Coming from one of the splendid homesteads around Northam, I passed a wheatfield in the valley that extended farther than my eye could reach. Oats grow to perfection. One farmer in the valley, who has a field of 90 acres, last year harvested as much as 36 bushels to the acre; barley is also grown with great success.
Our young country has a chance of great and lasting prosperity for population increases and new people settle on the rich lands to cultivate them. Mr. Throssell says: “We look forward to seeing our harbour filled with ships laden with not only gold, timber, pearl shell and wool products of the colony, but also with golden grain, wine and fruit.” Our Agent-General in London, Sir E. Wittenoom, recently said at a dinner in Paris: “There is something fascinating in the phenomena of the rise of this new colony of Western Australia, which 10 years ago, with an area equal to nearly half that of Europe, had only the population of the Isle of Man. Gold reefs were discovered, and the population advanced with great strides in less than 4 years from 50,000 to 186,000.”
Camel Water Train going to Coolgardie
CHAPTER XIV
Southern Cross—Early Discoveries of Gold—Heavy Tramps—Walking on Gold—Bayley’s Reward—Fabulous Finds—The Potato Ground—Bayley’s Death—The 90-Mile—The Treasure House—Great Boulder Find—The Londonderry.
Lake Polaris, or Southern Cross, was so called by the Phœnix party of prospectors, who, owing to an accidental discovery of gold by Mr. Ansty at Mugakine in 1887, determined thoroughly to prospect the country from Newcastle and the Yilgarn hills. Their first discovery of payable reefs was named Golden Valley, and, as would be supposed from the name, the reefs were rich. Travelling by night, guided by the Southern Cross, the party went on, and 30 miles farther on found reefs still richer on the site of what is now called Southern Cross. Two of the prospectors were eventually lost in the Bush, and their mates, taking a black fellow for tracking, followed their tracks, mostly in circles, for 30 miles, and at last found the two poor fellows dead, doubtless from thirst, as they were without clothing, which is always a sign of that terrible death.
Southern Cross was destined to become in a short time a most important place in Australian history, although it did not become the talk of the world, as Coolgardie afterwards did. It was from Southern Cross that the news of the magnificent discovery of Bayley’s Reward and the other rich finds at Coolgardie came. From the time when Mr. Colreavy, of the Phœnix party, first found Golden Valley until now, the finds of gold on the Coolgardie goldfields have been without parallel in Australian history. Fraser’s Mine, Southern Cross, paid the first dividend received from any mine in Western Australia. Captain Oats, one of the most genial men in the West, is the legal manager for Fraser’s Mine.