VISIT TO BALLARAT. 
151 
extensive Botanic Garden, "have been laid out for tbe 
pleasures of the people. The merchants have their 
Chamber of Commerce ; the mechanics, their Literary 
Institution ; the farmers, their Agricultural Society ; 
and those interested in mining, their school and col- 
leges. But the rate of progress has not been con- 
fined to the limits of the city, for thousands of acres 
all round are under cultivation for agricultural pur- 
poses, where many of those who spent their early 
colonial days mining are now, after their toil, content 
to settle down in the bliss of having a farm of their 
own, and of sitting under their own vine and fig-tree. 
Opportunities were afforded for visiting some of 
the famous gold-mines in the immediate neighbour- 
hood, one of which, belonging to the Black Hill 
Mining Company, situated at the foot of the hill 
which gives the company its name, on the banks 
of the river Yarrowee, was particularly interest- 
ing : here is a most complete and novel set of 
machinery. The steam-engine, a horizontal one, 
of 100 horse-power, is placed in the centre of the 
works, and drives six batteries of ten stamps each. 
The quartz is supplied to the stampers by a self- 
feeding apparatus, when it is reduced sufficiently fine 
to pass through wire gratings, at the back and front 
of the machine, having one hundred and twenty 
holes to the square inch. 
A small quantity of mercury is put into each stamp- 
box twice a day. The crushed quartz is then carried 
