GEELONG--AUSTRALIAN GOLD MINES--FINDING A BIG NUGGET.
When they had finished with Williamstown and Sandridge our friends went
to St. Kilda, which may be called the Coney Island of Melbourne, as it
is very popular with those who are fond of salt-water bathing. Harry and
Ned remarked that there were hotels, restaurants, and other places of
resort and amusement such as are usually found at seaside watering
places, and Ned thought it would require no great stretch of the
imagination to believe that they were at the famous bathing place of New
York. Ned observed that there were fences consisting of posts set in the
ground, not more than ten or twelve inches apart, extending a
considerable distance out into the water and completely enclosing the
bathing place.
He asked why the fences were placed there, and was informed that it was
because the bay abounded in sharks, and people who came there to bathe
had a prejudice against being eaten up by these sea-wolves. "If we
should take away the fences," said one of the attendants at the bathing
house, "we would not do any more business here, and you may be sure that
we are very careful to keep the fences in order."
Sharks abound all through the waters of Australia. They have caused not
a few deaths, and everybody who understands about them is careful not to
venture into the water at any place where the creatures are liable to
come; but occasionally one hears of an incautious or ignorant person
falling a prey to these monsters of the deep. When sailboats and other
craft are overturned in storms or sudden squalls and their occupants are
thrown into the water, they suffer fearful peril. Not long ago a small
sailboat was overturned in Port Philip Bay with two gentlemen and a lady
on board, in addition to the boatman and his boy. Before help could
reach them the whole five had fallen victims to the sharks.
Port Philip Bay, into which Hobson's Bay opens, is a grand sheet of
water between thirty and forty miles wide, and navigable for ships of
all sizes, and the bay affords anchoring space for all the ships in the
world, in case they should come there at the same time. The entrance to
the bay is about thirty miles from Melbourne, and at Queenscliff near
the entrance there is a fine watering place, which is reached both by
railway and by steamboat. It has the advantage of St. Kilda in standing
on the shore of the ocean, while the former place has only the waters of
the bay in front of it. Many Melbourneites go to Queenscliff to enjoy
the ocean breezes and watch the surf breaking on the shore. While St.
Kilda may be called the Coney Island of Melbourne, Queenscliff is fairly
entitled to be considered its Long Branch.
On their return to Melbourne, the youths found at their hotel an
invitation to make a trip on the following day to Geelong. When Dr.
Whitney read the invitation to the youths, Harry asked where Geelong
was.
"Oh, I know about that," said Ned; "I happened to be reading about it
this morning."
"Well, where is it?"
"Geelong is a town forty-five miles from Melbourne," replied Ned, "and
it is a fairly prosperous town, too. It is not quite as old as
Melbourne, but at one time the inhabitants thought that their town would
outstrip Melbourne completely."
"How is that?"
"The town stands on Corio Bay, an arm of Port Philip Bay, and has a good
harbor; in fact, the harbor at that time was better than that at
Melbourne. The people of Geelong went to work and built a railway from
their city to Melbourne, with the idea that if they did so, all the wool
that was being shipped from Melbourne would be sent to Geelong for
shipment, while the cargoes of foreign goods that landed at Melbourne
would be landed at Geelong."
"The plan did not work as they expected, did it?"
"Not by any means. As soon as the railway was built, wool coming into
Geelong was sent to Melbourne for shipment, and goods that were intended
for Geelong were landed at Melbourne and sent over by railway. In this
way the measures they had taken to increase their trade worked exactly
the other way and diminished it."
"Don't they have any foreign commerce at all at Geelong?" Harry asked.
"Oh, yes, they have some, but nothing in comparison with Melbourne. We
will learn something about it when we go there."
As there are three passenger steamers running between Geelong and
Melbourne daily, the party went by railway and returned by water. In the
railway journey they had a pleasant ride along the shore of Port Philip
Bay, and arrived at their destination in a little more than two hours
from the time of starting. They found the town pleasantly situated on
Corio Bay, being laid out on ground sloping to the bay on the north and
to the Barwon River on the south. Along the streets were fine shops,
attractive stores, and every indication of an industrious and prosperous
population.
In the suburbs, where they were taken in a carriage by the gentleman who
accompanied them, they found numerous private residences, many of them
of a superior character. The gentleman told them that Geelong was famous
for its manufactures of woolens and other goods, and that it built the
first woolen mill in Victoria. Iron foundries, wood-working
establishments, and other industrial concerns were visited, so that our
friends readily understood whence the prosperity of Geelong came. Their
host told them that Geelong had long since given up its ideas of rivalry
with Melbourne, and had settled down with the determination to develop
itself in every feasible way and let things take care of themselves.
Our young friends thought they would like to see something of the gold
mines of Victoria, and asked Dr. Whitney about them. He readily
assented, and the trip to Ballarat was speedily arranged, and also one
to Sandhurst, which is the present name of Bendigo of gold-mining days.
Ballarat was the most important place of the two, and its placer mines
gave a greater yield of gold than did those of Bendigo. At both places
the placer mines were exhausted long ago, but gold is still taken from
the rocks and reefs which underlie the whole region.
The mining establishments of Ballarat are outside of the city itself,
and when the visitors reached the place and rode through the town they
could hardly believe they were in a gold-mining region. The streets are
wide, and most of them well shaded with trees, while some of them are so
broad that they deserve the name of avenues rather than that of streets.
There are substantial public buildings and a goodly number of churches,
a botanical garden, and all the other features of a quiet and
well-established city, and it was quite difficult for them to believe
that they were in a place whose chief industry was the extraction of
gold from the ground. All the lawless features of the Ballarat of
gold-rush days had disappeared, and the town was as peaceful as any one
could wish to find it.
Our friends brought a letter of introduction to a gentleman of Ballarat,
who kindly consented to show them about the place and answer any
questions that they wished to ask.
Harry's first question was, whether the first discoveries of gold in
Australia were made at Ballarat or elsewhere.
"It is very difficult to say exactly," the gentleman answered, "where
the first discoveries were made, but certainly they were not made at
this spot. According to history and tradition, gold was discovered in
the mountains behind Sydney about the year 1814, but the news of the
finding of the precious metal was kept a secret by the government. At
intervals of a few years from that time small deposits of gold were
found at various places in New South Wales and Victoria, but these were
also kept a secret, the individuals who found the deposits being in one
way or another under the control of the government.
"In the early part of 1851 a miner from California, named Hargreaves,
discovered gold at Lewis Pond Creek in New South Wales, and about the
middle of the same year another California miner, named Esmond, found a
deposit of gold at Clunes, sixteen miles from Ballarat. Before the
government could take any steps for suppressing it the news had spread
and the excitement began. The stories were greatly exaggerated, and many
people came here believing that they had only to shovel the gold from
the ground into barrels and boxes, and send it away to be converted into
coin. That was the beginning of the gold rush, and a rush it was, you
may be sure.
"From all over Australia people flocked to the new El Dorado. Mechanics
of all kinds left their employments; shepherds deserted their flocks;
merchants and clerks fled from their counting-houses; farmers quit their
fields and gardens, doctors and lawyers their offices, and the whole
country seemed to have gone mad about gold. Youth and age got the fever
alike; boys of sixteen and men of seventy walked side by side on their
way to the mines. Melbourne and Sydney were deserted, and the
prediction was made that before the end of the year grass would be
growing in the principal streets of those cities.
"Provisions, clothing, and miners' tools and equipments rose to an
enormous price. Picks or shovels worth four or five shillings apiece in
the sea-coast cities were sold for ten pounds apiece at the mines. Nails
for building sluices sometimes brought their weight in gold. Bacon and
flour were worth a dollar a pound, and not always to be procured at that
figure. The most ordinary shelter was worth ten shillings a night, and
the rental price of a house for a month was the equivalent of its cost.
"The government refused to permit anybody to work at mining without a
license, and the miners were so numerous that the revenue from the
licenses issued was a large one. The money thus obtained was expended in
organizing a strong police force and preserving order. Whereever mining
fields were opened, a gold commissioner with a police escort at his back
made his appearance as soon as possible, and insured a certain degree of
safety. Miners could leave their gold with the commissioner, either on
deposit, to be called for whenever they liked, or for transportation to
Melbourne. I presume you already know about the bushrangers and how they
used to plunder the homeward-bound miners."
"Were the early miners successful in finding large deposits of gold?"
one of the youths asked.
"The question is a difficult one to answer directly," was the reply. "A
great many were successful, but, on the other hand, a great many had
very poor luck in the mines and hardly succeeded in making a bare
living. We always hear of the rich finds in the mining district, but
rarely of the many failures. This has always been the case in gold
mining the world over, and Ballarat and the region around it were no
exception to the rule. I will tell you of some of the rich discoveries,
and leave you to remember that the fortunate miners were in small number
compared to the unfortunate ones. It may be safely said that the early
yield of the Ballarat mines exceeded that of the best days of
California.
"Some claims eight feet square yielded, each of them, from fifty
thousand to sixty thousand dollars. One mine, which was owned by several
men in common, was worked about four months and yielded eighty thousand
dollars to each man. One tubful of earth which was taken from the bottom
of a claim where the bed rock was scraped yielded nearly ten thousand
dollars, and one claim which was supposed to have been worked out, and
was abandoned, was again taken up by two men who obtained forty thousand
dollars from it in two weeks. Up to the present time it is estimated
that very nearly two billion dollars' worth of gold have been taken out
of Australian mines."
Ned asked in what shape the gold was found; that is, was it in large
pieces or small ones, fine dust or nuggets?
"It embraced everything between the large nugget and fine dust or
flakes," the gentleman replied. "A great deal of the gold was in little
lumps like bird shot; a great deal of it was in scales, and then, again,
it took the shape of dust so fine that the particles were almost
invisible to the naked eye. Nuggets the size of hens' eggs were not
very unusual, while those the size of pigeons' and sparrows' eggs were
much more numerous. The great nuggets were the ones most sought for, and
of course they were the rarest found.
"One nugget, resembling in shape and size a leg of mutton, and weighing
one hundred and thirty-five pounds, was found a long distance below the
surface, where some miners were tunneling to reach the bed rock; and
another nugget was found in such a remarkable way that I must tell you
the story of it.
"A man who was wandering about the scrub in the neighborhood of Ballarat
one day, sat down at the foot of a tree to rest. While sitting there he
took out his knife to cut a stick, and finding the knife was dull, he
proceeded to sharpen it by rubbing it upon a stone that lay almost
completely imbedded in the ground. As he rubbed, he found that the
surface of the stone became yellow. He was greatly surprised at this,
and then he dug around the stone with his knife, scraping it in several
places, and then trying to lift it. He might as well have tried to lift
a horse. Do what he could, he could not budge it an inch, and for a good
reason, as it was a mass of solid gold.
"He felt his head swimming and his wits leaving him. He pinched his
cheeks and pulled his ears to make sure that he was not dreaming. Here
he was with a fortune in his possession and he could not move it! Then
he sat down again and wondered what was best to do.
"Even if he could move it and started for the camp, he might be robbed
before he got there, as bushrangers infested the country, and he was
just as liable to come upon them as upon honest men. He could not stay
and watch it, as he had no provisions; and he was afraid to leave it,
for fear that somebody might come upon it during his absence. But there
was no help for it, as leave it he must, and after thinking the matter
over he acted about as sensibly as he could have done.
"He covered the nugget up very carefully, replacing the earth and
sprinkling it with leaves so that there was no indication that the spot
had been disturbed. Then he stripped the shirt from his back and tied it
to a neighboring tree, wisely concluding that it was not judicious to
hang the garment on the tree beneath which he had sat. Then, on his way
out of the scrub, he marked the trees here and there so that he could
find the place again, and as soon as he was in sight of the diggings he
went straight to the tent of the gold commissioner and told the story of
his discovery. The commissioner immediately sent the man back again with
a strong escort to secure the valuable find. The man received for the
nugget, after deducting all charges and commissions, the sum of
fifty-one thousand dollars.
"A great many fortunes were taken out of the earth around Ballarat
before the placer mines were exhausted. The news of the discovery of
gold in Australia spread to other countries, and thousands of people
came from all parts of the world to search for it. Nearly every
nationality was represented, and they came in great numbers. Just before
the gold discovery there were seventy-seven thousand inhabitants in the
colony of Victoria. The population doubled in a single year, and three
years after the discovery the colony had two hundred and thirty-six
thousand inhabitants. The gold rush properly ended when the placer mines
were exhausted, although in the meantime new mines had been discovered
in several localities, principally at Bendigo and Castlemaine. Ballarat
was nearly deserted for a time after the placer mining gave out, and the
same was the case at the other places mentioned. Then the reefs and
ledges were attacked; crushing machinery was erected, and the form of
work which you call quartz mining in America had its beginning. It has
gone on steadily ever since and gives employment to a great many people.
It also employs a great deal of money, as quartz mining requires
capital, while placer mining does not. To get a fortune by quartz mining
you must have a fortune to begin with, while in placer mining you need
nothing more than a pick and shovel.
"Australia will continue to produce gold for a great many years to
come," the gentleman continued. "New discoveries are made almost every
year, and in some years half a dozen fields will be opened. The
government has changed its tactics in regard to gold discoveries. It
rewarded Hargreaves and Esmond for their discoveries in 1851, and it has
rewarded the discoveries of other gold fields. Most of the colonial
governments have a standing offer of a handsome pecuniary reward to
anybody who discovers a gold field, provided there are not fewer than
two hundred men working in that field six months after its discovery.
This, you see, bars out all those finds that are exhausted in a few
weeks, which is the case with the majority of them.
"Every little while there is an excitement over a new discovery,
companies are formed for working the mines, and their stock is placed on
the market. It is safe to say that, in the majority of instances, more
money is made by shrewd speculators in Melbourne and Sydney manipulating
the stock than is taken from the mines. A few years ago there was a wild
speculation in mines in what is called the 'Broken Hill' district of
Victoria, and at present there is an excitement about gold discoveries
in Western Australia. According to the latest accounts from the
last-named region, there is a difficulty in working the mines there on
account of the scarcity of water. You cannot work a mine any more than
you can run a steam-engine without water, and many people have paid very
dearly to ascertain this fact."
From Ballarat our friends went to Sandhurst, which was formerly called
Bendigo. They found there a mining region resembling Ballarat in its
general features, but not in all of them. At Ballarat the mines are not
in the town but in its suburbs, while at Sandhurst they are directly in
the town itself. One of the residents remarked that there was a gold
mine in every back yard, and our friends found that this was not very
far from the truth.
Mining operations were carried on in the rear or by the side of the
houses, and it was said that sometimes the dust of the streets was
gathered up and washed to obtain the gold in it. An individual who
certainly appeared credible, said that the first brick house ever built
in Bendigo was torn down and the bricks crushed in order to obtain the
gold in them; this gold amounted to three ounces per ton, and not only
the house but its chimney yielded handsomely of the precious metal.
Bendigo yielded enormously to the placer miners of the early days. When
the placer mines were exhausted the place was nearly deserted, and then
came the era of quartz mining the same as at Ballarat. Thousands of men
are employed at Sandhurst and in its neighborhood, working in the gold
mines or in the crushing establishments connected with them. The quartz
mines thus give employment to a great number of people. Some of the
mines have been pushed to a great depth, one of them being twenty-six
hundred feet below the surface. There seems to be an inexhaustible
supply of gold-bearing rock, and it is a common saying in Victoria that
a true ledge has never been exhausted.
Harry made some inquiries as to the amount of gold annually produced in
Victoria, and learned that it was not far from five million pounds
sterling, or twenty-five million dollars. He was further told that the
cost of production amounted to very nearly the same figure; that is,
including the cost of the mining machinery, the wages of laborers, and
the many other expenses. It was admitted that the best mines showed a
fair profit on the investment, but not enough to make a fortune in a
short time.
The youths came to the conclusion that gold mining had been most
profitable to the people that never engaged in it. In this number he
included the brokers, bankers, storekeepers, farmers, and others who
kept out of the actual business of digging gold but profited by their
dealings with those who were engaged in it. Nothing so delights the
owner of a large farm in Australia as to learn of a gold discovery a few
miles from his place. He knows that it will give him a good market for
all he has to sell, though there may be occasional thefts from his horse
or cattle paddocks. Traders of all kinds get an enormous profit at the
mines, and as for the brokers and bankers, there is no doubt of their
ability to take care of themselves.
When Harry made the remark contained in the foregoing paragraph, Ned
said that it reminded him of a story.
"Well, please tell it," said Dr. Whitney; "we are always ready for good
stories."
Thus encouraged, Ned spoke as follows:--
"I was reading a day or two ago about a man who had a large cattle run
in a part of Australia where he had been for several years without any
near neighbors. Gold was discovered about ten miles from his place, and
a good many people flocked there. The gold mines furnished an excellent
market for his beef and for all the vegetables he chose to grow on his
place; but, on the other hand, he suffered somewhat by the depredations
of lawless characters. Horse stealing seemed to be the popular amusement
among the people at the mines, and quite often horses disappeared from
the estate and were never seen again.
"But they had one horse, called Stepney, that was a perfect treasure. He
was kept for carriage purposes and would never let anybody mount on his
back. He would stand perfectly still while being saddled, and while
anything was being attached to the saddle, but the instant anybody got
on his back he was thrown, and there was not a rider in Australia who
could stay in the saddle more than a few seconds.
"About once in a fortnight Stepney would be missing from the paddock,
but he always turned up in a day or two, and almost invariably with a
saddle on his back, generally a new one, and a miner's 'swag' attached
to it, and on most of the occasions the swag contained a goodly amount
of gold. Once he came back with a brand new saddle and six hundred
dollars' worth of gold, which nobody ever came to claim. The owner said
that Stepney was the most profitable horse he ever owned. He paid for
himself several times over, and whenever they ran short of saddles, all
they had to do was to use Stepney as a trap and 'set' him in the
paddock, with entire confidence that he would catch a saddle within a
day or two."
"That recalls a story about the way the miners used to try to deceive
the bushrangers," said the doctor; "I refer particularly to those who
were on their way to the coast with gold in their possession. They used
to bore holes in the shafts or frames of their carts and conceal the
gold in these holes, and sometimes they managed to hide quantities of
gold dust between the inner and outer soles of their boots. One miner
took the padding out of his horse's collar and inserted eighty ounces of
gold in the hollow. He jogged along the road to Melbourne, suffering a
good deal of trepidation at first, but finally arrived within twenty
miles of the city with his treasure, and began to feel safe.
"While he was driving slowly along with his cart he was overtaken by a
man on horseback, who explained that he was in a hurry, as the police
were after him for a fight he had been concerned in with another man.
His horse was exhausted and he would give the miner ten pounds to
exchange horses.
"As the animals were of about equal value, the miner assented and
proceeded to unharness his horse. When he took off the collar the other
man seized it, put it on his horse and jumped into the saddle, which he
had not removed; then he rode away, to the astonishment of the angry
miner, waving his hand and saying by way of farewell:--
"'The collar is all I wanted, friend. I don't care to make any horse
trade now.'
"You are doubtless aware," said their Ballarat friend, "of the
operations of the bushrangers, and how the police used sometimes to
torture those that they captured in order to make them reveal the secret
of the hiding place of their gold. They tell a story of a fight between
a gang of bushrangers and the police in which the leader of the robbers,
known as 'Kangaroo Jack,' was mortally wounded. He was lying on the
ground dying; there could be no mistake about that. The police captain,
I will call him Smith, but that wasn't his name, sat down by his side
and said:--
"'Come, Jack, you are going to die and there is no help for you. Tell me
where your gold is.'
"'I won't do it,' replied Jack. 'I won't tell you or anybody else!'
"Smith pressed him, but Jack was obstinate. Smith continued to urge and
Jack to refuse until death sealed the bandit's lips.
"Smith was afterward telling the story to one of his fellow-officers,
and remarked in conclusion:--
"'I think it was downright mean of Jack that he wouldn't tell me where
his gold was. I know he had at least fifty thousand dollars' worth
stowed away somewhere. He knew he couldn't take it with him, and it
couldn't do him any good, and it would have been a very tidy sum for me.
He couldn't have any personal ill-will to me, as I didn't shoot him
myself. I think it was downright mean, don't you?'
"His friend agreed with him, and no doubt he would have been willing to
share the plunder if it could have been found."