e found than in younger streams, and
especially that where round pebbles indicated a strong eddy ten times
as much gold might be expected as in the level parts. Gravel and
shingle were cleared away without examination, then a bed of gray
clay, as too porous to hold gold; but when a stratum of pipeclay was
reached the diggers knew that not an ounce of gold would be found
beneath, and their search was confined to a little streak of brownish
clay, about an inch in thickness, just above the pipeclay. Every
particle of this was carefully washed, and after hours of patient
labor the toilers were rewarded by about a thimbleful of the shining
dust they were so eagerly seeking. From this small beginning on the
10th of June, 1851, have grown the wonderful mining operations of
Australia; and in less than a month after the little incident related
above twenty thousand diggers--in a year increased to one hundred and
fifty thousand--were busy in the inexhaustible mines of that far-off
land; and so came those rugged, barren lands, hitherto scarcely broken
even by savages, to be peopled by men from every civilized land.

[Illustration: KANGAROO HUNT.]

[Illustration: CATTLE-HUNTING.]

Ballarat, the centre of one of the chief mining districts, is
connected now by railway with Melbourne, so that in the interval of
only four hours one passes from the commercial metropolis to the "City
of Gold." Over the fertile belt of cultivated lands that surrounds
Melbourne, through rugged rocks and barren sands, runs this road, on
which one meets crowds of pedestrians, many of them barefoot, the sole
capital of each a tent and a pickaxe. Nearing the mines, the aspect of
everything is changed: whole forests of trees demolished as if by a
thunderbolt; rivers turned out of their natural bed; fertile meadows
laid waste; gaping chasms and frightful depths here and there, in
which are men toiling half naked, begrimed with mud, and fierce,
reckless, cadaverous faces that tell of hardships and strife and sin
in the eager pursuit of riches. Ballarat was at first only a
mining-camp of immense size, and its environs are still occupied by
tents, where transient visitors find very passable accommodations. But
the city proper, now some sixteen years old, with a population already
of thirty thousand, is an exact transcript of Melbourne, with
beautiful dwellings, and broad streets thronged with carriages by day
and lighted with gas by night. It boasts already its