98 A HISTORY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



stimulating memories, and the picturesque freebooter who roamed 

 at large, dipping his hand occasionally into nature's pockets, had 

 generally squandered his princely gains and reared up no successor. 

 Under the influence of capital and organisation, and by the aid of 

 costly machinery, the search became transformed from an alluring 

 gamble into a patient working out of dry calculations. The revela- 

 tion of the permanent character of the quartz lodes, which such 

 working established, came at an opportune time, when the alluvial 

 gutters were showing signs of exhaustion. In quartz mining the 

 men, as a rule, worked for wages, and the labourer gradually 

 learned to prefer the certainty of his weekly earnings to the chance 

 of better results in a precarious venture by himself. It was the 

 alluvial miners, solitary prospectors and gully hunters that kept 

 the goldfields' population so incessantly disturbed. The largest 

 number of adult miners on the Victorian goldfields was reached 

 in 1858, when the Warden's returns gave 147,358 as employed, 

 of whom 33,000 were Chinese. This number steadily diminished 

 from that time forward. By the end of 1861 it was down to 

 100,000, in 1871 to 52,000, and ten years later to 35,000. But 

 in the period now referred to they were exceptionally restless, 

 continually lured away to fresh, and often very distant, fields upon 

 most inadequate evidence. Great " rushes " took place in succession 

 to Maryborough, to Dunolly and to Mount Ararat. At the latter 

 place, where it was reported that the diggings extended over five 

 miles of country, with comparatively shallow sinking, a population 

 of from 30,000 to 40,000 had congregated in August, 1857, to 

 be largely dispersed again before the end of the year. Movements 

 on a smaller scale had invaded Tarnagulla, Talbot, St. Arnaud ; 

 explored the ranges which divide the water-sheds of the Avoca and 

 the Loddon ; westward had reached Pleasant Creek, afterwards 

 known as Stawell ; and had also opened up many profitable fields 

 on several of the tributaries of the Goulburn Eiver. It seemed 

 as if the diggers in search of fortune were animated by that spirit 

 of impatience which is the characteristic of democracy, and too 

 often fields thus hastily tried and abandoned turned out in after 

 years yields of surprising richness. Distance certainly lent a 

 delusive attraction. In July, 1858, rumours reached Victoria of 



