from New South
Wales, and recommended a government mineral survey there. Little
attention might have been given to the matter then but for the discovery
of gold in California. From the excitement caused by that the "gold
fever" spread over the world. Nothing was done in the way of discovery
of the metal in Australia until many months had elapsed; but finally
results of the utmost importance were obtained.

The story of the great Australian gold discovery is here told in an
authentic and highly interesting manner by the historian of the
Australasian colonies.

In the year 1851 Edmund Hammond Hargraves, an old settler in New South
Wales, returned thither from California, where he had spent about
eighteen months in the search for gold. His efforts in California
resulted in no immediate prosperity, but he gained much useful practical
experience. More than this, as he looked at the natural features of the
California gold-fields, a great idea grew up in his mind. Though not a
geologist, he appears to have had a quick eye for stratiform
resemblances; and the more he studied the peculiarities of rocks and
soil in California, the more he became convinced that he knew, in his
own colony, a district which presented the same features and which,
therefore, might be expected to produce the same results.

Remaining in California only long enough to verify his observations, he
returned to Sydney at the beginning of the year 1851. Seldom has such
absolute confidence in unverified observation proved so completely
justified. According to Hargraves's own account he went without
hesitation to a spot on the banks of a little stream known as Lewes Pond
Creek, a tributary of Summer Hill Creek, itself a tributary of the
Macquarie River, and there at once, on February 12, 1851, found alluvial
gold. In April he had so far advanced as to be able to write to the
Government offering to disclose his treasures for five hundred pounds.
But he subsequently decided to trust to the liberality of the
Government, and offered at once to show his workings to the government
geologist, an official recently sent out from England to report upon
gold prospects. On May 19th Mr. Stutchbury officially reported the
discovery of gold in workable quantities at Summer Hill Creek, and by
the end of the same month the immigration to the diggings had begun.
Hargraves himself took no part in the digging, merely pointing out to
others, without reserve, the places in which