902 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
[April t, i88z. 
possible yet to fix the lowest limit of underground 
finds. What with powerful rock borers and especially 
by means of the wonderful diamond drills capable of 
piercing at all angles, while cores are taken up and 
examined at every few feet of progress, shaft-sink- 
ing and gold mining generally is fast passing from a 
precarious lottery to a steadily profitable pursuit. The 
value and probable effect of the diamond drills can- 
not possibly be exaggerated. The next great revolu- 
tion was the discovery that pyrites, which had been 
rejected as worthless, could, to a large extent, be 
utilized with great profit. Accordingly every important 
gold mine has now appliances for roasting and crushing 
pyrites. Through the courtesy of Mr. Thompson, the 
able manager of the Walhalla mine in Gippslaud, prob- 
ably the richest gold mine in the world, we were 
able to bring, amongst other specimens, a sample of 
pounded pyrites ready for the amalgamating process. 
On this Mr. Dixon will, doubtless, have something 
to say. The difficulty of dealing with pyrites is the 
large quantity of deadly fumes of arsenic evolved in 
the process of roasting. Tall chimneys, to carry those 
fumes for dispersal in the higher atmosphere, must 
be erected under heavy penalties, and the effect of 
the fumes on vegetation were very apparent on the 
side of a steep mountain, close to which rose the 
chimney of the great mine at Walhalla. Trees and 
grasses, within the influence of the fumes from the 
flue, were withered or dead. The Walhalla Valley, 
rich not in alluvial gold but in gold-bearing rocks, 
differs essentially from the valleys between or at the 
, foot of low, rounded, water-worn hills at Castlemaine, 
Sandhurst, Ballarat and other places, where scores of 
miles of alluvial soil have been torn and turned over 
after a fashion whieh excites the astonishment of the 
traveller. We could not help asking if any approxim- 
ate estimate had ever been attempted of the num- 
ber of cubic feet of earthwork involved in all the 
digging and re-digging by Europeans, and the re-re- 
digging by Chinese over the gold fields of Victoria. 
Our friends only looked aghast at the idea of so 
utterly hopeless an attempt. Our own belief is 
that a girdle of railway round the globe would 
not be more than the equivalent. Next to the skeletons 
of a burnt forest in Australia, the most awfully' 
desolate of scenes, is m de up of the grave-like 
mounds scattered as thickly as leaves of Vallambrosa 
over a deserted gold-field. As the mountains stood 
round about Jerusalem, so do they stand round 
the gold valley of Walhalla — real mountains 
and not water-worn hills such as are seen near the 
alluvial gold fields which first made Victoria famous. 
From first to last 50 millions of ounces of gold have 
been taken out of the soil, worth 200 millions sterling. 
No wonder if at Ballarat and Sandhurst great towns 
arose, and a vast city on the shores of Hobson's bay, 
with the rapidity which is more a characteristic 
of dream and romance than of real life. Mr. Dixon 
notices that one nugget was found at Ballarat, which 
weighed 184 lb., and for which over £8,006 were paid. 
We do not know if he refers to "the Welcome 
Stranger," found (at Dunolly, however,) by two Cornish 
miners, just when one of them had been refused 
predit for a bag of flour and feared starvation for 
his family. The scene was soon changed, as will be 
seen by the following details taken from Sutherland's 
" Tales of the Gold Fields" :— 
Deeson plied his pick in some hard bricklike clay- 
around the roots of an old tree, breaking up fresh earth 
and tearing away the grass from the surface of the 
ground. He aimed a blow at a clear space between 
two branches of the root ; and the pick, instead of 
sinking into the ground, rebounded, as if it had struck 
upon quartz or granite. " Confound it ! " he exclaimed ; 
" I've broken my pick. I wish I had broken it, if it 
had only been over some nugget." A minute afterwards 
he called out to Oates, and told him to "come and 
see what this was." It was a mass of gold cropping 
several inches out of the ground like a boulder on a 
hill. As each successive portion of the nugget was dis- 
closed to view, the men were lost in amazement at its 
enormous size. It was over a foot in length, and nearly 
the same in breadth. The weight was so great that it 
was difficult for the two men to move it. However, by 
dint of great exertion, they succeeded in carrying it down 
the hill to Deeson's cottage, where they commenced to 
inspect their wonderful treasure. It was so completely 
covered with black earth, and so tarnished in colour, 
that an inexperienced person might have supposed it to 
be merely a mass of auriferous earth or stone. But its 
weight at once dispelled all doubt on that point, for it 
was more than twice as heavy as a piece of iron of 
the same size. 
Great was the rejoicing among Deeson's family. The 
wife piled up a huge fire, and Deeson placed the nugget 
on the top, while the rest of the family stood around 
watching the operation of reducing the mass to the 
semblance of gold. All through the Friday night Dee- 
soon sat up before the fire, burning the quartz which 
adhered to the nugget, and picking off all the dirt and 
debris. This was so rich that, on being washed in the 
puddling machine, it yielded ten pounds' weight of gold. 
Meanwhile Oates had procured a dray to convey the 
nugget to town, and on the Saturday morning the two 
men set off for Dunolly. It was a ten-mile walk ; but 
many of the neighbours, having heard the news, fol- 
lowed the dray into the township. * * * 
They stopped the dray at the door of the London 
Chartered Bank, while the crowd grew larger and larger. 
Deeson now stepped into the bank, and, having re- 
quested to see the manager, he proceeded to open 
negotiations with him by asking, " How much do you 
think you would give for a lump of gold as big as 
your head ? " The manager, thinking the digger was 
drunk, ordered him away, and requested his clerk to 
see him to the door. But catching sight of the crowd 
outside, he stepped out and looked into the cart. The 
tone of the negotiation was altered at once, and the 
two diggers were politely requested to enter. 
When the nugget had been deposited on the floor of 
the banker's room, it was weighed, and the amount of 
pure gold was ascertained to be 2,268£ ounces, or 
nearly two hundredweight. Thus, being nearly 100 ounces 
heavier than the Welcome nugget of Ballarat, it was 
probably the largest piece of native gold ever found. 
Various accounts have been given of a still larger nug- 
get having been discovered in Brazil over a hundred 
years ago. But this story rests on no good founda- 
tion, and even if it is based on fact, it has evidently 
been exaggerated. All the best authorities on the sub- 
ject, therefore, set down the Welcome Stranger as the 
largest mass of gold ever discovered. 
We doubt if any such mass of gold exists in the 
soil of Ceylon, if indeed "payable quartz" for stamp- 
ing exists. No better aids to the solution of this 
question can possibly exist than the specimens from 
Ballarat with Mr. Dixon's notes on them. 
We have, on this occasion, merely glanced at a few 
