134 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Feb. 4, 



conterminous with that of the associated schists and quartzites, it may 

 be safely concluded that Australia will be found one of the richest 

 gold-bearing regions on the face of the globe. 



Fuller details, observes Mr. Clarke, will be found in my forthcoming 

 Report on the Geology of Australasia ; nevertheless I have thought it 

 advisable to give this brief account of one of the most valuable dis- 

 coveries, of commercial importance, yet made in a British territory, 

 and the final consequences of which will be of the greatest importance 

 to the destinies of the Southern hemisphere. 



3. On the Anticipation of the Discovery of Gold in Austra- 

 lia ; with a General View of the Conditions under which 

 that Metal is Distributed. By Sir Roderick Impey Mur- 

 CHisoN, G.C.St.S., F.R.S. G.S., Pres. R. Geogr. Soc. &c. 



[Abstract.] 



This memoir is chiefly a resume of the author's views on the distri- 

 bution of gold in various parts of the world, as published during the 

 last eleven years. This recapitulation is deemed requisite because 

 the Rev. W. B. Clarke published in the Sydney Herald, May 29, 

 1851, a long article on Australian gold (reprinted in the English 

 newspapers and in blue-books for the use of both Houses of Par- 

 liament), in which no mention is made of Sir Roderick Murchison's 

 writings relating to Australian gold, although they were published 

 between the years 1844 and 1850. In fact, the chief illustrations in 

 the above-noticed article of Mr. Clarke had been printed in the work 

 * Russia and the Ural Mountains,' in the Journal of the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society, in the Transactions of the Royal Geological Society 

 of Cornwall, and of the British Association, and in the Notice of 

 Discourse at the Royal Institution, &c. 



From 1841 to 1843 Sir Roderick published descriptions of the 

 auriferous phsenomena of the Ural Mountains on different occasions, 

 as read before the Geological Society and the British Association. In 

 •1844 he compared the eastern chain of Australia*, about to be de- 

 scribed by Strzelecki, with the Ural Mountains. In 1846 (a year 

 before the Californian discovery) he addressed Sir C. Lemon, the 

 President of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall, on the subject, 

 and recommended any Cornish tin-miners, who were unemployed, to 

 emigrate to New South Wales, and dig for gold in the de'bris and drift 

 in the flanks of what he had previously termed the *' Australian Cor- 

 dillera," in which he had recently heard that gold had been discovered 

 in small quantities, and in which, from similarity with the Ural Moun- 

 tains, he anticipated that it would be certainly found in abundance f. 

 Having received letters from residents in Sydney and Adelaide, saying 

 that, in consequence of his writings, they had sought and obtained 



* Trans. Royal Geogr. Soc. vol. xiv. p. xcix. et seq. 



t Trans. Royal Geol. Soc. Cornwall, 1846, vol. vi. p. 324 et seq. Also the Pen- 

 zance newspapers of Oct. 1846. 



