30 SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND ACHIEVEMENTS 



in 1846, Sir Roderick Murchison, who, two 

 years previously, compared the eastern ridge 

 of Australia with the Ural Mountains, and first 

 suggested in print the auriferous character of 

 the former, advised the Cornish tin-miners, who 

 were then out of employment, to emigrate, and 

 dig for gold in Australia, and wash it as they 

 did their tin ore (see Trans. Geol. Soc. of Corn- 

 wall, 1846). In 1848 some results were in the 

 possession of this eminent geologist, and he 

 wrote a letter to Earl Grey, then Secretary for 

 the Colonies, indicating that the all-important 

 question of the gold of Australia, and the laws 

 relating thereto, should be well considered by 

 the Government (see Parliamentary Papers, 

 third series). However, three years elapsed 

 before 1851, when Mr. Hargreaves opened the 

 diggings. It appears that the geologists who 

 at first sought to restrict the deposits of gold 

 to a narrow compass were mistaken ; and 

 although the range of territory in which gold 

 has been discovered is thus extensive, the great 

 principle laid down by Sir Roderick Murchison 

 in his earlier researches, and repeated in the 

 last edition of his " Siluria," should not be for- 

 gotten, viz. ; " that the rocks which are the most 

 auriferous are of the Silurian age, and that a 

 certain geological zone only in the crust of the 



