Mulhall gives the existing money of the world at 2437 million pounds, of which 846 millions are paper, 801 millions silver, and 790 millions gold. From 1830 to 1880 the world consumed by melting down plate, &c., 4230 tons of silver more than it mined. From 1800 to 1870 the value of gold was about 15½ times that of silver. From 1870 to 1880 it was 16·7 times the value of silver and now exceeds it over twenty times. In 1700 the world had 301 million pounds of money, and in 1860, 1180 million pounds sterling. In 1894 the current gold was worth about £800,000,000. The gold first worked for in Australia, as in other places, was of course alluvial, by which is usually understood loose gold in nuggets, specks, and dust, lying in drifts which were once the beds of long extinct streams and rivers, or possibly the moraines of glaciers, as in New Zealand. Further on the differences will be mentioned between “alluvial” and “reef” or lode gold, for that there is a difference in origin in many occurrences, is, I think, provable. I hold, and hold strongly, that true alluvial gold is not always derived from the disintegration of lodes or reefs. For instance, the “Welcome Nugget” certainly never came from a reef. No such mass of gold, or anything approaching it, has ever yet been taken from a quartz matrix. It was found at Bakery Hill, Ballarat, in 1858, weight 2195 ozs., and sold for £10,500. This was above its actual value. The “Welcome Stranger,” a still larger mass of gold, was found amongst the roots of a tree at Dunolly, Victoria, in 1869, by two starved out “fossickers” named Deeson and Oates. The weight of this, the largest authenticated nugget ever found, was 2268½ ozs., and it was sold for £10,000, but it was rendered useless as a specimen by the finders, who spent a night burning it to remove the adhering quartz. But the ordinary digger neither hopes nor expects to unearth such treasures as these. He is content to gather together by means of puddling machine, cradle, long tom, or even puddling tub and tin dish, the scales, specks, dust, and occasional small nuggets ordinarily met with in alluvial “washes.” Having sunk to the “wash,” or “drift,” the digger, by means of one or more of the appliances mentioned above, proceeds to separate the gold from the clay and gravel in which it is found. Of course in large alluvial claims, where capital is employed, such appliances are superseded by steam puddlers, buddles, and other machinery, and sometimes mercury is used to amalgamate the gold when very fine. Hydraulicing is the cheapest form of alluvial mining, but can only be profitably carried out where extensive drifts, which can be worked as quarry faces, and unlimited water exist in the same neighbourhood. When such conditions obtain a few grains of gold to the yard or ton will pay handsomely. [Illustration: FIG. 2. LODE FORMATION IN SLATE AND SANDSTONE.]