Sandhurst possesses all the elements that go to form a
progressive and intelligent community, having ample school facilities,
churches, hotels, and charitable organizations. The population is an
increasing one, and already numbers some thirty-five thousand. Its array
of well-furnished shops affords a bright and attractive feature. The
environs, unlike those of Ballarat, are rough and uncared-for,
presenting many acres of deserted diggings, with deep holes, broken
windlasses, ruined quartz-tubs, rusted and useless pieces of machinery,
and a profusion of other mining debris. Alluvial or surface mining is
entirely worked out in the vicinity of Sandhurst, but quartz raising and
crushing still gives employment to thousands of laborers; and as there
seems to be a comparatively unlimited supply of the gold-bearing rock,
we can see no reason why the place should not go on prosperously for any
length of time to come. There are here some of the most extensive works
for reducing the quartz-rock that have ever been erected. The principal
mine of the neighborhood has reached a depth of twenty-six hundred
feet, fresh reefs of rich quartz having lately been struck and
developed, concerning the existence of which there were no signs
whatever at the surface of the land. We were told that a true reef had
never been exhausted, or worked out in Australia, though alluvial
deposits often cease to yield in a few months. The deep mine of which we
have just spoken is the property of a wealthy Englishman named George
Lansell, a noted gold-miner of Victoria.

About five miles from Sandhurst is the town of Eaglehawk, perched upon
an eminence, having its own municipal government, and even aspiring to
be a rival of Sandhurst; but it is really at present scarcely more than
a suburb of that city. At Eaglehawk there are some exceptionally rich
gold mines, where quartz is raised which we were told yields from four
to five ounces of pure metal to the ton of rock handled. There are
shafts here varying from five hundred to one thousand feet in depth,
with the usual drifts and galleries. The depth of the shafts is being
steadily increased, and new lateral workings started. The depth to which
these mines in Victoria and elsewhere in Australia may be profitably
worked is not yet demonstrated, though geologists until within a brief
period have confidently asserted that beyond one hundred feet the quartz
rock would not be found sufficiently rich to pay for the l