The treasure of Doctor Ker, exhibited first at Bathurst and then at Sydney, soon drove everybody wild. The very newspapers which had first maligned the discovery, now sounded the trumpet in praise of this wonderful piece of good fortune. “The news,” says the _Morning Herald_ of Sydney, “will astonish Australia, will astonish England, Ireland, and Scotland, will astonish California, and will astonish the whole world. On the arrival of the packet in England, when every newspaper throughout the United Kingdom shall have repeated the news of the discovery as the wonder of our age, the sensation will be profound, and will exceed anything hitherto talked of, or thought of; from the queen on the throne to the peasant in the fields, there will be but one united exclamation of surprise and astonishment; from the palace to the cottage, from the drawing-room to the stable, from the schoolboy to the philosopher and the statesman, there will be one universal talk of this mass of gold, and of the country whence it came; from all the ports in Great Britain and Ireland, ships will be freighted with passengers and goods--population and wealth will rush to Australia like a torrent. Port Jackson will be the best filled and the most flourishing harbour in the world, and Sydney will take its rank amongst the most opulent cities. New South Wales will be looked upon in England as the queen of her colonies.” Waiting the impression to be produced in the mother country by the news of the “golden land,” to use again the expression of the _Morning Herald_, the population of Sydney flocked to the diggings; the numbers who left were about 400 a day. Sailors deserted their ships in the harbours. Government, on account of the dearness of provisions, doubled the salaries of their officials. In every direction there was a general hunt in quest of new “placers;” and the districts South and West of Sydney were explored by miners to the extent of 200 miles. Auriferous deposits were discovered in the counties of St. Vincent, Argyle, Dampier, Wallace, and Wellesley, as well as in the basins of Murrumbedgee Shoalhaven, the River Hume, the River Peel, and the Snow River. At the extreme north of New South Wales, in the district of Moreton Bay, the diggings are in full work at the several branches of the River Condamine. Nearer to the capital, in New England, gold has been found in abundance in the basin of the River Macdonald. 200 miles south of Sydney, at Braidwood, one miner realized £30 sterling in five weeks; another £42 sterling in fifteen days; and a party of three £200 sterling in one week. Nothing was more common than a produce of two ounces per man per day; and not unfrequently it reached as much as one pound. Women also set to work. One widow and her two daughters are said to have collected an average of two ounces a-day.