ween the two parties. Ultimately, the police
conquered; but this is not always the case, and often lives are lost and
limbs broken in the struggle, so weak is the force maintained by the
colonial government for the preservation of order.

THE DIGGINGS

Of the history of the discovery of gold in Australia I believe few are
ignorant. The first supposed discovery took place some sixty years ago
at Port Jackson. A convict made known to Governor Phillip the existence
of an auriferous region near Sydney, and on the locality being examined
particles of real gold-dust were found. Every one was astonished, and
several other spots were tried without success. Suspicion was now
excited, and the affair underwent a thorough examination, which elicited
the following facts: The convict, in the hope of obtaining his pardon as
a reward, had filed a guinea and some brass buttons, which, judicially
mixed, made a tolerable pile of gold-dust, and this he carefully
distributed over a small tract of sandy land. In lieu of the expected
freedom, his ingenuity was rewarded with close confinement and other
punishments. Thus ended the first idea of a gold-field in these
colonies.

Suddenly, in 1851, at the time that the approaching opening of the
Crystal Palace was the principal subject of attention in England, the
colonies of Australia were in a state of far greater excitement; as the
news spread like wildfire, far and wide, that gold was really there. To
Edward Hammon Hargreaves be given the honour of this discovery. This
gentleman was an old Australian settler, just returned from a trip to
California, where he had been struck by the similarity of the geological
formation of the mountain ranges in his adopted country to that of the
Sacramento district. On his return he immediately searched for the
precious metal; Ophir, the Turon, and Bathurst well repaid his labour.
Thus commenced the gold-diggings of New South Wales.

The good people of Victoria were rather jealous of the importance given
by these events to the other colony. Committees were formed and rewards
were offered for the discovery of a gold-field in Victoria. The
announcement of the Clunes diggings in July 1851 was the result; they
were situated on a tributary of the Lodden. On 8 September those of
Ballarat, and on the 10th those of Mount Alexander completely satisfied
the most sceptical as to the vast mineral wealth of the colony. Bendigo
soon was heard of, and gully after gully