of
quartz from a reef, the greater part of which was almost pure gold and
weighed 106 pounds.

"Hargraves was a man of sense. Instead of hurrying back to the nearest
town with his find, selling it and blowing the money, he did some
further prospecting. He collected specimens from different parts of
the neighborhood, realizing that he had made a discovery not less
sensational than when Sutter found the first gold in his mill-race in
California.

"Then he went straight to the government authorities of New South
Wales, and, in addition to establishing his own claims, he asked that
a reward be given him by the government. The governor, anxious to stop
the emigration from New South Wales to California, and realizing that
a gold-find would bring enormous wealth and prosperity to the colony,
made him a grant of $50,000 and a pension, providing that he would
reveal the gold-bearing locality to the authorities, first, and
providing the territory should produce a million dollars' worth of
gold.

"Hargraves was as good as his word. He showed not only the famous
Lewis Ponds, Summerhill, but also another and even bigger field on
the upper waters of the Macquarie River. Owing to their prior
information, the authorities were able to establish mining laws and
good government before the rush set it, and Bathhurst was freed from
the wild orgy of lawlessness which marked the days of the
'forty-niners.'

"All this, Jim, was a wonderful jump forward for New South Wales, and
the town of Sydney boomed. But it was equally bad for the other
provinces of Australia, and Victoria, being the nearest, suffered
most. Almost every man able to wield a pick or rock a miner's cradle,
deserted his work and rushed to Bathurst. The gold was so easy to
separate from the quartz that a man could get rich using no other tool
than an ordinary hammer.

"Shepherds and even sheep-owners deserted their flocks, farmers let
their land go to weed, merchants abandoned their shops, manufacturers
allowed their machinery to rust, school-teachers locked the doors of
schools, and workmen of every line of labor flocked to Sydney and
toiled along the widely beaten track to Bathurst.

[Illustration: AUSTRALIA'S TREASURE-HOUSE.

One of the shafts of the Kilgoorlie Gold Mine, more than 1000 feet
below the surface.

_From "Mines and Their Story," by Bernard Mannix Sidgwick and
Jackson._

_Courtesy of Kilgoorlie Gold Mining Co._]

[Illustration: IN THE RICHEST