Australia is eagerly competing with the American El Dorado, and it is thought that in Victoria alone the yield for 1852 will very nearly equal that of California, if not exceed it. But how long are our Gold Fields to last? Some will talk of hundreds of years at the present amount. This is impossible. It is highly improbable that as they are now wrought they will continue twenty years. But even should they continue as briskly as ever for four or five years more, this colony will be placed upon a very comfortable footing. Even when the scrambling and wasteful diggings are over, and the lottery runs out, it will be discovered that judicious and systematic working of places not paying now, and even going over the old claims again, will in the hands of gold companies profitably employ a large population at excellent wages, or furnish individual miners a most respectable maintenance. Having then no fears of the future, we can with joyful voice exclaim, “Advance, Victoria.” * * * * * A few stories were given as connected with the discovery of certain gold localities. A shepherd was the first who brought gold to Melbourne from the Pyrenees. A boy at one of Dr. Barker’s huts, Mount Alexander, is said to have brought in some shining stuff which he had found to his father, and that originated a gold field. Gold districts have been made known by holes being dug for posts. A horse’s hoof, or the wheel of a dray, unfolds to view a glittering lump. A bullock driver spied a nugget at the foot of a tree; he scratched up a handful of beauties, and the gully was soon known as the rich Eagle Hawk. The celebrated Peg Leg Gully yielded its gold through the surfacing of a man whose wooden legs forbade him sinking. Part of Friar’s Creek became an Ophir through some passing shearers who washed some of its sands in a tin plate. Golden Gully, near there, gave up its hidden wealth through a man idly pulling up a root of grass, under which was a lovely nest of nuggets. Mr. Gibson is said to have been scratching with his knife on the banks of the Bendigo, and accidentally turned up a piece of gold. Telling his men, they feasted awhile by themselves upon this dainty repast. But I had another story given me, which I must tell, although conscious that there is a fearful scandal in it. Mr. Gibson’s shepherd there told his wife privately of the treasure. She told it in the strictest confidence of secresy to another woman, who conferred a similar favour upon a female neighbour of hers, who might in the fulness of her heart have bound a friend in the same ties of anti-revelation, and so it went on, I suppose, till a man knew it, for it soon got blazed about far and near. GEOLOGY OF THE DIGGINGS. When a man of observation walks over the Gold Fields, his attention is arrested by the following facts.