Chap. XIX.]                         GOLD OF AUSTRALIA.                                     461

the conviction that gold would sooner or later be found in the great British
colony, I learnt in 1846 with satisfaction that a specimen of the metal had been
discovered. I thereupon encouraged the unemployed miners of CornwaU to
emigrate and dig for gold, as they dug for tin in the gravel of their own district.
These notices were, as far as I know, the first printed documents relating to
Australian gold.

At that time California, inhabited only by pastoral Indians and a few mis-^
sionaries and Spanish herdsmen, was, it will be recollected, equally unknown to
be auriferous. Its rich alluvial soil had not then been removed from the surface,
and the accident at Sutter's Mill, in 1847, had not exposed the gold in the gravel
and shingle beneath it. We can stiU better understand how this should have
been the case with regard to vast tracts of Australia, where similar mineral
constants exist, but where, instead of a comparatively advanced people, like the
Mexicans or Peruvians, a wretched race, incapable of appreciating the uses of
the precious metals, had been for ages the sole inhabitants of a vast continent.

Unwilling to offer what must be a very imperfect epitome of the distribution
of gold in Australia, I may, however, be permitted to say a few words on a
subject to which I called the practical attention of my countrymen for several
successive years previous to the discovery of the gold-fields of that vast
region.

At or before that period, geological descriptions of various parts of Au¬
stralia had been published by Mitchell, Strzelecki, Jukes, &c., without any
allusion whatever to gold. The Rev. W. B. Clarke did, however, rouse the
attention of the inhabitants of New South Wales in 1847 to the auriferous cha¬
racter of these rocks, and indicated, as I had previously done, their similarity to
the rocks of the Ural Mountains, including the meridional direction of the two
chains. This zealous geologist has since explored the largest range of its gold-
bearing lands over upwards of six degrees of latitude, or from the Peel River on
the north to the Australian Alps of Strzelecki on the south, where the watershed
or Cordillera, rising in Mount Kosciusko to 6500 feet above the sea, trends south-
eastwards into the province of Victoria. From this author, and from the vo¬
luminous details published for the use of the Llouses of Parliament *, as afforded
by Stutchbury and others, as weU as from the work of Mi\ Hargreaves t; who,
in 1851, first proved the great value of Australian gold-mining, it was ascertained
that the parallel I had drawn in 1844 between the rocks of the chain which I
had termed the ^ Australian CordUlera' and those of the Ural Mountains is
well sustained X •    Just as in Siberia, the greatest amount of gold is foimd in

of 184.5. It also appears that the Eev. W. C. Clarke     tion, I now simply affirm that no one, whether in

wrote to a friend in the colony (1841), mentioning     Britain or the colonies, had for several years

that he had found gold-ore; but this circumstance     printed anything on the auriferous characters of

remained as much unknown to myself and all Eu-     the Australian rocks except myself, and that my

ropean men of science as the other.    My views,     memoirs of 1844, 1845, and 1846 are the earliest

whatever they   may be worth, were   therefore     publications relating to this subject.    See note,

formed quite irrespectively of any such proceed-     first page of this Chapter, for reference to all my

ings, as the following extract from a letter of my     works on this subject.

friend Count Strzelecki to myself, received whilst        * See 'Blue Books' "Eelative to the Eecent

the first edition was passing through the press.     Discovery of Gold in Australia," presented to both

amply testifies:—"Nothing can give me greater     Houses of Parliament, 1852-53.    For my own

pleasure and comfort at any time than to bear     connexion officially with this subject in 1848, see

my humble testimony to the inductive powers     the Papers on the same subj ect, presented August

which you displayed on the occasion of your pre-     16, 1853, p. 43.

dictions in regard to the existence of gold in Au-         t ' Australia and its Gold-fields,' 1855.

stralia;   and consequently I can affirm now, as I         I Few circumstances have more gratified me

did, and do whenever a necessity occurs, that I     than that several of the leading men of New

never mentioned my discovery or supposed dis-     South Wales (including Sir Charles Nicholson

covery of Australian gold to you, prior to your     and Sir Stuart Donaldson) should, on revisiting

papers on the subject, nor after their publica-     England, have testified publicly to the value which

tion."                                                                               was attached in New South Wales to my early

Having disposed of other cases in the first edi-     comparison of that region with the UrarMoun-