ever saw. Gold is actually found lying on
the ground, close to the surface." And Mr.
Commissioner Green, two days afterwards,
reported, that " gold was found in every pan
of earth taken up."

But the most important event connected
with these discoveries, and which is without
parallel in the world's history, remains to be
told.

On the sixteenth of July, The Bathurst Free
Press, commenced a leader with the following
passage:—

"Bathurst is mad again! The delirium of
golden fever has returned with increased
intensity. Men meet together, stare stupidly
at one another, and wonder what will happen
next. Everybody has a hundred times seen
a hundred-weight of flour. A hundred-
weight of sugar is an every-day fact; but a
hundred-weight of gold is a phrase scarcely
known in the English language. It is beyond
the range of our ordinary ideas; a sort of
physical incomprehensibility; but that it is a
material existence, our own eyes bore witness."
Now for the facts.

On Sunday, eleventh July, it was whispered
about in Sydney, that a Dr. Kerr had found
a hundred-weight of gold! Few believed it.
It was thought a capital joke. Monday
arrived, and all doubts were dispelled; for at
mid-day a tandem, drawn by two greys, drew
up in front of the Free Press Office. Two
immense lumps of virgin gold were displayed in
the body of the vehicle; and being freely
handed round to a quickly assembled crowd,
created feelings of wonder, incredulity, and
admiration, which were increased, when a
large tin box was pointed to, as containing
the remainder of the hundred-weight of gold.
The whole was at once lodged at the Union
Bank of Australia, where the process of
weighing took place in the presence of a party
of gentlemen, including the lucky owner and
the manager of the bank. The entire mass
weighed about three hundred pounds, which
yielded one hundred and six pounds of pure
gold, valued at four thousand pounds. This
magnificent mass was accidentally discovered
by an educated aboriginal in the service of Dr.
Kerr; who, while keeping his master's sheep,
had his attention attracted to something
shining on a block of quartz, and breaking
off a portion with his tomahawk, this hitherto
hidden treasure stared him in the face. The
lump was purchased by Messrs. Thacker and
Company, of Sydney, and consigned to an
eminent firm in London.

Meanwhile, the Commissioner reported a
gold field many miles in extent, north-east of
Bathurst, adding that it would afford
employment for five thousand persons, the
average gain of each person being then one
pound per day; while provisions, which at
one time had been enormously high, owing to
the cupidity of speculators, had fallen so low,
that the sum of ten shillings a-week was
quite sufficient for one individual's subsistence.
The Reports from the other Commissioners
were equally favourable ; and it is gratifying
to find that they all spoke in the highest
terms of the orderly and exemplary conduct
of the diggers.

Since the discoveries in the neighbourhood
of Sydney, there have been found, in South
Australia, large tracts of country, abounding
in gold, only sixteen miles from Melbourne.
The most recent accounts (December 15, 1851)
from these regions are of a most astounding
character. In the first week in December
nearly fifty thousand pounds value in gold
was brought into Melbourne and Geelong.
The amount would have been greater but for
want of conveyance. " To find quartz," says
the Australian and New Zealand Gazette, " is to
find gold. It is found thirty-two feet from the
surface in plenty. Gold is actually oozing
from the earth." Nuggets of gold, from fourteen
ounces to twenty-seven pounds, are to
be found in abundance. A single quartz
"nugget," found in Louisa creek, sold for one
thousand one hundred and fifty-five pounds.
The Alert was on her way home with one
hundred and thirty thousand pounds sterling
in gold, and two other vessels with similar
rich cargoes.

Every town and village were becoming
gradually deserted. " Those who remain
behind to mind the flocks demand such wages,
that farming will not long pay. Labour is
in such demand that anybody with a pair of
hands can readily command thirty-five
shillings per week, with board and lodging." The
Government Commissioners had given in their
unanimous report, that the gold fields were
already so extensive as to afford remunerative
employment for one hundred thousand persons.
In conclusion, the last advices describe the
excitement as so intense that fears were
entertained that sufficient hands would not be
left to get in the standing crops.

Every week the number multiplies, of gold-
seekers' colonies planted about streams in
Australia; at all, the conduct of the diggers
is exemplary. Most of them cease from
labour on the Sunday, and spend that day as
they would spend it if they were in town.
The first keg of spirits taken into an
Australian gold field had its head punched out by
the miners; and Government has since assisted
them in the endeavour to repress the use of
stronger stimulants than wine or beer. Where
every member of the community possesses
more or less of the great object of desire;
where stolen gold could never be identified;
where it would be far from easy to identify a
thief who passes to-and-fro among communities
composed entirely of chance-comers,
having faces strange one to another, a little
drunkenness might lead to a great deal of
lawlessness and crime. There are men,
however, who will drink; and what are called by
the miners "sly grog-sellers" exist, and elude
discovery in every gold settlement. Yet we
read of one man who, being drunk, had dropped