to 4 lbs., the latter being the heaviest I have heard of.’
“On the 5th of June, J.R. Hardy, Esq., the Chief Commissioner of the Gold District, writes as follows from the same neighbourhood : -
“ ‘The creek is about fourteen miles long from this place (taking all its windings) to its junction with the Macquarie River. There are moreover many branch creeks and ravines in which gold is found, besides the hills themselves having sufficient gold in many of them to pay the working. I may state that the gold formation is clay slate, intersected by numerous quartz veins.
“ ‘There are about fifteen hundred (1500) persons at work, of these about eight hundred are persons who have kept steadily working for some weeks, the rest are new arrivals, taking the places of those who are tired after a few days; I think about thirty leave every day; I cannot tell (at this early period) the rate at which they arrive, I think perhaps five hundred in a week. The eight hundred first mentioned average at least one pound each per diem [day], you may depend upon this as a fact. I may add that those who leave are chiefly the weak and infirm, no man thinks himself too old or too weak to dig gold, but they soon find it out. The digging for gold is hard work compared with shepherding or hutkeeping - but it is not hard work to able men. There are many gentlemen here who do a good day’s work without difficulty; they are tolerably well sheltered and well fed; the nights are very cold, but there seems to be plenty of clothing and bedding in every tent.’
“And again on the 8th of June : -
“ ‘From the price of provisions, any man can live well on twelve shillings a week, including their tobacco. Meat is 3d.per lb.; flour has come down to 30s. per cwt.; tea and sugar are on the road, and other stores starting. In another month I think living will be as cheap as anywhere else.’
“And again on the 24th of June : -
“ ‘The Turon gold-field is of the most satisfactory nature, and places the settled and profitable nature of gold digging beyond question.’
“On the 18th of July, the Geological Surveyor forwarded a Report to the Local Government on the gold districts, of which the following is an extract : -
“ ‘That quartz is the principal matrix for gold is well known to all collectors of minerals. There is scarcely a cabinet without an example; and nearly all the mines - properly so called (not washings in alluvial drifts) - have been in quartz lodes from the time of the Romans who worked it in Transsylvania and in Wales, at the Ogofan in Caermartheshire, during their occupation under Trajan, to the present time. But it has also been found in its original position in nests and veins, usually of small extent in granite (as at North Tawton, Devon and St. Just, Cornwall,) in sienite, greenstone, porphyry, trachyte, the chrystalline scjists, and transition strata; all of which are largely developed in this portion of New South Wales.’
“Towards the close of the month of June, the rush to the mines experienced a considerable intermission, and many unsuccessful miners returned to their former occupations; but on the circulation of all the astounding intelligence of a whole hundred weight (106 lbs.) of gold having been discovered, imbedded in quartz, by two black natives in the service of Dr. Kerr, a respectable colonist from Scotland, on Louisa Creek, a tributary of the Meroo River, to the northward of the Turon, the excitement all over the colony rose to a much greater height then ever. Unfortunately, the mass of quartz rock, in which this largest quantity of the precious metal ever known to have been found in a mass, was imbedded, had been broken up by the black natives to separate the gold from the rock, in consequence of their inability to carry the whole of it away. Mr. Stutchbury thus describes the locality in which it was found : -
“ ‘The quartz lode from which the large ‘hundredweight mass’ was obtained, is of considerable size, perhaps ten or twelve acres in visible extent, remaining as a hummock in the midst of the flat, having withstood the disintegrating influence of the atmosphere.’
“My first visit to the gold-mines of the colony was paid in the month of October, 1851; having been staying for a day previous at the heads of the Turon River with the late Mr. Cadell, of Ben Bullen. On Friday, the 3rd of October, I started from Ben Bullen for Sofala; and at the point where the track leads off to the left from the Mudgee Road, I was relieved from all apprehensions as to finding the route, of which I had been furnished with a general description by Mr. Cadell, by coming up with a party of mounted diggers, who were travelling in the same direction, and most of whom had been on the Turon before. For the first eight miles the route (for there is no road, in the European sense of the word) traverses a hilly country, affording good pasture for sheep; it then leads down, by a steep descent, into the valley of of the Bandinora Creek, a little way above its junction with the Turon. There is a beautiful flat here, with excellent grass, at which we we halted for an hour, to give our horses a feed, as grass is rather scanty down the river. We then remounted, and made the best of our way along the banks of the river; sometimes crossing over the intervening hill to shorten the distance, when it made a great sweep either to the right or left.
“In the upper part of its course, where the beauties of nature had not been defaced and destroyed by the sacriligious intrusion of the digger, the Turon was really a beautiful river. Its valley is very narrow, being walled in by nearly perpendicular cliffs of indurated clay slate, or argillaceous schistus, of a chocolate colour, but without the veins of quartz that are found at Ophir; but it ever and anon leaves a small flat, now on the one side and then on the other, which is uniformly covered with clumps of the beautiful swamp-oak (Casuarina paludosa) of the colony. The banks of the Turon are fringed with these beautiful trees all along, wherever there is standing ground between the river and the cliffs. One of these flats, about five or six miles above Sofala, is of much larger dimensions than most of the others, expanding into a plain of considerable extent; and here again, in consideration of the short commons that were awaiting our horses at the diggings, we called a halt, and allowed the animals another hour’s grass. Mr. Cadell had given me a pocketful of biscuits before starting in the morning, telling me there were no inns by the way. These I had shared with my fellow-travellers at our first stopping-place on the Bandinora Creek; and they now returned the compliment, by kindling a fire, and making a tin-panful of tea, of which they presented me with a tin jugful, with a piece of damper, or unleavened bread baked in the ashes, with a bit of bacon, roasted on the end of a twig at the fire. In half an hour after mounting our horses once more, we were suddenly in the midst of the diggers; and as I happened at the time to be identified throughout the colony with the cause of the people, while the miners generally had been anxiously watching the progress of the then recent general election in Sydney, and sympathizing cordially with its result in placing me at the head of the poll, I experienced, most unexpectedly, quite an enthusiastic reception the whole way along the river banks to Sofala. The distance from Ben Bullen to Sofala is twenty-eight miles.
“The plain of Sofala is situated on the left bank of the Turon River, the ground rising gradually with a gentle ascent as you recede from the banks. It is remarkably well situated for a town; the country behind it, as well as on the opposite bank of the river, rising rapidly into hills of considerable elevation. At the period of my visit, the town of Sofala was a mere collection of calico tents of all sorts and sizes, and inhabited by persons of all grades and occupations, who were either engaged themselves in the operation of digging, or in keeping stores or shops fro the sale of all descriptions of goods disposable at the mines. It had a post-office, a coach-office, a circus, and a royal hotel. The last of these establishments, at which I took up my abode during my stay, consisted merely of a covering of white calico, stretched over a framework of rough saplings, but sufficiently pervious to both wind and rain. The town has been greatly improved since that period; buildings of all kinds, of a more permanent character, having been erected, and society placed as it were upon its proper basis. Still, however, it was an extraordinary place even then; and sure I am there was nothing in the Great Exhibition of 1851, in the British metropolis, that was calculated to awaken more interesting associations, or to open up more animating prospects for suffering and oppressed humanity, than the grand contemporary exhibition at Sofala, in Australia.
“I spent the whole of Saturday, the 4th of October, in visiting and inspecting the different diggings, from Sheep Station Point, below Sofala, to Oakey Creek, above it; the principal diggings of the Turon being situated between these two points. The gold that had then been found on the Turon and its tributaries was exclusively alluvial gold, with occasional nuggets or lumps of several ounces. No light has as yet been thrown on the question as to how or where it had its origin, or how it had obtained its actual form. It was sufficiently obvious that it did not originate in the argillaceous shistus that forms the cliffs along the river banks, which are not traversed, as at Ophir, by veins of auriferous quartz; and, contrary to all expectation, it had not been found to increase in size towards the sources of the river.
“At Sheep Station Point, on the right bank, or opposite side of the river from Sofala, so called from its having previously been the sheep-station of s squatter - all unconscious of the riches underneath him - the river sweeps round a point, leaving a considerable breadth of gravelly, shingly beach, which is always overflowed with the slightest rise of the waters; and behind this lower level there is a pretty steep bank, rising, like a terrace, to a considerable height above the reach of floods; the white tents of the diggers being ranged along the face of the hill a little way up from the bank. At this point there were numerous parties at work on the lower level, all along the river, while others had formed extensive excavations, resembling gravel-pits, in the face of the bank. In both localities, some had been remarkably successful, while others, with apparently equal intelligence and energy, had scarcely cleared their expenses. At a point near the river, in this locality, I saw a decently-attired, motherly sort of woman, with a straw bonnet on, rocking a cradle; which, however, was filled with stones and earth, instead of the usual occupant of such a piece of furniture in the old country. Her party consisted of her husband, her son, and herself - they performing the digging part of the process, and she rocking the cradle. They were all from the North of Ireland. I asked the good woman how they had succeeded, and she gave me to understand that they had been doing very well; in proof of which she pulled out of her pocket a small parcel, very carefully tied up in a series of envelopes, which, on disengaging it, proved to be a nugget of apparently pure gold, of more than three ounces in weight, which she told me, with some degree of self-complacency, she had found in her cradle a day or two before. I learned afterwards that this party had been uncommonly successful; getting four or five ounces a day for a considerable time, while other parties in the same locality had been doing equally well.
“The process of mining for alluvial gold is very simple, but at the same time sufficiently labourious; and any person who serves a regular apprenticeship to the occupation may consider himself qualified in every respect for any sort of earth-work which the humblest navvy from the Green Isle has to perform on an English or American railway. In the first place there are holes to be dug on the river bank, of all dimensions, from that of an infant’s grave, which the experimental diggings of the prospectors very much resemble, to that of a saw-pit or a full-sized quarry. Then, after picking out all the large stones, and carefully scraping them with with a knife to remove any specks of gold that may be adhering to their surface, and piling them up, like shot in a battery, to be out of the way, there is the whole of the remaining stuff to be wheeled down in a wheelbarrow, or carried in buckets, or in bags like regular coal bags in London, to the bank of the river, where it is deposited in a heap for the operations of the cradler. If the excavation is deep, however, and near the bed of a river or creek, the water, especially in so wet a season as that of 1851 in New South Wales, will in all likelihood flow in upon the diggers almost as fast as the pit is dug; and in such a case a pump must be erected to keep the mine clear, and the diggers must take regular ‘spells’ at the pump, like sailors in a leaky ship. If, on the contrary, the digging is a dry digging, above the water level, and far from that indispensable article, as has generally been the case in Victoria, the stuff may be conveyed to the water by animal labour, in a horse or bullock dray; but there was no necessity for anything of the kind at the Turon, the diggings, both there and at Ophir, being all near the water.
“The cradle is very appropriately named, not only from its striking resemblance to that indispensable article of household furniture in all thriving families, but from the process of rocking, for which it is intended, and which is duly provided for by precisely the same mechanical contrivance underneath, with the addition of an upright handle or rocker. The body of the cradle is divided by two cross pieces of wood or ledges into three shallow compartments, and it is slighly inclined towards the foot; the cradle being fixed on the bank bank of the river or creek where water is always within reach. Over the compartment of the cradle in which the child’s pillow should be found, a square moveable box is placed, with a bottom of thin iron plate, drilled full of holes. This box or hopper is first filled with a shovelful or two of the stuff from the heap, and the artist straightaway seizing the handle or rocker of the cradle in his left hand, dips a tin jug or ladle fixed to the end of a staff, which he holds in his right hand, into the water, and pours it over the stuff, while he rocks the cradle to and fro. When this process has been performed sufficiently to wash off all the sand and earth from the stones in the box or hopper, the cradler examines the latter carefully; for who knows but he might find a nugget in the cradle like the North of Ireland woman at Sheep Station Point ? When he has ascertained, perhaps with a heavy heart, that there is nothing of the kind, and has scraped off with a knife the dirt still adhering to the larger stones, and given the whole mass another drenching, he throws out the stones on a separate heap, usually called ‘tailings,’ and repeats the process perhaps ten or twelve times, or, according to the nature of the stuff that has been passed through the cradle, even fourteen or fifteen times. In the meantime the heavier matter that has passed through the holes of the box or hopper has been accumulating along the upper surfaces of the transverse pieces or ledges that divide the bottom of the cradle into compartments, the lighter earth or sand being washed over at the foot. The residuum is then carefully collected with a knife or spatula in a shallow tin pan fifteen or eighteen inches in diameter, exactly like those used in farm-houses in Scotland for holding milk. When the whole of the residuum has been collected in this receptacle, the operator, placing himself on the river-bank and taking a quantity of water into the pan by inclining it into the stream, gives the whole contents a circular motion, keeping the pan slightly inclined, that all the lighter matter may be washed over the lower edge of it, and all the heavier, including of course the gold, is left behind. This process, which is always conducted by the chief man of the party, is rather a tedious one, occupying from twenty minutes to half an hour, and requires considerable skill in its performance; as otherwise the lighter specks of gold may be washed over, along with the lighter and less valuable matter, from the centrifugal impulse communicated to the mass. The substance that is always the last to be disengaged from the gold is a black ferruginous sand, which the miners generally mistake for emery. It is one of the uniform accompaniments of alluvial gold, and the use of the magnet has often to be resorted to in the last resource to disengage it from the more precious metal. At the termination of the process, the pure gold, consisting of grains, laminae, and minute specks, is found at the bottom of the tin pan, from which it is transferred into the leather bag or tin box which the party have provided for the purpose; the quantum varying according to the productiveness of the ground from a few pennyweights to an ounce or two.
It will doubtless be considered somewhat remarkable that men who have never been accustomed before to hard labour of any kind should continue to labour in this way week after week without intermission, with hard fare and hard lodging all the while; but there is a powerful motive to exertion supplied from time to time in the extraordinary instances that are always occurring of individual success. A Scotchman, for instance, of the name of Henderson, at Ophir, brought up with a single stroke of his pick a nugget of 46 ounces, the sight of which was almost too much for his weak nerves. This was the first instance of a large lump being found; but many considerably larger have been found since, chiefly on the Turon and its tributaries. Several lumps of from 50 to 70 ounces have been found, and a lump of not less than 27 lbs., which sold in Sydney fro upwards of 1100l. It had been dug up by a miner of the name of Hinnigan at the Turon River. In the view of these instances of success, -
“ ‘Hope springs eternal in the miner’s breast.’
“The next point I visited below Sofala was Lucky Point, the principal and most successful digger at which was a Mr. West, of Bathurst, a native of the colony, and the son of a very old colonist. Mr. West merely superintended the work, which was performed by a party of hired labourers. In this locality the gold, which was chiefly of a lamellar character, was obtained in greatest quantity in a stratum of bluish clay, which occurs at a depth of ten or twelve feet and upwards, and in which, when dug up and exposed to the light, the laminae are seen here and there, like small patches of gilding on some old article of furniture from which the rest has been worn off. Mr. West had a pump in operation in his pit when I passed, and he was getting up as much of the auriferous clay as possible on Saturday to commence washing on Monday morning, as the hole would the be quite full of water from the intermission of labour on the intervening Sabbath. He had got up about two or three cartfuls of the clay to the surface when I saw him, and he told me quite confidently, from his previous experience of its yield, that he would get eight ounces of gold from the quantity I saw. The hired labourers were receiving at the time thirty shillings a week and their rations. Mr. West’s party had on one occasion obtained five pounds of gold in four days; and the whole quantity they had obtained up to a considerable time previous to my visit had amounted to 35 lbs.
“The next point I visited higher up was Maitland Point, so called from its having been principally occupied by parties of miners from Maitland, Hunter’s River. Some of them had been remarkably successful, while others had been only clearing their expenses, or scarcely even so much. The excavations into the steep bank in this locality were quite formidable in their appearance, and showed that there had been a prodigious expenditure of labour on the spot for the time that had elapsed since the discovery of the mines. The chief hopes of the miners, however, at Maitland Point, were centred in the channel or bed of the river itself, which they confidently expected would prove very rich; but they were sadly incommoded with the superabundance of water. For, while the bed of the Turon has, in former years, been often dry for months together in seasons of drought, the water at such times being found only in holes or pools here and there, the season of 1851 was a remarkably wet one, and extensive preparations had no sooner been made in various localities for mining across the channel, than another flood ensued, filling up the holes and sweeping everything moveable away. In one of these floods the water came down so suddenly that a shipmaster, of the name of Robinson, who had sunk a regular mine on Oakey Creek, one of the auriferous tributaries of the Turon, was drowned in the excavation before he could effect his escape.
“Along the plain of Sofala, where the river frontage was entirely occupied with a series of diggings, some as usual were doing pretty well, while others had met with but indifferent success. The number of Scotchmen seemed to me unusually large at the mines generally, in proportion to the whole mining population. This is not to be ascribed, however, to their inordinate love of gold, in comparison with other people, but simply to the fact of their being generally better able to fit themselves out for the mines; many of them being industrious mechanics, small farmers on their own account, or people who could leave their ordinary occupation for a time in charge of their relations, till they had made the grand experiment for themselves. On asking some of the miners how they had succeeded, I obtained rather an ambiguous answer, expressive of disappointment, although they evidently did not like to acknowledge the fact. From others, however, and in many more instances than I anticipated, I was gratified to find I obtained in quite a different tone of voice, the well-known characteristic Scotch answer, ‘We canna complean, sir.’ For when a Scotchman acknowledges that he has no reason to complain, it may safely be inferred that he has been doing particularly well.
“Golden Point, which I next visited, is situated on the opposite side of the river, about a mile or two upstream from Sofala. One of the principal and most successful miners in this locality was a Mr. Smythe, a barrister from Dublin, who very politely showed me over the neighbourhood, and gave me a small nugget, enclosing a fragment of quartz, of sufficient size for a breast-pin, as a memorial of my visit. Mr. Smythe was in partnership with a Mr. Roberts, a solicitor from Sydney. They had gone to work, I believe, pretty much like other diggers at first; but being very successful, they had subsequently hired a number of labourers, and were occupying themselves merely in directing and superintending the operations. The gold in this locality was what is called grain gold, and is found principally in a stratum of ochreous earth, or yellowish argillaceous earth, mixed with pebbles of quartz and large stones; the whole mass being firmly compacted, as if it had been hardened and baked, either from subterraneous heat or from long exposure to a hot sun. Mr. Smythe’s next neighbour, a Mr. Williams, had also been remarkably successful.
“Mr. Smythe showed me a regular mine which had been formed in his own immediate neighbourhood at Golden Point, by a party of mechanics, but not practical miners, to the depth of thirty feet from the surface. They had constructed a regular staircase, in a most workmanlike manner, in the hard stuff of which the superincumbent strata consisted, in order to reach the stratum of ochreous loam to which I have just alluded. The whole of this stratum they had dug out as far as their claim extended; propping up the earth, as in coal-pits, by piles of stone; and when the claim was exhausted, they had moved off in a body to some other locality.
“A mile or two farther up the stream, there was a large assemblage of diggers at a place called Oakey Creek Point, a mountain torrent of that name falling into the river on the opposite side. As at Sheep Station Point, there was a considerable extent of low shingly beach on the bank of the river, at this point, with a steep bank or terrace in the rear. The diggers had been chiefly on the lower level when I visited the locality; but shortly afterwards. a party from Sydney, having struck into the terraced bank, lighted upon what was technically called a ‘pocket,’ into which some eddy, in a time of flood, when the level of the river had been much higher than it is now, had washed in a large quantity - many pounds weight - of gold.
“It was calculated that there were from 12,000 to 15,000 persons on the Turon and its tributaries at the period of my visit. Shortly thereafter, many of the unsuccessful diggers gave up mining on their own account, and either left the mines, or hired themselves out to more successful miners; a considerable number of whom thus became extensive employers of mining labour, and were working simultaneously a whole series of claims. A Scotchman, a college-bred man, whom I had carried out to the colony in the capacity of a schoolmaster, in the year 1837, and who had been regularly employed in that capacity, in various localities, up to the year 1851, had been attracted to the mines shortly after their discovery, and been remarkably successful. When I last heard of him, he had six different parties of hired labourers at work at six different mines or claims. The sale and purchase of claims had also become a regular branch of business at the mines; thirty, forty, fifty, or even a hundred pounds, being not unfrequently given for a claim; and one of great promise had been sold as high even as 700l.
“I had caused it to be announced at the different diggings on Saturday, that I should conduct Divine Service in the morning of the Lord’s day at Sofala, and in the afternoon at Oakey Creek Point. I had had the offer of the Royal Circus, - which had been erected on the day previous, and had been occupied, for the first time, for the exhibition of feats of horsemanship, on the Saturday evening, - as a temporary place of worship. It was found, however, when the hour of meeting arrived, that it was much too small, although it had been constructed to accommodate a thousand persons, and we had therefore to adjourn to the open air. I took up my position in front of a tree, which threw a scanty shade upon the face of the hill where the cast congregation, of about three thousand persons, were ranged in a semicircular form; the front ranks sitting on the grass, and those behind standing on the declivity of the hill. A few were attired in their ‘Sunday suits,’ which they had carried up with them for such occasions; but nine-tenths of the whole assemblage were in the regular costume of the miners. The precentor, or ‘chief musician,’ of my congregation in Sydney, having arrived at the mines as a digger only a few days before, had in the meantime formed an extempore choir, with the assistance of members of the different Evangelical communions from Sydney, whom he had found at the mines, and the psalmody was accordingly conducted in a superior manner; the full volume of sound from so great a multitude, of whom a large majority joined heartily in this part of the service, as it pealed along the Valley of the Turon, reverberating from hill to hill, and from rock to rock, being in the highest degree impressive and overpowering. The service was conducted agreeably to the customs of the Presbyterian Church, my discourse being founded on Luke xxiv. 36 : And as they spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. There was not only the utmost decorum throughout, but the audience appeared to listen to the very close of the service with the deepest attention; and the whole scene naturally suggested to the mind the sermons that were delivered in somewhat similar circumstances, as to externals, by thousands of hearers on the shores of the Sea of Gaililee by the Divine Teacher himself; while the numerous white tents in view, on hill and in valley, afforded no unapt representation of the ancient Feast of Tabernacles.
“At the close of the service I delivered an Address to the diggers, which was cordially received, and was afterwards published in the ‘Bathurst Free Press.’* [Footnote - * The reader will find a copy of it in Appendix VII.]
“In the afternoon, I conducted divine service again at Oakey Creek Point, about three miles from Sofala, where I had a congregation of about a thousand persons; the place where I stood in front of another tree on the very edge of the terraced bank, being quite close to the spot where the large pocketful of gold, which I have already mentioned, was discovered shortly afterwards by the fortunate party of miners from Sydney.
“On the Sabbath I spent at the Turon River, divine service had been performed, for the Roman Catholic miners, by Archbishop Polding, on an eminence on the opposite side of the river from Sofala; as also by one of the Episcopalian clergymen of the colony for the members of the Church of England at Golden Point.
“There is no industrial operation so uncertain and so peculiarly subject to fluctuations of all kinds as gold mining. At one time there is the utmost excitement in favour of mining generally; at others, there is an equally strong reaction, and the gold-fields are almost deserted. At one time there is a great scarcity of water in particular localities; at others, there is a great deal too much.
“At the same time there is no class of men of such migratory habits, or so apt to be influenced to change their actual habitation, however comfortable it may be, on the merest rumour of a new gold-field, however remote, than gold miners.
“There have been frequent rushes of population to new gold-fields in New South Wales, during the last twelve or fifteen years - first to Burrangong, or the Lambing Flat, and second to the Lachlan diggings, both in 1861; third to Kiandra on the Snowy Mountains; and fourth to Grenfell in the south-western country in later years. I found a very large mining population at the first and second of these gold-fields in 1862; but as the gold was alluvial in both of them, it was exhausted in a few years, and the population gradually moved off to other localities; not entirely, however, as I have shown above in the case of Young on the Burrangong Creek, and of Forbes on the Lachlan diggings; a sufficient number having remained behind in both of these cases to found two very promising towns in two very important localities, which, in all likelihood, would otherwise not have been reached by the colonial population for half a century to come; the one being 250 miles from Sydney in one direction, and the other 260 in another. Kiandra was too cold a place for Australians to retain population when the gold became exhausted, and Grenfell, although its alluvial gold has been worked out, having rich quartz reefs and much quartz-crushing machinery, is likely to maintain its existence as a gold-field somewhat longer. Quartz-crushing is now almost the exclusive source of the gold produce of the colony.
“The Ballarat gold-field of Victoria was discovered in the month of August, 1851. On the discovery of its hidden treasures, the rush to the diggings in Victoria was, beyond all comparison, greater than it had ever been to those of New South Wales - partly because the feelings of the inhabitants of that province had been wound up to the highest pitch by the previous discoveries in the older colony; partly because the gold-fields of Victoria were much nearer the principal towns, and therefore more easily accessible, and partly, perhaps, because they were richer, on the whole, than the New South Wales diggings - although this is somewhat problematical.
“Like the good land in Victoria, the gold-field of that colony is more compact, and therefore ‘looms in the distance’ much more favourably; but it is by no means certain that it is richer on the whole than the many and scattered fields of New South Wales. Nay, considering the comparative numbers engaged respectively at the mines in both colonies, it is a matter of question whether the miners in New South Wales have not got as much per head as those in Victoria. It is at least certain, that the mines of New South Wales have latterly been very productive; and the fact that at an early period parties of miners, who had left the Turon and gone to Victoria, had afterwards returned to their old ‘claims,’ is very significant. It was not because these parties could not find gold in Victoria that they returned to New South Wales; but because the vast assemblage of people at the Victoria mines had made everything so dear and so uncomfortable that they found themselves better off on the whole at their old diggings on the Turon. Up to the 26th of July (1852), there had been exported from New South Wales gold to the amount of 1,759,745l. at the rate of 3l. 5s. per ounce. The export from Victoria had been about 2,400,00l.; or upwards of four millions sterling from both colonies. It must be borne in mind, however, that for a considerable time after the gold discovery, the number of miners at the Victoria diggings was probably more than double the number at any period at the mines of New South Wales. On the 1st of April, 1852, for example, it was estimated by the President of the Chamber of Commerce at Melbourne, that there were then about 50,000 persons at the Victoria mines, while the yield was about 100,000l. per week, or at the rate of 2l. per head; but the whole number at the New South Wales mines, at the period of my visit in October, 1851, was not more than 15,000, and the number diminished very considerably thereafter. One good reason for this diminution was that the Squatter Government of the day had, in order to prevent the shepherds and stockmen from leaving the squatting stations for the diggings, imposed upon the miners the monstrous tax of thirty shillings a month for a license to dig for gold ! The tax is now ten shillings a year.
“When the discovery of an extensive gold-field in the interior of New South Wales was first announced, many good people were at a loss to decide whether the wonderful event should be regarded as a gift of God, or a temptation of the devil. But all uncertainty on this subject was soon at an end; the evil necessarily incident to the great discovery, it was soon found, was but limited in extent and would prove but of brief duration; while the good that was sure to flow from it would be extensive and lasting. The excitement it produce necessarily deranged for a time the whole social system of the colony - to a much lesser extent, however, in New South Wales than in Victoria; and it occasioned in not a few instances much inconvenience, and even considerable hardship, suffering, and loss. But the veils of this kind that were experienced throughout the colony were much fewer and smaller than could have been anticipated; particular interests and particular individuals suffered considerably for a time from the social derangement that ensued; but the general operations of the colony were carried on in much the usual way notwithstanding. Seed-time and harvest were neither forgotten nor neglected; the sheep were all shorn, and the woll conveyed to Sydney for shipment as usual; the boiling-down establishments slaughtered their myriads of fat sheep and cattle as before, and the exports, except in the article of gold, scarcely varied from those of former years. In short, it was rather a temporary stoppage or retardation in the onward march of improvement that was experienced than any loss of the ground that had been already secured. Divine Providence indeed appears to have been beneficently postponed the discovery of gold in Australia till the colonists were quite able to sustain the shock which it necessarily occasioned, and till they had it completely in their power to make adequate provision for the extraordinary emergency, without sacrificing either the existence or the comforts of society.
“How remarkably different was the state of things in California, where the wonderful discovery took the whole civilized world by surprise, when the country was an untenanted wilderness and totally unprepared for the great emergency ! Provisions of all kinds were in such circumstances enormously high, and labour equally so; while comfortable lodging, in a climate that is not only insalubrious but rigorous, was not to be procured - insomuch that thousands sank prematurely into the grave, from the privations and hardships they had to encounter, and the diseases that supervened. Valuable merchandize also was destroyed in large quantities in that country, from the mere inability of the owners or consignees to pay the enormous sums that were demanded for warehouse-rent and other charges. A respectable shipmaster, a native of New South Wales, who had been trading to San Fransisco, informed me that he had actually seen whole barrels of pork, beef, tobacco, and flour, filled in several feet deep as mere rubbish along the beach in that city, where wharves or stores were erecting, on rows of piles carried out into the deep water; and the total estimated loss at the time to the unfortunate exporters of the Eastern States amounted to ninety-eight millions of dollars, i.e. nearly twenty millions sterling ! Now there was nothing of this kind in New South Wales. After the first few weeks had passed over, provisions of all kinds, especially butcher-meat of the best quality, were nearly as cheap at the mines as in all other parts of the colony. With the exception of the necessary effects of hard labour under a hot sun, the health of the miners generally was rather improved than otherwise, from the superior salubrity of the more elevated regions; and no loss of any kind, beyond what is everywhere contingent on the fluctuations of trade, had been sustained, or was likely to be sustained, on merchandise imported from the mother country.
“The discovery of the Australian gold-fields has unquestionably been already attended with very important results, not only to the Australian colonies generally, but to Great Britain and to the whole civilized world. From the extensive emigration to which it gave rise in the first instance, to the Australian colonies - 500 a week for a time - on the one hand, and the extraordinary impulse it has given to trade of all kinds on the other, it has been sensibly diminishing the three great evils that have been afflicting society in the mother country more and more every successive year for the last half-century - I mean competition, pauperism, and crime. It has been attracting to the golden lands of the South numerous intelligent and enterprising individuals in all branches of business, and of all grades and professions, thereby insuring a more eligible field and a fairer prospect for those who remain. It has been carrying off numerous handicraftsmen and labourers, and thereby insuring ‘a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work’ for those they have left behind. And by thus diminishing poverty and misery, which are uniformly the prolific source of crime in densely peopled countries, and thereby ameliorating the general condition of the humbler classes, it has been thinning the ranks of the criminal population by stopping the supplies from without. It has given a wonderful impulse in the meantime to the shipping interest as well as to trade generally in the mother country, and has thereby been materially improving the general condition of her people.
“It is evident, moreover, that the population that is now directing its course to Australia is in great measure a Protestant population. As the feeble and effete Protestantism of Ireland has, from obvious causes, been unable to cope with the rampant Popery of that country for three centuries past, Divine Providence is now drafting off that awkward element to America. to be there neutralized and assimilated by the vigorous Protestantism of that young country; while it is chiefly the Protestantism of the United Kingdom that has been sending forth its myriads of representatives to Australia since the discovery of gold in that country. Whether it happened from design or neglect, Irish Romanism has all along, as I have observed in a former part of this work, had much more of the benefit of free emigration to Australia than its due proportion; but the tables are effectually turned now. There can be no longer any fear of Romish ascendancy in Australia; and it will, therefore, be a Protestant, and not a Roman Catholic population that will henceforth acquire influence and power and predominance in the Southern Hemisphere, and that will impress its own energetic character upon the multitude of the isles of the vast Pacific and of the Indian Archipelago.
“.....Through the discovery of gold in Australia, and the consequent influx of population from the mother country, the ascendancy of the squatters of the Australian colonies has virtually ceased and determined. The object of these gentlemen was to occupy and engross the country for themselves exclusively, to partition it out in immense sheep-walks and cattle-runs, and (virtually) to prevent the influx and settlement of an agricultural population. Their object, in other words, was to keep the people down when they were down, and to give them no chance of rising for the future; and it must be confessed that the Colonial Office had given them all the necessary aid for the accomplishment of this object, through the Act of Parliament which was passed at its insistence in the year 1846, and to which I have already alluded, as well as through the still more discreditable Act of 1855, in handing over to a mere clique of Australian Squatters, the noble inheritance of the people of England in the waste lands of Australia. But this game is now up, and the days of squatting - in the sense of a powerful political party for whose aggrandizement the interests of the public were so long compromised and sacrificed - are now ended. Like the Grave, the Diggings have already levelled these past distinctions, and they are fast placing the wealth and property of the country in the hands of men of nerve and sinew - men of industry and perseverance - men of honesty and integrity; who are perfectly willing to accord to others all they claim for themselves - ‘a fair field and no favour.’
“To conclude, it will be utterly hopeless, under the new order of things which the gold discovery has originated, to maintain the existing relations between Great Britain and her Australian colonies much longer. These relations must inevitably be dissolved in due time, to be superseded by an order of things more accordant with the rights of men, the law of nature, and the ordinance of God. It is a consummation, indeed, devoutly to be wished, that this dissolution, when it takes place, as it must ere long, should be accomplished peacefully, and with the entire concurrence, as it certainly be for the best interests, of all parties concerned; and not by violence and bloodshed, as in the case of America - to leave centuries of heart-burning and ill-will between the parent and her child. By simply doing what certain of her own ablest statesmen have actually recommended - Mr. Huskisson, for example, Lord Brougham, Lord St. Vincent, Lord Ellenborough - that is, by taking the initiative in holding out to her Australian colonies their entire freedom and independence, Great Britain has it fully in her power to give these colonies such a political form and constitution as would not only insure their rapid and lasting prosperity, but enable them to form one of the greatest empires of the future on the face of the earth. She may yet lick the young bears into proper shape: it will not be in her power to do so much longer now. * [Footnote - * The reader will find these ideas wrought out at much greater length in the work already referred to; viz. ‘The Coming Event; or, Freedom and Independence for the Seven United Provinces of Australia.’ London: Sampson, Low and Co., 1870.]”
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