350 Miscellanea. 
Arrowsmith, it will be seen how this golden flood is distributed at intervals 
and, just as I expected, on the flanks of the main watershed, or backbone, 
of that continent, which, trending from north to south, bends off the west 
to pass to the north of Melbourne, where one of the richest accumulations 
has recently been detected at Mount Alexander. 
It is unnecessary here to recapitulate data on which I have been dwelling 
for some years past: the chief inference from such fact was, that as 
auriferous veinstones and masses usually deteriorate downwards in the 
parent rock, and that their richest parts have been superficial, the most 
prolific goldfields are necessarily composed of that débris or drift which has 
been abstracted by former great operations of nature from the surfaces of 
the mountains, and distributed in heaps of gravel, mud and sand, upon their 
sides or in the adjacent valleys. 
I have also endeavoured to show, that as gold has never been found in ~ 
a notable quantity, except among the slopes of the more ancient backbones 
or axes of continents, and has never been derived in any quantity from 
secondary or tertiary strata, so the goldfields of nature are restricted to 
such comparatively narrow zones. When, however, we look to the vast 
length of the ‘‘ Cordillera” of Australia, and of other ridges which may be 
found to be similarly constituted in that continent; and, above all, when 
we reflect, that no other large region of the earth has been so unoccupied 
by human beings acquainted with the value of the metal, it behoves us to 
be prepared for a considerable (though temporary) augmentation of it. 
Eight years have elapsed since I spoke to you, in a former address, of 
the social and political effects which might be produced by new large 
supplies of gold, such as of Siberia, and to which I called the notice of 
British statesmen. But although, in the intervening years, California and 
Australia have let loose floods of gold, the very apprehension of which 
would formerly have alarmed most statists, we have yet to learn that any 
sensible diminution of the value of our standard metal has taken place. 
Whilst as a geologist I have affirmed, from reference to experience and 
physical data, that, large as the supply may now be from the opening out 
of two great auriferous tracts previously unknown (because the regions were 
untrodden by civilized beings), such supplies as come from California and 
Australia will become exhaustible because superficial, just as was the case 
in those parts of the old world, which im their day had rich auriferous 
deposits. I may, indeed, now announce to you that, as far as can be 
ascertained, the supplies are already diminishing from two of the great 
sources—Siberia having given considerably less than in previous years, 
whilst California, the produce of which had been run up to a very large 
amount through the indomitable energy of the Anglo-Saxon race, is 
likely to fall short (if I am not misinformed) this year by some millions 
sterling. 
Though incompetent to speak of the political, social, and statistical 
effects of the remarkable golden shower of this country, I may put you in 
possession of words which proceeded from a master-mind, now no more. In 
