c 
the discovery) to encourage prospecting for gold in Victoria, 
has been, in every reference of the question to the Secretary 
of Mines, persistently ignored by him, and declared in no 
way meritorious ! 
2nd. As being the first prospector (with two others), in 
April, 1864, of the Red Hill Creek (now named the Cross- 
over) gold-field, Gipps Land ; and as having located thereon 
a population — the nucleus of the Buln-Buln agrictdtural 
settlements — in what was previously a desolate and almost 
inaccessible mountain region, by drawing public attention 
to facts of gold discoveries by (duly published) letters to 
the nearest wardens and the Melbourne press ; as, also,— 
with sketch of the gold-field— to the Hon. J. P. Sullivan, 
the then Minister of Mines, yet the vote of £10,000 for gold 
discoveries in 1864 lapsed to the Revenue as being unclaimed 
by bona fide discoverers. 
In acknowledgment, therefore, of these and other encou- 
raging modes of promoting mining enterprise in Victoria, 
conducive to its existing state of depression, characterized by 
the honourable Member of Parliament for Ballarat, as that 
of an "industry fast dying out," this little work is inscribed 
(without permission) by 
THE AUTHOR. 
P.S. — If Victoria were but blessed with a Minister and a 
Secretary of Mines, and some few liberal-minded mining 
capitalists, having the clear-sightedness, energy, forethought, 
and indomitable perseverance of that enterprising and model 
colonist, Mr. Murray Ross, of Rosstown, the present and 
future state of Victoria, in every phase of prosperity dedu- 
cible from successful mining, might be the glory of the 
Southern Hemisphere, — a focus to which population from all 
parts of the world would eagerly be attracted. 
