Miscellaneous — Our Colonies — JSfew South Wales. 335 

 Dyi:isoEXjij.A.3^EO"crs. 



Otjr Colonies — New South Wales. By Charles Eobinson. 

 8vo. pp. 94. (Sydney, 1873.) 



The Colony of New South Wales, Mr. Eobinson informs us, is the 

 oldest and richest of the Australian Colonies. It is only 103 years 

 since Captain Cook planted the British flag on that distant Island- 

 Continent, and only 85 years since England discovered the vast re- 

 sources which this grand country contains, and recognized the 

 possibility of establishing in New South Wales another branch of 

 her industrious and enterprising people. There is now settled on 

 these lands an English-speaking population of over 2,000,000 self- 

 governing and self-dependent Colonists. Yet it was only on the 

 26th January, 1788, that the first governor. Captain Phillij), landed 

 with his rough colonist band of 1,030 people, together with 431 

 head of live stock (cattle and poultry), all told. 



In this very harbour of Port Jackson, one of the largest and most 

 beautiful natural land-locked havens in the world, now ride the ships 

 of all nations, and at its head stands the Capital City, Sydney, with 

 its long streets, handsome buildings, and crowded warehouses. It 

 has already given birth to two colonies as large as itself, namely, on 

 the South, the Colony of Victoria (in 1851), taking from the older 

 colony a population of 68,335, and 6,026,137 head of sheep and 

 cattle; and in 1859, on the north, the Colony of Queensland, with a 

 population of 25,000, and 2,419,091 sheep. Yet on 2nd April, 

 1871, the original Colony of New South Wales, in its present re- 

 stricted form, possessed a population of 503,981, with 2,014,888 

 head of cattle, 16,278,697 sheep. 550 post-towns have been founded, 

 6,114 miles of telegraph opened, 10,000 miles of roads made, 400 

 miles of railway constructed, and 300 miles more in course of con- 

 struction. Immense mines have been opened for the precious metals, 

 and for copper, tin, coal, and other minerals. 



Although the Colony of Victoria has won the reputation for pos- 

 sessing the richest gold-fields in Australia, the accounts now published 

 of gold-mining and gold- washing in New South Wales, ^ promise to 

 equal, if not to surpass, the younger Colony. The gold-fields com- 

 prise an area of about 13,656 square miles, and number more than 

 70 distinct fields. The richest are on the western side of the great 

 dividing range. Although the Alluvial gold-fields are the oldest and 

 most easily worked, the quartz-reefs, to which the attention of miners 

 has of late been directed, are now proving very rich indeed. From 

 two of the mines on Hawkins Hill or Grolden Mountain during the 

 last six months of 1872, gold to the value of £162,850 (after paying 

 escort-fees and mint-charges) was obtained. 



From another locality, Grenfell, one small company crushed 

 14,573 tons of stone at a cost of £1 per ton, including all expenses, 

 obtaining a yield of 1 oz. 3 dwts. to the ton, or 16,481 ounces of gold, 

 producing £60,000, or a clear profit in five years' time of £45,000. 



Another Field, "The Emu Creek Gold-field," from 1866 (the 

 ^ Where gold was first discovered in Australia in 1851. 



