This
discovery, that has so changed the aspect of everything in Australia,
was the result of a mere accident that a thinking mind knew how to
turn to advantage. An adventurer from California, whose dreams by day
and by night were all of the land of gold he had so recently left,
while searching in company with another for a new pasturage-ground for
their sheep, came one day upon a range of low hills so like the
"Golden Range" of California as to bring back all his old
prepossessions in favor of mining. Stopping to examine, he found the
hills composed of granite, mica and quartz, the natural home of gold,
and his experience as a miner led to the conviction that though the
main body of the gold might have been already washed out among the
surrounding clay, yet enough remained to repay a careful search and to
indicate the existence, somewhere in the immediate vicinity, of a mine
of untold wealth. Several days were spent in unprofitable search: then
more favorable indications led the shepherds to dispose of their
flocks and set out in good earnest to dig for gold. A couple of
spades, a trowel and a calabash were their only tools, but our
adventurer was a knowing man, and "knowledge is power." His practiced
eye knew just where the precious metals would be most likely to exist
if at all in that locality--that in the old beds of rivers now dried
up gold would more naturally be 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.
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