A new epoch in the history of gold began with the discovery of America. We all know by what prodigies of valour the Spaniards obtained possession of the treasures of Montezuma and of the Peruvian Incas, and how frequently acts of a fiendish cruelty, inspired by the love of gold, and aggravated by a bloodthirsty fanaticism, tarnished the lustre of their arms.
More recently, about the year 1836, rich deposits of auriferous sand were discovered in Siberia, and soon raised the frozen regions of the Jenisei to the rank of the first gold-producing country in the world.[[43]] But the fame of the Russian mines was soon eclipsed by the eventful discovery of the Californian placers.
It was in January 1848, a short time after the incorporation of the province with the United States, that one James Marshall, who had contracted to build a saw-mill on the land of Captain Sutter, about sixty miles east of Sacramento, discovered the glittering particles in the mud of the brook on which he was at work. Trembling with excitement, he hurried to his employer, and told his story. Captain Sutter at first thought it was a fiction, or the wild dream of a maniac; but his doubts were soon at an end when Marshall laid on the table before him a few ounces of the shining dust. The two agreed to keep the matter secret, and quietly to share the golden harvest between them. But, as they afterwards searched more narrowly, their eager gestures and looks happened to be closely watched by a Mormon labourer employed about the neighbourhood. He followed their movements, and the secret was speedily divulged.
It appears that Marshall did not escape the ordinary lot of discoverers, for a few years later he was wandering, poor and homeless, over the land which was first indebted to him for its enormous development.
The intelligence of the Californian gold treasures soon spread over the world, and a wonderful flood of immigration began into the newly-proclaimed Eldorado. An innumerable crowd of adventurers from every part of the New World, from the Sandwich Islands, from Europe, from Australia, came pouring in over the Rocky Mountains, through Mexico, round Cape Horn, or across the Pacific, all eager to seize fortune in a bound or to perish in the attempt. Every week dispatched its thousands to the diggings, and saw its hundreds of successful adventurers return to dissipate their earnings in the gambling saloons of the infant metropolis. In less than ten years California numbered more than half a million of inhabitants, and San Francisco, from an obscure hamlet, had risen to the rank of one of the great commercial emporiums of the world.
Science had little to do with the discovery of gold in California; but the case was different in Australia. As early as 1844 Sir Roderick Murchison directed attention to the remarkable resemblance between the Australian cordillera and the auriferous Uralian chain. Two years later, his surmises about the hidden treasures of that distant colony were confirmed by some samples of auriferous quartz sent to him from Australia. Relying upon this fact, he advised some Cornish emigrants to choose Australia for their new home, and to seek for gold among the débris of the primitive rocks. His opinion having become known at Sydney, through the newspapers, researches were made, which proved so far successful that in 1848 gold was found in several places in South Australia.
The first important discovery was, however, not made before the year 1851, when Mr. Hargraves made known to Government that rich gold deposits were situated to the north-west of Bathurst, on the Summerhill and Lewis rivulets, which flow into the Macquarie. When the geological Government inspector arrived at Summerhill Creek, on May 19, he found that about four hundred persons had already assembled there, who, without any other mining apparatus than a shovel and a simple tin pot, gained, on an average, from one to two ounces of gold daily.
Soon after, still richer deposits were found near the Turon and the Meroo, two other branches of the Macquarie. Here a native shepherd, in the service of Dr. Kerr, found three quartz blocks, of which the largest contained sixty pounds weight of pure gold. It may easily be supposed that the whole neighbourhood became at once the scene of active researches, which at first proved fruitless, until at length a fourth quartz block was discovered, and publicly sold for a thousand pounds. Other discoveries were made within the bounds of New South Wales; but even the richest of them were soon to be obscured by the treasures of the neighbouring colony.
As late as 1836 Port Philip had remained an unknown land, for it was not until then that its first settlers, attracted by the richness of the pastures, arrived from Tasmania. Soon a small town arose on the Yarra-Yarra, and, though badly chosen as a port, Melbourne soon rose to importance. In 1850 the district was made an independent colony, which received the name of Victoria. Here the traders and sheep-drivers now mourned over the news from Sydney. The best workmen had already left for the gold-fields, and if the exodus went on increasing, nothing remained for them but to follow the example, or quietly to await the ruin of their hopes—a patience which agrees but little with the Anglo-Saxon character.
To prevent the impending evil, a reward of 200 guineas was immediately set upon the discovery of a gold-field within 120 miles from Melbourne, and soon after the world was astonished by the intelligence of the fabulous riches of Ballarat, at the source of the River Lea. The first consequence of this discovery was that the towns of Geelong and Melbourne, both not above sixty miles from Ballarat, were immediately deserted by their inhabitants, and that, within a few weeks, more than 3,000 gold-diggers had collected on the spot, who were gaining, on an average, their ten or twenty pounds a day. But here also there was no definite resting-place, for new prospects of dazzling wealth constantly allured the crowd to new and still more distant fields of enterprise. Twenty thousand people, meeting with fair success, would migrate in a day, abandon their claims, and rush upon the new tract. The passions of human nature were roused by one of the strongest of its instincts; and madness and suicide, arising from excess of joy and wild despair, were far from uncommon occurrences. The whole order of society was inverted, and the labourer became of more importance than the employer of labour. The scum of the adjoining colonies boiled over and deluged the land with vice and crime. Bush-ranging extended over every portion of the country, and even the streets of Melbourne became the scenes of robbery and murder. The diggers were of all nations: Germans, French, Italians, American-Irish, Californians, and Chinese—these last being the best conducted of this motley population, who as early as 1860 numbered 50,000. To this strange people one of the most remarkable of the Australian gold discoveries is due. The immigration-tax, which had been vainly devised to check their influx (for they are objects of the greatest antipathy to the white gold-diggers), drove them to a surreptitious mode of entering the colony; and, landing at Gurchen Bay in South Australia, and taking a course thence over the frontier across the Grampian ranges, they came upon a deposit of marvellous richness, in the neighbourhood of Mount Ararat. In one of their first encampments, while picking up the roots of grass and prying for gold, they found the celebrated ‘Chinaman’s Hole,’ which yielded 3,000 ounces in a few hours. This led to the greatest rush which had ever been known in the gold-fields, for 60,000 people congregated there in a few weeks, and before a month had elapsed an immense town was systematically laid out. Shops, taverns and hotels, theatres and billiard-rooms, sprang up in the desert, like the mystic trees of Indian jugglers, and were quickly followed by a daily mail and a daily newspaper. Thus, within the space of two months, the magical power of gold converted a wild mountain gorge into a teeming city, where frontages were nearly as valuable as in the heart of London.