"One of the 'forty-niners,' who went to the California gold-fields in the first ship that sailed from Sydney after the news of the Sacramento discoveries had reached Australia, was a prospector called E. H. Hargraves. He got to California in the middle of the rush, but luck was against him.
"As happened so often with the men who knew only a little mining, he thought he could do better than merely follow the crowd. He staked a claim that looked more promising than the ground on the outskirts of the established mining camps. The claim proved worthless, or nearly so.
"Seeing the vast crowds streaming into California, and being convinced that there would not be gold enough for all, Hargraves decided to go home, rather than to stay in the California gold-diggings and die of hunger—as so many of the forty-niners did."
Jim nodded assentingly. He knew those stories. Many a one had his father told him. He was well aware that the trail of gold is a line of graves.
"On his way back home," Owens continued, "Hargraves remembered that he had seen ground in New South Wales which bore a marked resemblance to the regions where gold had been found in California. It was not ordinary alluvial gold land, such as prospectors were apt to seek, and no one had ever suspected that gold might be found there. Hargraves had kept his eyes open, when in California, and had realized that alluvial gold was but a beginning, that the biggest amount of wealth lay in a reef.
"Reaching Sydney in December, 1850, Hargraves made his way towards what is now the town of Bathurst. He was out in the field, prospecting, when the Black-fellow Nugget was found, and heard nothing about it.
"Near the end of February, 1851, working in Summerhill Creek, he discovered sure signs of gold, though in no such alluring quantity as had been found on the creeks leading into the Sacramento River. He worked steadily up the creek, not only panning as he went, but also striking off to right and left to see if the ground gave promise of a reef. There, on the last day of the month, he found a bowlder of quartz and gold, or, to speak more correctly, a detached piece of quartz from a reef, the greater part of which was almost pure gold and weighed 106 pounds.
"Hargraves was a man of sense. Instead of hurrying back to the nearest town with his find, selling it and blowing the money, he did some further prospecting. He collected specimens from different parts of the neighborhood, realizing that he had made a discovery not less sensational than when Sutter found the first gold in his mill-race in California.
"Then he went straight to the government authorities of New South Wales, and, in addition to establishing his own claims, he asked that a reward be given him by the government. The governor, anxious to stop the emigration from New South Wales to California, and realizing that a gold-find would bring enormous wealth and prosperity to the colony, made him a grant of $50,000 and a pension, providing that he would reveal the gold-bearing locality to the authorities, first, and providing the territory should produce a million dollars' worth of gold.
"Hargraves was as good as his word. He showed not only the famous Lewis Ponds, Summerhill, but also another and even bigger field on the upper waters of the Macquarie River. Owing to their prior information, the authorities were able to establish mining laws and good government before the rush set it, and Bathhurst was freed from the wild orgy of lawlessness which marked the days of the 'forty-niners.'