“Sir Francis Forbes of Sydney subsequently published and circulated in New South Wales a paper, in which he affirmed in the strongest manner, on scientific data, the existence of gold formations in New Holland—although a colonial geologist had been sent out some years before and was settled at Sydney—and lastly, although one part of the prediction was soon so wonderfully fulfilled by the Californian discoveries—yet oven the discoveries in California did not arouse the New Hollanders to adequate researches, though reports were spread of wonderful discoveries in Victoria and South Australia, which were speedily discredited. It was reserved for a gentleman of New South Wales, Mr Edward Hammond Hargraves, to make the definite discoveries. He appears to have acted independently of all previous views on the subject; but having acquired experience in California, and being struck with the resemblance between the Californian formations and those of New Holland, he determined on a systematic search for gold, which he brought to a successful issue on the 12th of February of this year 1850, by the discovery of gold diggings in the Bathurst and Wellington districts, and which he prosecuted until he had ascertained the existence of gold sands in no less than twelve places.”—(WYLD, p. 30.) When this was made known by Mr Hargraves in a formal report to the authorities at Sydney, in April 1850, they then (!) despatched the provincial geologist to examine the localities, and confirm the discoveries of Mr Hargraves! But the public did not wait for such confirmation. On the 1st of May the discoveries became known in Sydney. In thousands the people forsook the city, the villages, cattle stations, and farms, in the interior, for the neighbourhood of Bathurst, where the gold had been found. Summerhill Creek alone soon numbered its four thousand diggers, who thence speedily spread themselves along the other head waters of the Darling and Murrumbidgee—rivers flowing westward from the inland slope of the mountain ridge, (Blue Mountains and Liverpool range,) which runs nearly parallel to the south-eastern coast of Australia, and at the distance from it of about one hundred miles. Near Bathurst the summit of the ridge attains, in Mount Canobolus, a height of 4461 feet. In numerous places among the feeders of these streams, which themselves unite lower down to form the main channel of the Murray, gold was speedily found. It was successfully extracted also from the upper course of the Hunter River, and from the channel of Cox’s River—both descending from the eastern slope of the same ridge, within the province of New South Wales. In the province of Victoria, the feeders of the Glenelg and other rivers, which descend from the southern prolongation of the same chain—the Australian Pyrenees—have yielded large quantities of gold; and recently, Geelong and Melbourne have