“I can see no evidence whatever of the precious metal in the district indicated,” Mr. Stutchburg, the Government geologist, reported.
But Hargraves was so earnest and so insistent that the geologist made a second visit and watched Hargraves wash out a dozen pans of dirt, several of which showed a string of colors. Moreover, half a dozen men who had caught the trick from “the forty-niner” were panning on the creek and showing colors in pan after pan. The geologist was forced to admit the gold was there. The news was reported in the press. The stampede was on! What a Government geologist said or thought did not matter now; he was brushed aside like a chip in the wind. Within a few days four hundred amateur miners were milling around the spot where Hargraves had washed his historic pan of dirt.
Before Hargraves’ find was fully accepted, two new fields were discovered, one on the Turon River and another on the Abercrombie, and these were followed almost immediately by the “Kerr strike.” At a little sheep station on the banks of the Merro River, a “blackboy” horsebreaker, idly chipping at a quartz boulder, struck harder than he had intended and split the rock, revealing to his astonished gaze a core of solid gold bigger than his fist. Two other similar boulders were promptly broken up, bringing to light even larger chunks of solid gold. One of these, had it remained unbroken, probably would have been the biggest sample of native gold in the world.
The news ran through Australia like wildfire. Within a few weeks from almost every point of the compass reports of new discoveries were coming in, one on the heels of the other. There were:
| Clunes | on July 8th |
| Buninyong | on August 8th |
| Anderson’s Creek | on August 11th |
| Ballarat | on September 8th |
| Mount Alexander | on September 10th |
| Broken River | on September 29th |
Four of these discoveries became great producers. Mount Alexander, for instance, produced more than ten thousand ounces of gold in the first fifteen days of existence. Any man with a spade and tin dish could be a successful miner. Indeed, few knew anything of mining, shown by the fact that many claims were abandoned and re-abandoned only to yield fortunes to second and third comers. One such abandoned claim, the “Poor Boy” at Eureka, yielded a nugget of pure gold weighing over six hundred ounces. In another instance, a pillar of earth, left as a support in a deserted claim at Bendigo, calved a nugget weighing more than five hundred ounces.
The effect of these discoveries was two-fold; to the officials, it was a calamity; to the masses, it was a windfall. The officials saw in it only a possible uprising of the convicts and demoralization of the laboring classes. The Commissioner of Lands at Bathurst, hearing of Hargraves’ activities, sent a special message to the governor advising “that steps be taken to prevent the working classes from deserting their regular employment for the goldfields.” Gold, to the masses, spelled quick fortunes and trade revival.
Australia had been passing through a period of great commercial depression. People were drifting away, especially to California. The gold strike was a lifesaver. First timidly, then boldly, committees of wealthy citizens offered cash rewards for gold discoveries. Men, women and children gave part or all of their time to the search, often looking in the most unlikely places, yet sometimes not without results. A stagecoach driver in his spare time found the Ding-Dong deposits and realized a fortune.
It was as if some electric shock ran through every town, village and house in Australia. Almost the entire male population poured along the roads that led to the goldfields. Men forsook their ordinary vocations. The shearer left the sheep station; the driver his team; lawyers and even judges forsook their courts; the merchant his counting-house, and the clerks their desks. Geelong, Melbourne and Sydney became almost empty towns. In Hobson’s Bay on January 6th, 1852, there lay forty-seven merchant ships abandoned by their crews, who had set out for the goldfields to wash a fortune out of a tin dish. The police resigned in scores; even warders in lunatic asylums left their patients. Business reached a standstill. Schools were closed. In some places not a man was left.
At Melbourne, out of forty-four constables, only two remained on duty. The governor issued a circular to department heads in Sydney, asking how they were affected by the gold “disturbance.” The police chief reported, “Although a great increase of pay has been offered, fifty of my fifty-five constables have gone to the goldfields.” The postmaster, “An entire disruption has taken place in this department and immediate measures must be taken.” The harbor master reported, “I have only one man left.”