(Australia).
1. Next to wool as a source of Australian wealth comes gold. The discovery of gold, in 1851, had a wonderful effect on the progress of Australia. The discovery was made, near Bathurst, in New South Wales, by Hargraves, one of the numerous adventurers that left the colony in 1848 to dig for gold in California. The first thing which impressed him on his arrival in the gold country was the resemblance between it and the district around his own home in Australia. The more he saw of the gold-diggings in California, the more he was struck with the likeness. At length he resolved to return, and on searching a creek near his old home, he found it rich in gold.
2. At the news of this discovery, thousands hastened to the diggings from all parts of the colony. The news of this "rush" for gold had hardly reached the people of Victoria, when it became known that there was a still richer gold-field at Ballarat in their own country. The gold fever seized upon the Victorians, and in a few weeks most of the men in the colony were grubbing for gold. Workshops were left without workmen, ships without crews, and houses without tenants. The squatters were left to look after their own sheep, and farmers saw their crops spoiling for want of labourers to harvest them. Ordinary business came to a standstill, and even schools were closed for want of teachers.
3. To the streams of men from every part of Australia was soon added a flood of adventurers from all quarters of the world, including numbers of escaped convicts from Tasmania. Of those who came in the hope of rapidly making a fortune at the diggings, the majority were doomed to disappointment. But a few picked up gold nuggets of considerable size, and one miner at Ballarat hit upon the largest mass of gold ever found. It was called the "welcome stranger," and was worth upwards of £8000. The scene at the gold-fields is thus described in the "Story of the Nations:"—
4. "The banks of the Yarrowee presented a strange appearance, with the eager line of men standing shoulder to shoulder, washing in the muddy water the dirt brought them from time to time by a companion. A little further back the earth was cut into innumerable holes, flanked by great mounds of red soil, in and around which men busily ran or dug with feverish energy. At night the scene was even more weirdly curious, for the glaring lights of the theatres and grog shanties, with the flaring torches and fires of the miners, joined in throwing into strong relief the shadows of the tents and their wild surroundings. Above all rose the hum of a city, broken now and again by bursts of noisy revelry. Wealth easily won was as readily squandered, and the lucky digger showered gold with a free hand. Prices were exorbitant, for the miner, drunk with fortune, seldom asked for change, and the style of living generally was recklessly extravagant."
5. The value to Australia of the discovery of gold within her territory has been far greater than the worth of the gold itself, though that, in forty years from its first discovery in 1851, amounted to the extraordinary sum of £300,000,000. It has been the means of bringing to her shores hundreds of thousands of enterprising men, who on leaving the gold-fields have settled down in the country to gain a livelihood, if not a fortune, by steady industry in some useful employment. Thus, just before the discovery of gold, the population of Victoria was less than 80,000; now, half a century later, the population is nearly one-and-a-quarter millions.
6. Gold-mining is now one of the regular industries of Australia. But gold is no longer to be picked up on the surface. It is now only obtained by sinking shafts, and much expensive machinery is required in working the mines. The yield of gold in Victoria and New South Wales is, of course, much less than it was, but the annual value is still considerable.
7. Gold-mining has also been long carried on in Queensland. Indeed, the Mount Morgan mine in that colony has proved itself one of the richest mines in the world. Its story is a curious one. A young squatter had bought a farm near Rockhampton, but it was on a rocky hill, and he found that for grazing or cultivation it was useless. He was, accordingly, glad to sell it to three brothers, named Morgan, at £1 an acre. The dirty grey rocks of which the hilly farm was composed turned out to be so rich in gold, that the hill, which had cost the Morgans £640, was sold for £8,000,000. And now West Australia, which has long lagged behind the sister colonies, can also boast of its gold mines, and has fairly started on its onward march.
8. Australia has lately followed the example of Canada, and formed her six colonies into one great dominion, under the name of the Commonwealth of Australia, which started on its new career on the first day of the twentieth century. Each colony, or state, retains control over its own local affairs, but the Parliament of the Commonwealth is empowered to decide all questions relating to defence, railways and telegraphs, customs duties and postal rates, and all other matters common to the whole country.