The sea-anemones of the Great Barrier Reef are remarkable for both beauty of color and structure; some of them measure four or five inches across the expanded disk. In Torres Strait are seen brilliant sea-anemones around the border of whose disks are jewel-like clusters. These beautiful sea animals present the appearance of delicately tinted flowers adorned with the most exquisite gems. Starfish and sea-urchins of all descriptions are found in immense numbers. The five-rayed varieties of starfish are universally condemned as insatiable foes of the oyster family, and the oyster cultivators destroy all they can find. To dismember the body of the starfish by pulling off the finger-like rays does not kill the animal, for not only does each fish produce new rays but each ray will produce a new starfish. The predatory starfish fastens itself to both valves of the oyster, forces them open, and consumes the fleshy part. It is destructive not only to oysters but to clams, mussels, barnacles, snails, worms, and small crustacea as well. The variety of sea life about the great reef is legion. Among the bivalves the most remarkable for the size and weight of the shells are the tridachna and hippopus. In some localities they are so numerous that their shells have been burned to make lime. A pair of tridachna valves often weighs several hundred pounds. To the naturalist the Great Barrier Reef is an object of special attraction. CHAPTER XXV THE GOLD FIELDS OF AUSTRALIA The name Australia, like that of California, conjures up in the mind visions of gold; and the story of the gold excitement in both is very similar. January 24, 1848, was the red-letter day in California's history, and the news that transpired that day electrified the world. While constructing a saw-mill at Coloma Creek, a branch of the American River, John Marshall picked up a handful of gold nuggets in the mill-race. At once the gold fever seized all far and near. During the ensuing year fifty thousand persons came by sea and by land from the States east of the Rocky Mountains, and forty thousand more from other parts of the world; all bent upon digging for gold in the new El Dorado. From far-off Australia came vessels crowded with passengers. Among these was Edward H. Hargraves, who had lived for twenty years in New South Wales, where fortune had not smiled on him. Hargraves was a keen observer and something of a geologist as well. He diligently scoured the gullies and canyons in the gold regions of California, and when he quit he possessed a good sum of money as a return for his labor. During his stay in California he became convinced that gold existed in Australia, since many of the formations and strata were similar to those of the gold-bearing fields of California.