long a time, changed the prospects
of the colonies. For several years after the date of this occurrence the
history of Australia is little more than the story of the feverish
search for gold, with its hopes, its labour, its turmoil, and its
madness; its scenes of exultation and splendid triumph, and its still
more frequent scenes of bitter and gloomy disappointment.

#2. Early Rumours of Gold.#--For many years there had been rumours that
the Blue Mountains were auriferous. It was said that gold had been seen
by convicts in the days of Macquarie, and, indeed, still earlier; but to
the stories of prisoners, who claimed rewards for alleged discoveries,
the authorities in Sydney always listened with extreme suspicion, more
especially as no pretended discoverer could ever find more than his
first small specimens.

In 1840 a Polish nobleman named Strzelecki, who had been travelling
among the ranges round Mount Kosciusko, stated that, from indications he
had observed, he was firmly persuaded of the existence of gold in these
mountains; but the Governor asked him, as a favour, to make no mention
of a theory which might, perhaps, unsettle the colony, and fill the
easily excited convicts with hopes which, he feared, would prove
delusive. Strzelecki agreed not to publish his belief; but there was
another man of science who was not so easily to be silenced. The Rev. W.
B. Clarke, a clergyman devoted to geology, exhibited specimens in
Sydney, on which he based an opinion that the Blue Mountains would,
eventually, be found to possess goldfields of great extent and value.
Some of these were taken to London by Strzelecki; and in 1844 a great
English scientist, Sir Roderick Murchison, read a paper before the Royal
Geographical Society in which he expressed a theory similar to that of
Mr. Clarke. In 1846 he again called attention to this subject, and
showed that, from the great similarity which existed between the rocks
of the Blue Mountains and those of the Urals, there was every
probability that the one would be found as rich as the other was known
to be in the precious metals. So far as theory could go, the matter had
been well discussed before the year 1851, but no one had ventured to
spend his time and money in making a practical effort to settle the
question.

[Illustration: EDWARD HARGRAVES.]

#3. Edward Hargraves.#--About that, time, however, the rich mines of
California attracted a Bathurst settler, named Edward Hargrave