SKETCH BY AN EYE-WITNESS.

Mount Alexander by an eye-witness

413

"MOUNT ALEXANDER, March 2

"I returned yesterday evening from the Forest Creek diggings, after a sojourn of some fourteen days, during which time I have employed myself in collecting such information as may prove serviceable to your readers.

"Any description of the scene which bursts upon the new comer as he descends the ranges that border the creek would be next to superfluous, for so many writers have gone before in the portraiture of your own numerous diggings that it would be but repetition were I to delineate those of Mount Alexander. The same numerous tents, the same blazing watch-fires, the same barking of dogs and firing of guns, the same busy hum of man invading the territory hitherto given up to the beast or the savage; all these are the same as with you—if I, perhaps, except that with us there is much more of each and every of them than there is in your colony. The Forest Creek diggings extend for a distance of some ten or twelve miles down the creek of that name, which is a tributary of the Loddon, the whole of the short ridges and gullies running down into it having proved highly auriferous, while many of the back ranges and gullies have also produced good samples of gold.

"Two miles further down the creek the tent of the commissioner is situated, forming of course the official, though not the real, centre of the diggings; and around this, as if his very presence gave security, innumerable stores are built, while the whole space is thickly covered with tents. Just at this spot, also, Fryar's Creek joins the Forest Creek, the diggings extending some eight or ten miles, if not more, from the junction; the road, however, crosses the ranges a little below the post-office, extending about five miles, when it comes upon the creek in the heart of the diggings. The first range, or rather ridge, below the post-office, is the celebrated Red Hill, where such large amounts of gold were collected, and at the base of which the great surface washings lay. This base is a freestone rock, with a slight slope to the east. On this lies a heavy concrete mass, principally of ironstone, while the whole of the soil to the surface is strongly impregnated with iron, giving the hill the red appearance from which its name is derived. On the top of the ridge the holes that have been sunk have seldom exceeded twenty-four or twenty feet when the rock was reached; but at the base the rock seems to have been almost cleared, doubtless by the action of floods of the mass that must have at some time covered it, leaving it in many cases bare, and scattered the golden treasures that reposed upon it among the alluvial soil of the gully. Next to the Red Hill is the Adelaide Hill, and beyond that again the White Hill, both of which are also not unknown to fame, from the vast quantities of gold that have been drawn from their bosoms. In a narrow gully across the creek, and nearly opposite the post-office, is the cemetery of the diggings; already there are six graves, the last having been filled so late as Thursday last.

"These were the first localities upon which digging was commenced, and yet there are still very many of the holes that are being profitably worked. From these the diggers have gradually extended themselves, till there is hardly a range or a watercourse that has not been delved into in search of the 'glittering dross.' This is more the case at present than at any other time, as the scarcity of water will not allow of any earth being washed but such as will produce a very large amount of gold. Water is attainable, but not in the waterholes of the

creek, every one of which is now choked up by the tailings of the cradles; but by sinking on the flats of the creek very good water is procured at a depth of about twenty feet. This plan is now being pursued. A party sinks a well, and then cuts a hole for washing in, the cradle being placed in a convenient position; water is then drawn up from the well, and the soil, which has been carted from the hole where it was dug, is thus washed. In all cases the stuff washed is some very choice pickings from the strata of the hole such as the experience of the miner leads him to believe may contain gold. Very many, however, who dislike the toil and expense attendant upon this process, are simply working their holes as dry diggings-nuggeting, as it is called here-putting aside such of the stuff as appears likely, and saving it for a more propitious season. Many hundreds have done this, and the advent of rain will turn out an amount of gold that will astonish the good folks of Melbourne.

"Another effect that the drought has had has been that it has dispersed the diggers in every direction over the face of the country. Gullies, creeks, hills, ridges, watercourses, and ranges, have all been ransacked and turned over, till the whole country is now pretty well known to some or other of the diggers; and with water several spots that are known to be rich will be worked to advantage. In this search it is amusing to see the eagerness of the gold-seekers. Dozens will watch the movements of a prospector; while the slightest rumour of a golden discovery in any particular locality will send hundreds to the spot, and will cause the ground to be parcelled out, lotted, and worked with the most astounding rapidity."

CHAPTER XXVII.

CONCLUSION.

HROUGHOUT this work it has been our chief endeavour to afford

THRO

These

information on various important subjects not to be found to the same extent in other works. We have not space, and have not attempted to digest the numerous and most interesting accounts of the gold-fields which are constantly appearing in the daily and weekly press. accounts alone would fill a volume of description and incidents. In a picturesque point of view, the task will be much better performed by some of the several distinguished authors who are engaged in making a tour of the gold districts.

The results of the discovery to the intending colonist and colonizing statesman may be summed up in a few words and figures.

The two colonies of New South Wales and Victoria had in 1850 a population something short of a quarter of a million, which at the close of 1852 will have swelled to near three hundred thousand souls. These colonies exported in that year to the value of two millions four hundred thousand pounds sterling, of which one million six hundred thousand pounds was derived from wool, and three hundred thousand pounds from tallow. The imports amounted to two million and eighty thousand pounds, of which the greater proportion consisted of British manufactures imported in British ships.

Up to May, 1852, exactly twelve months after the first party, under the direction of Edward Hargreaves, raised gold from Summerhill Creek, gold had been exported from New South Wales and Victoria to the value of three millions six hundred thousand pounds sterling, and the value of the then rate of production was calculated at ten millions sterling. The revenue of New South Wales for the quarter ending 31st March, 1852, had risen in round numbers to £120,000, being an excess of £30,000 over the same quarter in 1851. The revenue of Victoria for the same period to £230,000, being an increase of fully £180,000 over the same quarter of 1851.

At the same time the export of gold, which has in the first year exceeded by twelve hundred thousand pounds all the previous exports of the two gold-producing colonies, has had the effect of attracting and establishing a broad stream of self-supporting emigration. Previous to those discoveries four-fifths of the emigration to Australia consisted of

destitute agricultural labourers and their wives, whose passages were paid out of the rents and sales of waste lands. The self-paying emigration will very soon exceed in numbers the government emigration, and thus the colonial population will be recruited by a much more intelligent, educated, and active class than those who have hitherto been draughted out for service as shepherds and labourers from the least educated districts of England and Ireland.

Up to the present time there is no evidence that the forebodings of the pastoral proprietors as to the total destruction of the flocks have been realized, although it is probable that during the year 1852 the increase of flocks, which has been hitherto proceeding at the rate of sixty per cent. per annum, will be arrested. A very large per centage of the new arrivals find the labour of gold digging and gathering greater than they can endure, and these must necessarily fall back upon the staple employments of the colony, as shepherds, stockmen, ploughmen, agricultural labourers, gardeners, and vinedressers. We believe that after a very short period of reaction it will be found, that while the great prizes of the gold-fields are sufficient to attract a steady stream of self-supporting emigration, the overplus unfit for such laborious work will be sufficient to maintain, if not to increase, the flocks of sheep, the herds of cattle and horses, which have hitherto supplied the exports of the two colonies, and to carry on those copper mines of South Australia, which are really worth working with the pick, although it may close those opened by the aid of the pen and share list.

If these anticipations are realized, and our figures support them, gold will increase, not supersede, the employment and exports hitherto maintained. It will do more. Every gold-digger gives occupation to at least three other men, in feeding him, clothing him, and moving what he produces and what he consumes backwards and forwards. Meat lately worthless has a new value in a gold district, and land has become worth tilling, which, however fertile, was, in an agricultural point of view, valueless before for want of a near market.

It is a most favourable feature of the Australian gold-fields that they are within reach of settled communities, surrounded by live beef and mutton, and by land of the best quality, which only needs the hoe and the plough, roughly handled, to produce great crops of wheat, maize, and every green vegetable. The Bathurst district abounds with valleys and uplands in which crops never fail. The two gold-fields of Victoria are even more rich in arable land; and the latest-reported discovery round Lake Omeo, in Gipps's Land, will establish farms, under a genial climate, in a land as fertile and romantic as the best districts of