process of formation. Ever and anon, a huge
bucket of washing stuff, a mixture of thick,
putty-like mud, stones, and gold, comes to the
mouth of the shaft, is tilted into the puddling
tank, and takes its share in the never-ending
process of being separated into gold and
tailings—vast hills of these tailings lie all around.
John Chinaman puts them through a second
process, and generally manages to "get a
living" out of them. Johnny does not go in
for deep sinking. The over-ground men
proceed with their operations in comparative
silence.

My landlord is speaking apart to the manager.
We are to go down. We retire to the shift-
room— I, my fellow-traveller Brown, my
landlord, and the manager. The shift-room is
about twelve feet square, and all round the
walls are hung a most varied assortment of oil-
skin coats, oil-skin inexpressibles, and oil-skin
hats, all slop made, baggy, and mud-begrimed.
We retire, or make believe of retiring, into
corners, and change.

I reappear first. Enter next to me Brown,
decidedly villainous-looking, then the manager,
who wears his garments gracefully and
professionally, last, my landlord, who, having fallen
somewhat into flesh, would appear to have had
some difficulty with his shift, if, at least, I
might judge from certain expletives proceeding
from his corner, which it is unnecessary for
me here to repeat. At length, our number
is complete, or, as Brown conveys to me in
a stage whisper, "Enter fourth murderer," and
we return to the mouth of the shaft.

This time, the bottomless box has a lid—a
square, blue-gum plank, some two inches thick,
fitting it exactly; that is, if the rope from the
engine were severed, it would drop to the bot-
tom. A stout iron rail rises from this plank,
and at right angles to its surface, to the height
of about four feet, separating it into two equal
compartments. It has no other protection— in
fact, consists of nothing else, I and Brown
take our stand on one compartment, my
landlord and the manager on the other, opposite,
with our hands on the iron rail which divides
us, and rises breast high. We are thus staring
into each other's faces—two and two. There
are four hundred feet of empty space beneath
us; imagine yourself standing on the golden
ball of St. Paul's, with a two-inch wooden platform
between you and the churchyard, instead
of the present substantial structure. The
manager nods to the man in the arm-chair, and
says "lower." The man in the arm-chair pulls
a tap, and we are lowered. Engine, men, and
puddling machines disappear from our view,
silently and slowly. Yes, our motion at first
is slow; nevertheless, the light diminishes with
awful rapidity. I can barely see the faces of
my three companions, and then I can see
nothing: absolutely nothing. We are now
moving more swiftly, very swiftly. It is
impossible to give any description of the utter
darkness; no shutting your eyes, no cellar, no
railway tunnel would be of the least avail.
We don't speak. I find a difficulty in believing
that three heads are within a few inches of my
own, that I am staring into my landlord's face;
my companions appear to be miles and miles
away. There is nothing heard save the dripping
of water, and the grating, now and again, of
our descending square platform against the
sides of the bottomless box. We can't fall off
—that is one comfort; a pin could scarcely
insert itself between platform and box. What if
the man in the arm-chair should miscalculate
the distance, and bump us violently against the
bottom!

Our rapid descent is checked, and we are
bumped against the bottom; but so very
gently that I doubt if we should have cracked a
hazel nut if it had been beneath our platform.
We are now in a very blaze of light. Candles
—wax candles—are fixed all round the walls
of the room (or chamber) which we find
ourselves in the midst of. Some half dozen trucks,
loaded with washing stuff and headings, carry
candles in front of them; about the same
number of men, scattered in various attitudes
through the chamber, have lighted candles
fastened to their felt hats; and several avenues
(the drives), opening off in various directions
from the chamber, all possess candles in tin
sconces, arranged at regular intervals along
their walls. These men are evidently off work;
some are eating, some smoking, and some
taking a half-sleeping, half-waking rest,
preparatory to resuming operations in the drives.
The walls and roof of the chamber are all
strongly and closely boxed, in the same manner
as the shaft. So also are the various drives
diverging from the chamber, as long as they
take their course through loose, crumbling
soil; where they pass through solid rock this
becomes unnecessary. The labour of this
boxing alone must have been immense.

"So," said the manager, as we alighted, and
addressing me, "you have come down a little
more quickly and easily than the original
workers of the claim. How long do you think
we took to get this far? Two years and over.
We went through three beds of solid bluestone
rock, fifty, thirty, and sixty-five feet—all blasting,
every inch of it: with water between each
pair enough to turn a pretty tidy mill. We
passed through two shifting sands—all double
boxing; and were driven out, a whole winter.
Then our money ran out and we had empty
pockets and a flooded claim. Didn't that beat
us? Not a bit of it. That's no unusual thing
in Ballarat—we have a system to meet that.
You show any substantial storekeeper in Ballarat
that you have a promising claim on a known
lead, and he'll advance you food, tools, and
pumping gear for six, twelve, and eighteen
months.* Well, we had to go to the storekeepers
(the first week's washing paid them off)
and we got down here, where we're now
standing."

* Latterly, the banks also advance to large amounts
—as high as five thousand pounds.

"And then?" said my landlord, to whom
the story was evidently a familiar one, and