In Australia, the gold discoveries, so new and surprising to the public, are not new to the scientific world. More than two years ago, in an "Essay on the Distribution of Gold Ore," read before the British Association, to which our readers will be indebted for some of the facts contained in the present gossip, Sir Roderick Murchison "reminded his geological auditors that, in considering the composition of the chief, or eastern ridge of Australia, and its direction from north to south, he had foretold (as well as Colonel Helmersen, of the Russian Imperial Mines) that gold would be found in it; and he stated that, in the last year, one gentleman resident in Sydney, who had read what he had written and spoken on this point, had sent him specimens of gold ore found in the Blue Mountains; while, from another source, he had learnt that the parallel north and south ridge in the Adelaide region, which had yielded so much copper, had also given undoubted signs of gold ore. The operation of English laws, by which noble metals lapse to the crown, had induced Sir Roderick Murchison to represent to Her Majesty's Secretary of State that no colonists would bestir themselves in gold-mining, if some clear declaration on the subject were not made; but, as no measures on this head seemed to be in contemplation, he inferred that the government may be of opinion, that the discovery of any notable quantity of gold might derange the stability and regular industry of a great colony, which eventually must depend upon its agricultural products." That was the language used by Sir Roderick Murchison in September, 1849; and in September, 1851, we are all startled by the fact which brings emphatic confirmation of his prophecy.