1. Next to wool as a source of Australian wealth comes gold. The discovery of gold, in 1851, had a wonderful effect on the progress of Australia. The discovery was made, near Bathurst, in New South Wales, by Hargraves, one of the numerous adventurers that left the colony in 1848 to dig for gold in California. The first thing which impressed him on his arrival in the gold country was the resemblance between it and the district around his own home in Australia. The more he saw of the gold-diggings in California, the more he was struck with the likeness. At length he resolved to return, and on searching a creek near his old home, he found it rich in gold. 2. At the news of this discovery, thousands hastened to the diggings from all parts of the colony. The news of this "rush" for gold had hardly reached the people of Victoria, when it became known that there was a still richer gold-field at Ballarat in their own country. The gold fever seized upon the Victorians, and in a few weeks most of the men in the colony were grubbing for gold. Workshops were left without workmen, ships without crews, and houses without tenants. The squatters were left to look after their own sheep, and farmers saw their crops spoiling for want of labourers to harvest them. Ordinary business came to a standstill, and even schools were closed for want of teachers. 3. To the streams of men from every part of Australia was soon added a flood of adventurers from all quarters of the world, including numbers of escaped convicts from Tasmania. Of those who came in the hope of rapidly making a fortune at the diggings, the majority were doomed to disappointment. But a few picked up gold nuggets of considerable size, and one miner at Ballarat hit upon the largest mass of gold ever found. It was called the "welcome stranger," and was worth upwards of £8000. The scene at the gold-fields is thus described in the "Story of the Nations:"-- 4. "The banks of the Yarrowee presented a strange appearance, with the eager line of men standing shoulder to shoulder, washing in the muddy water the dirt brought them from time to time by a companion. A little further back the earth was cut into innumerable holes, flanked by great mounds of red soil, in and around which men busily ran or dug with feverish energy. At night the scene was even more weirdly curious, for the glaring lights of the theatres and grog shanties, with the flaring torches and fires of the miners, joined in throwing into strong relief the shadows of the tents and their wild surroundings. Above all rose the hum of a city, broken now and again by bursts of noisy revelry. Wealth easily won was as readily squandered, and the lucky digger showered gold with a free hand. Prices were exorbitant, for the miner, drunk with fortune, seldom asked for change, and the style of living generally was recklessly extravagant."