“It is very difficult to say exactly,” the gentleman answered, “where the first discoveries were made, but certainly they were not made at this spot. According to history and tradition, gold was discovered in the mountains behind Sydney about the year 1814, but the news of the finding of the precious metal was kept a secret by the government. At intervals of a few years from that time small deposits of gold were found at various places in New South Wales and Victoria, but these were also kept a secret, the individuals who found the deposits being in one way or another under the control of the government.
“In the early part of 1851 a miner from California, named Hargreaves, discovered gold at Lewis Pond Creek in New South Wales, and about the middle of the same year another California miner, named Esmond, found a deposit of gold at Clunes, sixteen miles from Ballarat. Before the government could take any steps for suppressing it the news had spread and the excitement began. The stories were greatly exaggerated, and many people came here believing that they had only to shovel the gold from the ground into barrels and boxes, and send it away to be converted into coin. That was the beginning of the gold rush, and a rush it was, you may be sure.
“From all over Australia people flocked to the new El Dorado. Mechanics of all kinds left their employments; shepherds deserted their flocks; merchants and clerks fled from their counting-houses; farmers quit their fields and gardens, doctors and lawyers their offices, and the whole country seemed to have gone mad about gold. Youth and age got the fever alike; boys of sixteen and men of seventy walked side by side on their way to the mines. Melbourne and Sydney were deserted, and the prediction was made that before the end of the year grass would be growing in the principal streets of those cities.
“Provisions, clothing, and miners’ tools and equipments rose to an enormous price. Picks or shovels worth four or five shillings apiece in the sea-coast cities were sold for ten pounds apiece at the mines. Nails for building sluices sometimes brought their weight in gold. Bacon and flour were worth a dollar a pound, and not always to be procured at that figure. The most ordinary shelter was worth ten shillings a night, and the rental price of a house for a month was the equivalent of its cost.
“The government refused to permit anybody to work at mining without a license, and the miners were so numerous that the revenue from the licenses issued was a large one. The money thus obtained was expended in organizing a strong police force and preserving order. Whereever mining fields were opened, a gold commissioner with a police escort at his back made his appearance as soon as possible, and insured a certain degree of safety. Miners could leave their gold with the commissioner, either on deposit, to be called for whenever they liked, or for transportation to Melbourne. I presume you already know about the bushrangers and how they used to plunder the homeward-bound miners.”
“Were the early miners successful in finding large deposits of gold?” one of the youths asked.
“The question is a difficult one to answer directly,” was the reply. “A great many were successful, but, on the other hand, a great many had very poor luck in the mines and hardly succeeded in making a bare living. We always hear of the rich finds in the mining district, but rarely of the many failures. This has always been the case in gold mining the world over, and Ballarat and the region around it were no exception to the rule. I will tell you of some of the rich discoveries, and leave you to remember that the fortunate miners were in small number compared to the unfortunate ones. It may be safely said that the early yield of the Ballarat mines exceeded that of the best days of California.
“Some claims eight feet square yielded, each of them, from fifty thousand to sixty thousand dollars. One mine, which was owned by several men in common, was worked about four months and yielded eighty thousand dollars to each man. One tubful of earth which was taken from the bottom of a claim where the bed rock was scraped yielded nearly ten thousand dollars, and one claim which was supposed to have been worked out, and was abandoned, was again taken up by two men who obtained forty thousand dollars from it in two weeks. Up to the present time it is estimated that very nearly two billion dollars’ worth of gold have been taken out of Australian mines.”
Ned asked in what shape the gold was found; that is, was it in large pieces or small ones, fine dust or nuggets?
“It embraced everything between the large nugget and fine dust or flakes,” the gentleman replied. “A great deal of the gold was in little lumps like bird shot; a great deal of it was in scales, and then, again, it took the shape of dust so fine that the particles were almost invisible to the naked eye. Nuggets the size of hens’ eggs were not very unusual, while those the size of pigeons’ and sparrows’ eggs were much more numerous. The great nuggets were the ones most sought for, and of course they were the rarest found.