ANNIVEBSAET ADDBESS. 19 



stones used by them to add weight to their digging sticks, one 

 end of which was inserted in the hole. Possibly the white stones 

 referred to were diamonds, as the material out of which these 

 stones were formed is often intensely hard, and holes are drilled 

 through with great nicety. They (the perforated stones) were 

 handed down from father to son as heir-looms." Supposing 

 these conjectures to be true, then the use of the diamond in 

 mechanical work dates in Africa long before the time of the 

 Bologna Railway {see p. 17), and we have a satisfactory reason 

 assigned for the preservation of worked stones in caverns. But 

 it is hardly to be supposed that diamonds were used by the 

 Scandinavians of the " Stone Age," in working up their hammers 

 and other implements. 



G-OLD Fields. 



As gold is found generally in the drifts where diamonds occur, 

 we are naturally led to connect them in our minds. 



It will, I hope, be considered not uncalled for if I pass from 

 one to the other, especially at a time when the subject is so 

 generally exciting public attention. 



It would be needless to repeat here remarks that found their 

 appropriate place in the paper " On the Progress of Grold Dis- 

 covery in Australasia, from 1860 to 1871," which forms a part of 

 the work entitled "Industrial Progress of New South Wales." 



Since then, the attack of illness which kept me away from your 

 meetings during the year 1871 led to a visit to the "Western 

 Mountains, and to an opportunity of inspecting some of the 

 gold fields previously examined by me, and of others that have 

 come of late into activity. 



Here it may be right to explain that my attention has been 

 principally directed to gold mining and not so much to gold 

 digging ; and that from the first I confined my studies chiefly to 

 the occurrence of gold in the matrix, and was the first person in 

 these Colonies to call attention to the value of quartz {S.M.S., 

 8 July, 1851) . It is upon that occurrence that I founded my 

 constant expectation of the great harvest of which we are now 



