“The plan did not work as they expected, did it?”
“Not by any means. As soon as the railway was built, wool coming into Geelong was sent to Melbourne for shipment, and goods that were intended for Geelong were landed at Melbourne and sent over by railway. In this way the measures they had taken to increase their trade worked exactly the other way and diminished it.”
“Don’t they have any foreign commerce at all at Geelong?” Harry asked.
“Oh, yes, they have some, but nothing in comparison with Melbourne. We will learn something about it when we go there.”
As there are three passenger steamers running between Geelong and Melbourne daily, the party went by railway and returned by water. In the railway journey they had a pleasant ride along the shore of Port Philip Bay, and arrived at their destination in a little more than two hours from the time of starting. They found the town pleasantly situated on Corio Bay, being laid out on ground sloping to the bay on the north and to the Barwon River on the south. Along the streets were fine shops, attractive stores, and every indication of an industrious and prosperous population.
In the suburbs, where they were taken in a carriage by the gentleman who accompanied them, they found numerous private residences, many of them of a superior character. The gentleman told them that Geelong was famous for its manufactures of woolens and other goods, and that it built the first woolen mill in Victoria. Iron foundries, wood-working establishments, and other industrial concerns were visited, so that our friends readily understood whence the prosperity of Geelong came. Their host told them that Geelong had long since given up its ideas of rivalry with Melbourne, and had settled down with the determination to develop itself in every feasible way and let things take care of themselves.
Our young friends thought they would like to see something of the gold mines of Victoria, and asked Dr. Whitney about them. He readily assented, and the trip to Ballarat was speedily arranged, and also one to Sandhurst, which is the present name of Bendigo of gold-mining days. Ballarat was the most important place of the two, and its placer mines gave a greater yield of gold than did those of Bendigo. At both places the placer mines were exhausted long ago, but gold is still taken from the rocks and reefs which underlie the whole region.
The mining establishments of Ballarat are outside of the city itself, and when the visitors reached the place and rode through the town they could hardly believe they were in a gold-mining region. The streets are wide, and most of them well shaded with trees, while some of them are so broad that they deserve the name of avenues rather than that of streets. There are substantial public buildings and a goodly number of churches, a botanical garden, and all the other features of a quiet and well-established city, and it was quite difficult for them to believe that they were in a place whose chief industry was the extraction of gold from the ground. All the lawless features of the Ballarat of gold-rush days had disappeared, and the town was as peaceful as any one could wish to find it.
Our friends brought a letter of introduction to a gentleman of Ballarat, who kindly consented to show them about the place and answer any questions that they wished to ask.
Harry’s first question was, whether the first discoveries of gold in Australia were made at Ballarat or elsewhere.