At a date still later than the discovery of gold in California, the same precious metal was discovered in Australia. The cut on the following page gives a view of the place where it was first found, in the county of Bathurst, not far from Sydney in New South Wales. It is worthy of note that we owe the discovery of gold in Australia to the high state of geological science. Sir R. Murchison, in his address to the London Geographical Society in 1844, alluded to the possibly auriferous character of the great eastern chain of Australia, being led thereto by his knowledge of the auriferous chain of the Ural, and by his examination of Count Strzelecki’s specimens, maps and sections. Some of Sir R. Murchison’s observations having found their way to the Australian papers, a Mr. Smith, at that time engaged in some iron works at Berrima, was induced by them in the year 1849 to search for gold, and he found it. He sent the gold to the colonial government, and offered to disclose its locality on payment of five hundred pounds sterling. The government, however, not putting full faith in the statement, and being, moreover, unwilling to encourage a gold fever without sufficient reason, declined to grant the sum, but offered, if Mr. Smith would mention the locality, and the discovery was found to be valuable, to reward him accordingly. Very unwisely, as it turned out, Mr. Smith did not accept this offer; and it remained for Mr. Hargraves, who came with the prestige of his California experience, to make the discovery anew, and get the reward from the English government on their own conditions. The first discovery was made in the banks of the Summer Hill creek and the Lewis Ponds river, small streams which run from the northern flank of the Conobalas down to the Macquarrie. The gold was found in the sand and gravel accumulated, especially on the inside of the bends of the brook, and at the junction of the two water-courses, where the stream of each would be often checked by the other. It was coarse gold, showing its parent site to be at no great distance, and probably in the quartz veins traversing the metamorphic rocks of the Conobalas. Mr. Stutchbury, the government geologist, reported on the truth of the discovery, and shortly afterward found gold in several other localities, especially on the banks of the Turon, some distance north-east of the Conobalas. This was a much wider and more open valley than the Summer Hill creek, and the gold accordingly was much finer, occurring in small scales and flakes. It was, however, more regularly and equably distributed through the soil, so that a man might reckon with the greatest certainty on the quantity his daily labor would return him. At the head of the Turon river, among the dark glens and gullies in which it collects its head-waters, in the flanks of the Blue mountains, the gold got “coarser,” occurred in large lumps or nuggets, but these were more sparingly scattered.