COMPARISON OF TWO GOLD-FIELDS.

395

with the production of similar gold down the Macquarie, and in other streams within forty miles of Bathurst, the production of gold may be termed illimitable.

"I wish to call your attention also to another plain deduction from the facts I have above stated. In Summerhill Creek, with its numerous quartz veins, and its broken bed and narrow, tortuous course, giving rise to eddies and their results in slopes and precipices, the gold is massive in its general character; the dust of that quarter being exceedingly coarse compared with the Turon. In the Turon nine miles, with its regular, wide, unbroken bed and banks, its straighter course, and its absence of quartz veins, the gold is exceedingly fine. I most confidently believe that the said Turon gold is the production chiefly of the upper and unexplored and broken sources of the Turon; that there, too, will be found the narrower steeper country, and the multitudinous quartz veins; there, too, the coarse gold detached from its neighbouring matrix, too heavy to be carried with the lighter particles with every flood towards the Macquarie."

From the end of May we are indebted to the correspondents of the Sydney papers for many striking descriptions of the diggers and the diggings. The journey to Bathurst was easily performed by mailcoach or on horseback. Arrived at Bathurst, the explorer found himself in the midst of a rich pastoral and agricultural district, in which every fertile valley had a small colony of settlers, ready to supply flour, meal, milk, and butter, at reasonable charges.

The Bathurst district consists of elevated tableland, intersected by barren ridges, watered by a series of Australian rivers flowing from the Aumatolas Mountains, most of which have been found to be auriferous.

The gold-diggers, instead of settling in a wilderness infested by grizzly bears and savage Indians, like California, found themselves in a district where a market was only needed to call into cultivation thousands of acres of capital land at Frederick's Valley, a gold placer of extraordinary richness, belonging to Mr. Wentworth; at Summerhill Farms, at King's Plains, Pretty Plains, Emu Swamp, and the Cornish Settlement, where the crops in the severest droughts never failed.

The Summerhill diggings, which are now nearly exhausted, and the style of life which prevails throughout the interior of Australia, are well depicted in the following sketch by a correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald:

Monday, June 2.—In the morning the ice was thick upon the water in the dishes outside, and the ground covered with hoar frost, as it always is here in fine weather at this season; hot days and frosty nights.

"To an unscientific eye the gold country (Bathurst district) consists of a mass, not of ranges, but apparently of points of ranges, thrown together without any regular arrangement, but dovetailing into one another like the teeth of two saws placed close together, face to face; these teeth again being cut into smaller pieces by narrow precipitous gullies, many of them nearly as deep as the main creek itself. Small creeks twist and twine down these narrow gullies, which have a sudden bend every half-dozen yards, into the Summerhill or main creek, which twists and twines like the others, but on a larger scale. The banks of the gullies are precipitous on both sides, but in the main creek there are alternate bluffs and low points, the teeth of the saw sloping gently down, diminishing in height as they do in width, till they come to a point overhung on the opposite side by a high bluff or precipice, which forms the inside of the nick of the opposite saw; and, as we stood upon the edge of the cliff, we looked down nearly two hundred feet over and along each side of the opposite point, dotted with tents and gunyas of bark or branches, each with its fire in front, sending the blue smoke up into the clear frosty morning air; some under the noble swamp oaks at the water's edge, others behind and under the box and gum trees which towered one above another till the rising branch was merged in the main ridge behind. The point was occupied by about fifteen parties cutting straight into the hill; and, as we looked down upon their busy movements, digging, carrying earth, and working the cradles at the edge of the water, with the noise of the pick, the sound of voices, and the washing of the shingle in the iron boxes of the cradles, I could scarcely believe that two months ago this was a quiet secluded gully in a far-out cattle run, where a solitary stockkeeper or black fellow on the hunt were all that ever broke the solitude of nature. On saying so to Scotch Harry, he said that he had stock-kept there for nearly twenty years, and when he came there were flocks of kangaroos; these were driven off by the cattle, and now they were as completely driven off by the gold-diggers. 'Little enough the first occupiers thought of gold,' I remarked. 'Yes,' answered Scotch Harry, and it would be well for some of these fellows if they thought as little;' and he told us of two who had gone mad already-one a shepherd, in the neighbourhood, found a piece while poking about his run, and came to him making a great mystery about the place, till he could find no more, when he took him to it, but it was a chance piece, and not accompanied by five or six more, as is usually the case; the fellow, however, was not satisfied, and continued searching about, till, from excitement and anxiety, he went mad; the other was a man who,

A PICTURE OF THE GOLD CAMP.

397

after starving for two days, found 5 lbs. weight, fainted repeatedly, and is now in confinement. Kerr said that two months ago hardly a traveller passed his house in a week, now they were in crowds every hour; his children never thought there were so many people in, the world before, and wondered what it all meant; he could hardly believe it himself. We did not find our dray, but heard of it close at hand, and sat down to look about us. Drays and parties of men were arriving every few minutes, many of whom gave a cheer as if they saw fortune in their hand when they looked down upon the workers in the bed of the creek below; some were putting up tents and gunyas, and some working, but all busy and all in good humour, barring the men who were constantly leaving, and looked sufficiently disgusted. We were a good deal puzzled how to get our baggage carried to Messrs. Roach and Barrington's, as it would take us at least two days to carry seven hundredweight over two miles of such ridges, or down the bed of the creek, cut up as it is in every direction; but, just as the last rays of the sun were leaving the top of the ridge, a party of nine native warriors, in their new government blankets, painted, and armed with spears and boomerangs, came winding down the bank. As they passed through our camp, I asked the foremost if they would carry our baggage, to which they at once agreed, and camped with us.

"We were all astir at daylight, and found the water frozen in the bucket, and the top of our blankets quite wet within the tent. The loads were adjusted, and the blacks, with the two men, started under the guidance of the company, and returned about noon by a short cut, we remaining to erect the tent. On loading them again, one fellow complained that a pot of beef hurt his head, so I gave him a roll of brown paper, but soon found my mistake, as not a man would move without the same, so that when I came to the last there was not a scrap left; he had only bedding to carry, and I explained to him that no pad was necessary, but he drew himself up and asked if I thought him a fool; 'Another one black fellow hab it.' He was evidently in earnest, and would have left his load there and then, had I not clapped a calling-card on his shaggy bullet head, and he went off quite proud; we gave them one shilling each and their rations, which is high pay for a black. Many return at once, without giving it one minute's trial. I saw one party arrive, six respectable-looking hardworking men, all well provided with tools, clothes, and provisions. As I stood conversing with one of them, who was putting the things together to move to their tent, a parcel unrolled, and a Bible and Prayer-book fell out. He looked up, and said they should not forget these even for

gold, to which I assented, with the remark that men would get none the less gold for minding them."

Our illustrations of the Turon are engraved from sketches taken by Mr. Balcombe, a relative, we believe, of the Mrs. Balcombe who

wrote some interesting memorials of Napoleon at St. Helena. He was himself a gold-digger, with his brother, who died at the diggings.

Their portraits are given in the two figures removing goods to new ground across the mountains.