May 25, 1857.] AUSTRALIA—GOLD PRODUCE. 455 



gold, and which have also been partially worked in California ; and so 

 long as the miner is near the surface, these veinstones will -un- 

 questionably well repay the cost of working them. When, how- 

 ever, they are followed downwards into the body of the rock, they 

 have usually been found impoverished, either thinning out into 

 slender filaments, or graduating into silver or other ores ; so that 

 these insulated thin courses of auriferous quartz — mere threads in 

 the mountain masses — will soon be exhausted for all profitable pur- 

 poses, when the upper portions shall have been quarried out. 



But whatever may be the duration of the gold produce, Victoria 

 has already become a wealthy colony, whose agriculture and com- 

 merce have risen to a pitch which will ensure her future great- 

 ness, even should the period arrive when her rich golden harvests 

 are no longer to be gathered. 



Nowhere in the annals of mankind has there been known so won- 

 derfully rapid a rise, as that which has taken place in and around a 

 spot which, surveyed only a few years ago, was first formed into a 

 separate colony in 1837. In each file of the well- written periodicals 

 of Melbourne, we see pregnant proofs that this spot is already one 

 of the great centres of the world's commerce, and is inhabited by 

 an intelligent and advancing people, well worthy of the parent 

 stock. 



The latest accounts from Western Australia, given in the detailed 

 explorations of it, as published in our Proceedings, afford little hope 

 that our colonists are there to be enriched by mineral wealth ; the 

 great saKne desert which Sturt tracked from south to north, and 

 Eyre travelled upon coast-wise on the south-west, having been met 

 with at several points by Gregory and Austin. Again, rich as is 

 South Australia in her Burra-Burra copper- mines, no material 

 quantity of gold has yet been detected in that colony, notwithstand- 

 ing some vigorous searches, among which those of Mr. Herschel 

 Babbago have recently been brought to your notice. 



Turning, then, from that knot of elevations which, forming the 

 background of Victoria, are so prolific in gold, and exploring that 

 long Eastern Cordillera which leads from New South Wales to the 

 Gulf of Carpentaria, though we may meet at intervals with an auri- 

 ferous patch or two to entice the explorer northwards, the real incite- 

 ment to new settlers is found in the rich soil and the good herbage 

 they fall in with, as they extend civilization northwards. Thus, 

 from the clear and accurate survey of the vast Peel Eiver settle- 

 ments by that sound mining geologist, M. Odernheimer, we now 



