Gold-mining, like all other forms of mining, is an untidy process, and we presently came to rough, shapeless patches of irregular yellow ground, all holes and hillocks, and now partly overgrown, where mining had formerly been carried on. Our destination was a hill of grey heaps and smoking chimneys. Even an Australian motor-car looked askance at the approach to it, so we walked up, for this was the mine we were asked to visit. We were shown into an office out of which opened two dressing-rooms. A litter of old boots was on the floor, the walls were hung with derelict felt hats and clean suits of butchers’ blue overalls. Here we were asked to attire ourselves suitably for the occasion. It is an odd feeling that of walking out into the light of day for the first time untrammelled by skirts, but this agreeable sensation was detracted from by carrying several pounds’ weight on either foot and by the difficulty of keeping on a large alien hat. Some other visitors were going down the mine, and one of the ladies’ hats blew off. Retrieving it from the mud, a man politely offered her his own, a quite clean one, in exchange. It belonged to somebody else, but he had had the foresight to select it in the dressing-room in preference to those provided for visitors. We were each furnished with a tallow candle.
Going down a gold mine feels exactly like being one of a new box of Bryant and May’s matches. A little two-storied platform takes down eight adventurous souls at a time. There is a bar across to hold on to; two people stand on either side squeezed close together. Then the platform is lowered so that four more can get on to its upper story. With stringent warnings to inexperienced passengers to keep their free arm pressed close to their side, the platform descends the shaft just like a box of matches being pushed into its case. It is quite dark in the shaft. A sound of running water accompanied us, and we could hear it swishing far below. As we got lower it got hotter and hotter, till it felt as if we were suspended above the steam of some immense kettle, producing a curious feeling of suffocation, which, however, wears off. We had a general impression that the bottom of a gold mine would be a beautiful, glittering thing, with shining white walls of quartz and glimmering threads and patches of gold shining in it like the small samples given as mementoes to visitors. Nothing of the kind. It might as well have been a coal mine. On scrambling rather breathless out of the little cage, we found ourselves in a low, small, open space, with walls of some dun-coloured reddish stone, and narrow tunnels running off it with wooden supports for the roof. That was the gold mine, and except that in this Turkish bath of grotto and passage men were “picking” walls like rock-salt or alabaster, nothing more is to be said.
Coming up the shaft we were on the top of the platform, and the water we had heard going down now splashed on to us, as if somebody with a primitive sense of humour was watering us from above with a large watering-can. Altogether, we were very grateful for the blue overalls and the hats. Apropos of these, when we had recovered our own clothes and were waiting to inspect the machinery above ground, a distraught gentleman was passionately inquiring for his hat. The lady who had exchanged hats observed innocently that there was quite a nice hat hanging up in her dressing-room. He hurried off to look, and emerged ruefully with the hat in which she had been down the mine. It had been well watered with muddy water, and was now almost indistinguishable from the hats provided for the purpose.
The machinery was to the uninitiated much like other machinery. There were enormous pumps, fascinating like all such powerful, ruthless looking things. We saw the slim-looking cable that draws the cage up the shaft—(“Looks thin, don’t it?” said the workman in charge of it)—and the stamper for breaking up the quartz, and the sifters, which sift the mineral when it is crushed.
But there was much more to see. We were taken to see the Agricultural High School. These schools are an interesting feature in the Australian system of education, and play an important part in it. The Ballarat Agricultural High School is a large, well-lighted building standing in its own grounds, where students can learn the practical arts of agriculture, at the same time that they attend classes, they learn to test milk and to understand the properties of soils. As it was Saturday we were unfortunately unable to see any classes at work. The art room had a south light, which is the aspect corresponding here to our north. The afternoon was now far advanced, so we paid a rapid visit to the Botanical Gardens, very large and handsome ones, adorned by statuary that is the great pride of Ballarat, the work of a local artist.
Finally, skirting Lake Wendouree, a piece of ornamental water on which pleasure steamers run in the summer, our host took us to his house, where we had a high tea, with one of those sumptuous cakes that only Australian housewives can produce. The journey back seemed very long, and we were very tired. There were innumerable stations, all quite dark, so someone ran along the train, inquiring at each carriage, “Anyone for ...?” whatever the name of the place happened to be. There never seemed to be anyone, and he then said in disappointed tones, “Right Oh! Jerry,” and we slowly creaked under way again.
We were very glad when we at last steamed into the brightly lighted Melbourne station, and found our kind host and hostess waiting there for us with their car, in spite of the lateness of the hour. Afterwards, in talking over the development of Australia with the people who lived there, we learned how great a part had been played by the discoveries of gold in populating the state. The first permanent settlement in Victoria, the smallest of the five states of Australia, was made by some immigrants from Van Diemen’s Land, as Tasmania was then called, in Portland Bay in 1834. This is an open bay which lies at some distance from Melbourne to the south-west; it was found to be unsafe for shipping, and there was a lack of good land in its immediate neighbourhood. Melbourne was founded the next year at the head of the deep inlet called Port Phillip Bay by parties of settlers from Van Diemen’s Land. Other settlers came from Sydney, and beginning to explore the interior were struck with its great capabilities. Immigration rapidly progressed, regular government was established under Captain William Lonsdale in 1836, and the capital was named Melbourne.
THE AUSTRALIAN ALPS, NORTH-EAST VICTORIA. MOUNT FEATHERTOP 6,300 FEET.
By the end of 1850 the population already numbered more than 76,000 people. The next year gold was discovered, and in 1851 the population had risen to over 400,000, and was six times that it had been before. The gold boom brought in its train cultivators, and pastoral settlers, for the staple of Australia is still wool. The state has an area of 56 million acres, less than 6 millions of which are under cultivation. The climate varies greatly according to rainfall and elevation, and there are even snow-bound districts during the winter months. Part of the country with a low rainfall is excellent for the cultivation of wheat, and one of the principal problems in Victoria is to guard against an uncertain rainfall by the conservation of water. For the north-east and north extensive irrigation works have already been undertaken, but the whole question awaits further investigation.