This, then, was the secret of the unwillingness of the authorities to encourage the search for gold, and it is after all due to the fact that the search was ultimately successful beyond all precedent, that Australia has been for so many years relieved of the curse of convictism, and has ceased once and for all to be a depot for the scoundrelism of Britain—“Hurrah for the bright red gold!”
Since the year 1851 to date the value of the gold raised in the Australasian colonies has realised the enormous amount of nearly 550,000,000 pounds. One cannot help wondering where it all goes.
Mulhall gives the existing money of the world at 2437 million pounds, of which 846 millions are paper, 801 millions silver, and 790 millions gold. From 1830 to 1880 the world consumed by melting down plate, etc., 4230 tons of silver more than it mined. From 1800 to 1870 the value of gold was about 15 1/2 times that of silver. From 1870 to 1880 it was 167 times the value of silver and now exceeds it over twenty times. In 1700 the world had 301 million pounds of money; in 1800, 568 million pounds; and in 1860, 1180 million pounds sterling.
The gold first worked for in Australia, as in other places, was of course alluvial, by which is usually understood loose gold in nuggets, specks, and dust, lying in drifts which were once the beds of long extinct streams and rivers, or possibly the moraines of glaciers, as in New Zealand.
Further on the differences will be mentioned between “alluvial” and “reef” or lode gold, for that there is a difference in origin in many occurrences, is, I think, provable. I hold, and hold strongly, that true alluvial gold is not always derived from the disintegration of lodes or reefs. For instance, the “Welcome Nugget” certainly never came from a reef. No such mass of gold, or anything approaching it, has ever yet been taken from a quartz matrix. It was found at Bakery Hill, Ballarat, in 1858, weight 2195 ozs., and sold for 10,500 pounds. This was above its actual value.
The “Welcome Stranger,” a still larger mass of gold, was found amongst the roots of a tree at Dunolly, Victoria, in 1869, by two starved out “fossickers” named Deeson and Oates. The weight of this, the largest authenticated nugget ever found was 2268 1/2 ozs., and it was sold for 10,000 pounds, but it was rendered useless as a specimen by the finders, who spent a night burning it to remove the adhering quartz.
But the ordinary digger neither hopes nor expects to unearth such treasures as these. He is content to gather together by means of puddling machine, cradle, long tom, or even puddling tub and tin dish, the scales, specks, dust, and occasional small nuggets ordinarily met with in alluvial “washes.”