The Frontier, May 1926 — page 67: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AUSTRALIA—FORTUNE LAND glasses. “I believe your story. I will have it investigated.” ARGRAVES’ dramatic discovery was not the first time gold had been talked of in Aus- J tralia. Nearly thirty years before, one of the convicts at Bot- any Bay showed a specimen of gold- splashed quartz he claimed he had found. When asked to show the place of discovery, he was unable to find it again and was awarded one hundred and fifty lashes for his “deception”, A few years later a gang of convicts building a road through the Blue Mountains found a number of gold specimens, but the news was promptly suppressed because it was feared that the convicts would get out of hand. In 1841, ten years before Hargraves returned from California, a bushman named Adam Forres found a good size nugget and showed it to W. B. Clarke, a geologist. Clarke took it to Governor Gipps, who dismissed the matter by saying, “Put it away, Mr. Clarke, put it away, or we shall all have our throats cut.” Clarke there- upon advised his friends, who were excited about the find, that he would not make it public as he feared it might lead to the “utter disorganiza- tion of society”. The investigation of Hargraves’ dis- covery promised by Secretary Deas- Thompson took place. Again the offi- cial mind was stubborn! “T can see no evidence whatever of the precious metal in the district indi- cated,” Mr. Stutchburg, the Govern- ment geologist, reported. But Hargraves was so earnest and so insistent that the geologist made a second visit and watched Hargraves wash out a dozen pans of dirt, several of which showed a string of colors. Moreover, half a dozen men who had caught the trick from “the forty-niner” were panning on the creek and show- ing colors in pan after pan. The geol- ogist was forced to admit the gold was there, The news was reported in the press, The stampede wason! What a Government geologist said or thought did not matter now; he was brushed aside like a chip in the wind. Within a few days four hundred amateur mimers were milling around the spot where Hargraves had washed his historic pan of dit. Before Hargraves’ find was fully ac- cepted, two new fields were discovered, one on the Turon River and another on the Abercrombie, and these were followed almost immediately by the “Kerr strike”. At a little sheep sta- tion on the banks of the Merro River, a “blackboy” horsebreaker, idly chip- ping at a quartz boulder, struck harder than he had intended and split the rock, revealing to his astonished gaze a core of solid gold bigger than his fist. Two other similar boulders were promptly broken up, bringing to light even larger chunks of solid gold. One of these, had it remained unbroken, probably would have been the biggest sample of native gold in the world. The news ran through Australia like wildfire. Within a few weeks from al- most every point of the compass re- ports of new discoveries were coming in, one on the heels of the other. There were : Clunes on July &th Buninyong on August 8th Anderson’s Creek on August 11th Balarat on September 8th Mount Alexander on September roth Broken River on September 29th Four of these discoveries became great producers. Mount Alexander, for instance, produced more than ten thousand ounces of gold in the first fif- teen days of existence. Any man with a spade and tin dish could be a success- ful miner. Indeed, few knew anything of mining, shown by the fact that many claims were abandoned and re-aban- doned only to yield fortunes to second and third comers. One such aband- oned claim, the “Poor Boy” at Eureka, yielded a nugget of pure gold weighing over stx hundred ounces. In another instance, a pillar of earth, left as a sup- port in a deserted claim at Bendigo, calved a nugget weighing more than five hundred ounces. The effect of these discoveries was two-fold; to the officials, it was a cal- amity; to the masses, it was a wind- fall. The officials saw in it only a pos- sible uprising of the convicts and de- moralization of the laboring classes. The Commissioner of Lands at Bath- urst, hearing of Hargraves’ activities, sent a special message to the governor advising “that steps be taken to pre- vent the working classes from desert- ing their regular employment for the goldfields”. Gold, to the masses, spelled quick fortunes and trade re- vival. Australia had been passing through a period of great commercial depres- sion. People were drifting away, especially to Calhfornia. The gold strike was a lifesaver. First timidly, of then boldly, committees of wealthy citi- zens offered cash rewards for gold dis- coveries. Men, women and children gave part or all of their time to the search, often looking in the most un- likely places, yet sometimes not without results. A stagecoach driver in his spare time found the Ding-Dong de- posits and realized a fortune. T WAS as if some electric shock ran through every town, village and house- hold in Australia. Almost the entire male popula- tion poured along the roads that led to the goldfields, Men forsook their ordinary vocations, The shearer left the sheep station; the driver his team; lawyers and even judges forsook their courts; the mer- chant his counting-house, and the clerks their desks. Geelong, Melbourne and Sydney became almost empty towns. In Hobson’s Bay on January 6th, 1852, there lay forty-seven mer- chant ships abandoned by their crews, who had set out for the goldfields to wash a fortune out of a tin dish. The police resigned in scores; even warders in lunatic asylums left their patients. Business reached a standstill. Schools were closed. In some places not a man was left. At Melbourne, out of forty-four constables, only two remained on duty, The governor issued a circular to de- partment heads in Sydney, asking how they were affected by the gold “dis- turbance.” ‘The police chief reported, “Although a great increase of pay has been offered, fifty of my fifty-five con- stables have gone to the goldfields.” The postmaster, “An entire disruption has taken place in this department and immediate measures must be taken.” The harbor master reported, “I have only one man left.” Society was cast into the melting pot; all disappeared over the rim of the horizon in a breathless race to where they had been told gold nuggets were being dug up like potatoes. Thus had the whisper of gold risen to a shout of gold, and it ran round the world and turned the stems of ships on every sea toward Australia. It was the day of the clipper ships of New England, and their skippers went after this new trade with Yankee keenness. During this time passenger traffic between Australia and San Francisco was greater than it has ever been since —Australians stampeding to Cali- <SriGOlin GOMmMIGooOo