448 



EXHIBITION, BEITISH INDUSTKIAL. 



the jurors reported strongly in their favor, the 

 market for Australian wines has very much in- 

 creased. Among the other products exhibited 

 were Cayenne pepper, preserved fruits, tobac- 

 co, sponges, and sugar canes, for which some 

 parts of the colony are said to be admirably 

 fitted. 



The portions of the show, however, both 

 here and in the Victoria Court, which were 

 looked at with the deepest interest by most 

 people, were the specimens from the gold- 

 fields. 



Queensland made an excellent display. First, 

 of cotton there were numerous samples. The 

 quality of the sea island cotton is remark- 

 ably fine, and has been priced by authorities 

 at 3s. 3d. and 3s. 6d. per pound. One sample, 

 grown 200 miles from the sea-board, rivalled in 

 quality that grown on the sea-coast. The 

 principal export of the colony at present is 

 wool, of which upwards of 5,000,000 bales, 

 the produce of 3,500,000 sheep, are annually 

 exported. 



South Australia is unusually rich in copper, 

 and the Burra-Burra, Kapunda, and the Walla- 

 roo mines from all of which, and other mines, 

 there were ample specimens in the Exhibition 

 are reckoned among the most productive in 

 the world. The Burra-Burra has been at work 

 since September, 1845, and the annual yield 

 for many years past has averaged from 10,000 

 to 13,00 tons of from 22 to 23 per cent, of 

 copper. The specimens exhibited from the 

 mine included sulphuret of copper in matrix of 

 limestone ; red oxide in silicious matrix ; green 

 carbonate with manganese ; sulphuret associat- 

 ed with iron, from the lowest depth of the 

 workings, yielding 50 per cent, of copper ; and 

 a number of beautiful pieces of the green car- 

 bonate or malachite. The specimens of Burra- 

 Burra malachite completely eclipsed the famous 

 Kussian doors which attracted so much atten- 

 tion at the exhibition of 1851. 



The samples of corn exhibited were of first- 

 rate quality, superior to anything shown from 

 the Old World, and only missing by an ounce 

 or two the honor of being the heaviest in the 

 building. About 3,500 acres are under cultiva- 

 tion as vineyard, and their produce amounts to 

 300,000 gallons of wine, besides 1,000 tons of 

 table grapes, which are exported by steamer 

 to Melbourne. 



Western Australia. The chief resources at 

 present developed appeared to be timber and 

 minerals. 



Victoria. The colonists had evidently taken 

 great pains in this collection to illustrate the 

 unexampled prosperity and almost boundless 

 resources of their favored country. In 1851, 

 the colonies of Victoria, Queensland, British 

 Columbia, and Tasmania had no existence. In 

 the short ten years that have intervened since 

 then, they have grown into what may be term- 

 ed distinct States, and one of them at least 

 Victoria contains such elements of wealth, 

 such boundless mineral and agricultural re- 



sources within itself, as must in a few years 

 make her the foremost and most powerful of 

 the great cluster of our young southern em- 

 pires. The rise and suddenly acquired and 

 vast material prosperity of this colony trans- 

 cend all that has yet been told of colonial enter- 

 prise. When the exhibition of 1851 was open- 

 ed, the only habitation on the site of the 

 present town of Ballarat was a shepherd's hut, 

 built of slabs of wood, and roofed with bark. 

 In a circle, having Ballarat as a centre, with a 

 radius of 40 miles, the population then did not 

 exceed 500 persons. The population of the 

 same area in 1861 was 105,996 persons, the 

 town of Ballarat 22,111. 



At the East end of the building, in a beauti- 

 fully carved wood case, was 50,000 worth of 

 gold in every form in which it has been known 

 or supposed to exist. There was a suggestive 

 model illustration of this vast amount of Vic- 

 toria gold. 



The tall pyramid under the eastern dome, 44 feet 9i 

 inches in height and 10 feet square at the base, repre- 

 sented the bulk of the gold exported from Victoria 

 from the 1st of October, 1851, to the 1st of October, 

 1861 the period from the close of the exhibition of 

 1851 to the date when it was necessary to send the 

 goods from Victoria to the recent exhibition. The 

 quantity of gold which it represents is 26,162,432 

 ounces troy ; 1,793,995 Ibs. avoirdupois ; or 800 tons, 

 17 cwt., 3 qrs., 7 Ibs. It is equal in solid measure- 

 ment to 1422i cubic feet ; while the value of the gold thus 

 represented, all of which has been exported to Eng- 

 land, is 104,649,728^., or more than one-eighth of our 

 national debt. On the surface of the pyramid were 

 represented models of some of the larger nuggets which 

 have been found, with reference to the names of their 

 fortunate discoverers. On other portions of the sur- 

 face there were representations of the ingots into which 

 the gold was formed previous to exportation. 



Here was gold in nuggets worth 10,000; 

 gold in bars and massive ingots ; gold almost 

 black, red, yellow, and brown ; rough masses 

 crystallized into the most beautiful forms ; gold 

 mixed with crystals of iron spotted over the 

 milk-white quartz-like rare gems, or cased in 

 an impalpable powder got from the blankets 01 

 the crushing-machines, and so fine that it floats 

 in water like a metallic lustre. 



Specimens (weighing nearly 1 cwt.) of what 

 may almost be termed native iron, so pure is 

 the ore, were exhibited, containing between 80* 

 and 90 per cent, of metal: they are found 

 strewed over the surface of the earth in some 

 parts of the colony like boulders. 



Among other curious objects shown in this 

 collection was a meteorite found near Ballarat, 

 and weighing 30 cwt. A section of it shows 

 graphite and magnetic pyrite in nests or patches 

 through the mass, with chloride of iron exud- 

 ing from the interstices. This most wonderful 

 specimen of meteoric iron is, however, only a 

 quarter the size of one found in the same colony. 

 Among the natural produce exhibited were 

 some samples of very fine tobacco. 



Some exquisite French shawls and merino 

 fabrics were shown, made entirely from Vic- 

 toria wools : the former the most perfect speci- 

 mens of the kind in the building, and the latter 



