Meanwhile, the Commissioner reported a gold field many miles in extent, north-east of Bathurst, adding that it would afford employment for five thousand persons, the average gain of each person being then one pound per day; while provisions, which at one time had been enormously high, owing to the cupidity of speculators, had fallen so low, that the sum of ten shillings a week was quite sufficient for one individual’s subsistence. The reports from the other commissioners were equally favorable; and it is gratifying to find that they all spoke in the highest terms of the orderly and exemplary conduct of the diggers. Since the discoveries in the neighborhood of Sydney, there have been found, in South Australia, large tracts of country abounding in gold, only sixteen miles from Melbourne. The most recent accounts (December 15, 1851) from these regions are of a most astounding character. In the first week in December nearly fifty thousand pounds value in gold was brought into Melbourne and Geelong. The amount would have been greater but for want of conveyance. “To find quartz,” says the Australian and New Zealand Gazette, “is to find gold. It is found thirty-two feet from the surface in plenty. Gold is actually oozing from the earth.” Nuggets of gold, from fourteen ounces to twenty-seven pounds, are to be found in abundance. A single quartz “nugget,” found in Louisa creek, sold for one thousand one hundred and fifty-five pounds. The Alert was on her way home with one hundred and thirty thousand pounds sterling in gold, and two other vessels with similar rich cargoes. Every town and village were becoming gradually deserted. “Those who remain behind to mind the flocks demand such wages, that farming will not long pay. Labor is in such demand that any body with a pair of hands can readily command thirty-five shillings per week, with board and lodging.” The Government Commissioners had given in their unanimous report, that the gold fields were already so extensive as to afford remunerative employment for one hundred thousand persons. In conclusion, the last advices describe the excitement as so intense that fears were entertained that sufficient hands would not be left to get in the standing crops.