Great was the excitement in Sydney upon the confirmation of all this intelligence. Hasty partings, deserted desks, and closed shops, multiplied in number. Every imaginable mode of conveyance was resorted to, and hundreds set off on foot.
On the fourteenth of May, the Government Surveyor reported that, in communication with Mr. Hargraves, he had visited the before-mentioned districts, and after three hours’ examination, “had seen quite enough”—gold was every where plentiful.
A proclamation was at once issued, forbidding any person to dig without a license, setting forth divers pains and penalties for disobedience. Licenses were to be obtained upon the spot, at the rate of thirty shillings per month, liable to future alteration. No licenses were granted to any one who could not produce a certificate of discharge from his last service, or otherwise give a satisfactory account of himself; and the descriptions of such as were refused were registered. A small body of mounted police were at the same time organized, who were paid at the somewhat curious rate of three shillings and three-pence per day, with rations, and lodgings when they could be procured. Fortunately, there was no attempt at disturbance, for the Governor in a dispatch states, “that the rush of people (most of them armed) was so great, that had they been disposed to resist, the whole of the troops and police would have been unable to cope with them.” The licenses, too, were all cheerfully paid for, either in coin or gold.
On the third of June, Mr. Hargraves (who, in the meantime, had received a responsible appointment) underwent an examination before the Legislative Council, when he stated that he was led to search in the neighborhood of Bathurst, by observing the similarity of the country to California. He found gold as soon as he dismounted. He found it everywhere; rode from the head of the Turon river to its confluence with the Macquarie, about one hundred miles; found gold over the whole extent; afterward found it all along the Macquarie. “Bathurst,” observed Mr. Hargraves, “is the most extraordinary place I ever saw. Gold is actually found lying on the ground, close to the surface.” And Mr. Commissioner Green, two days afterward, reported that “gold was found in every pan of earth taken up.”
But the most important event connected with these discoveries, and which is without parallel in the world’s history, remains to be told.
On the sixteenth of July, The Bathurst Free Press, commenced a leader with the following passage:—
“Bathurst is mad again! The delirium of golden fever has returned with increased intensity. Men meet together, stare stupidly at one another, and wonder what will happen next. Everybody has a hundred times seen a hundred weight of flour. A hundred weight of sugar is an everyday fact; but a hundred weight of gold is a phrase scarcely known in the English language. It is beyond the range of our ordinary ideas; a sort of physical incomprehensibility; but that it is a material existence, our own eyes bore witness.” Now for the facts.
On Sunday, eleventh July, it was whispered about in Sydney, that a Dr. Kerr had found a hundred weight of gold! Few believed it. It was thought a capital joke. Monday arrived, and all doubts were dispelled; for at mid-day a tandem, drawn by two grays, drew up in front of the Free Press Office. Two immense lumps of virgin gold were displayed in the body of the vehicle; and being freely handed round to a quickly assembled crowd, created feelings of wonder, incredulity, and admiration, which were increased, when a large tin box was pointed to as containing the remainder of the hundred weight of gold. The whole was at once lodged at the Union Bank of Australia, where the process of weighing took place in the presence of a party of gentlemen, including the lucky owner and the manager of the bank. The entire mass weighed about three hundred pounds, which yielded one hundred and six pounds of pure gold, valued at four thousand pounds. This magnificent mass was accidentally discovered by an educated aboriginal in the service of Dr. Kerr; who, while keeping his master’s sheep, had his attention attracted to something shining on a block of quartz, and breaking off a portion with his tomahawk, this hitherto hidden treasure stared him in the face. The lump was purchased by Messrs. Thacker and Company, of Sydney, and consigned to an eminent firm in London.
Meanwhile, the Commissioner reported a gold field many miles in extent, north-east of Bathurst, adding that it would afford employment for five thousand persons, the average gain of each person being then one pound per day; while provisions, which at one time had been enormously high, owing to the cupidity of speculators, had fallen so low, that the sum of ten shillings a week was quite sufficient for one individual’s subsistence. The reports from the other commissioners were equally favorable; and it is gratifying to find that they all spoke in the highest terms of the orderly and exemplary conduct of the diggers.
Since the discoveries in the neighborhood of Sydney, there have been found, in South Australia, large tracts of country abounding in gold, only sixteen miles from Melbourne. The most recent accounts (December 15, 1851) from these regions are of a most astounding character. In the first week in December nearly fifty thousand pounds value in gold was brought into Melbourne and Geelong. The amount would have been greater but for want of conveyance. “To find quartz,” says the Australian and New Zealand Gazette, “is to find gold. It is found thirty-two feet from the surface in plenty. Gold is actually oozing from the earth.” Nuggets of gold, from fourteen ounces to twenty-seven pounds, are to be found in abundance. A single quartz “nugget,” found in Louisa creek, sold for one thousand one hundred and fifty-five pounds. The Alert was on her way home with one hundred and thirty thousand pounds sterling in gold, and two other vessels with similar rich cargoes.