A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53Clacy, Charles, Mrs.
History
A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53
Clacy, Charles, Mrs.
Australia -- Description and travel; Gold mines and mining -- Australia
The Turon diggings soon followed those of Bathurst. This river flows
into the Macquarie after a course of a hundred miles. Along the entire
length auriferous discoveries are constantly being made, and it bids
fair to last for many years to come. The gold is not found, as many
erroneously suppose, so much among the sand as by digging in the soil.
It also exists in paying quantities on the shores and in the rive flows
of the Macquarie, the Abercrombie, and Belubula rivers. Major's Creek,
too, is a favourite locality, and was first made known by a prospecting
woman.
According to Mr. Stutchbury's report, he found gold ALMOST WHEREVER HE
TRIED FOR IT, and whilst traversing the Macquarie from Walgumballa to
the Turon, he found it at EVERY place he tried. Surely Midas must, once
upon a time, have taken a pleasure-trip to Australia!
The delirium of the Sydney gold-fever reached its height when it became
publicly known that a piece of one hundred and six pounds weight had
been disembowelled from the earth, at one time. This immense quantity
was the discovery of a native, who, being excited by the universal
theme of conversation, provided himself with a tomahawk, and explored
the country adjacent to his employer's land. He was attracted
by a glittering yellow substance on the surface of a block of quartz.
With his tomahawk he broke off a piece, which he carried home to his
master, Dr. Kerr, of Wallawa. Not being able to move the mass
conveniently, Dr. Kerr broke it into small fragments. The place where
it was found is at the commencement of an undulating table-land, very
fertile, and near to a never-failing supply of water in the Murroo
Creek. It is distant about fifty miles from Bathurst, thirty from
Wellington, and twenty from the nearest point of the Macquarie river.
Dr. Kerr presented the native and his brother with two flocks of sheep,
two saddle-horses, a quantity of rations, a team of bullocks, and some
land.
About twenty yards from the spot where this mass was found, a piece of
gold called the "Brennan Nugget" was soon after discovered. It weighed
three hundred and thirty-six ounces, and was sold in Sydney for more
than 1,100 pounds.
But it would be useless to enter into fuller particulars of the
diggings of New South Wales. Panoramas, newspapers, and serials have
made them familiar to all.
Chapter XV.
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, was the last formed of the
three sister colonies. In 1834 an act of colonization was obtained; and
land, both in town and country, sold rapidly. The colonists, however,
were most unfortunately more engaged in speculating with the land, than
grazing upon or tilling it; and the consequence was, that in a few
years the South Australians were only saved from a famine by the
unexpected arrival overland of herds and flocks from Victoria. As it
was, horses and cows of a very indifferent kind were sold for
more than a hundred pounds a-piece, and sheep for five pounds a head.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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