Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1897-08-14

lilies away, ana was as rlcn nearly as BAL
larat, while nuggety patches chained the
road between at MARLBORO, Cluneo, Gus
wick and other places. You could almost
speak from man to man along the whole
excited by each new sensational find. pass
ing the news along. Every hill and dale
was alive with men in search Of the craved
metal
When the whole country had been turned
over and "dished," the real mining COM
menced On the reefs, and there the real
fortunes and the genuine prosperity from
the mining industry set in. From 1854 to
ny of Victoria has produced $3.50, 574
ounces of gold. worth 81. 1871 All, 4SO This
was, virtually, all mined from the Ballarat
and Bendigo lodes. or reefs, as they are
over S3O,UOO,OU per year. After working
these two great reefs, on which set two
cities of nearly 100000 people EACH for over
a generation, there We're taken from the
drives beneath them in 1890 over $1,000, 900
of gold.
Seemed Inexhauxtible.
A new impetus was given to the mining
Industry at this low ebb when the Band
and Albion went down another LOCO feet in
Balli rat, and George Landsell sent the
$50 Victoria North in Bendigo, down be-
low its 3.00O-foot level. Fossicking ceased
on both fields more than twenty years ago.
cntli this day the old alluvial flats look as
ing tor potatoes. These great fields pro-
duced one sensation after another. The
rlcnes seemed inexhaustible. While some
luck, , diegers celebrated their sudden for
tune by lighting cigars with 500 G2O
notes others, filled with a measure of dis
gust, left for other parts
A miner, after spending his all. footsore.
ragged and pennless. threw his pick VIC
chuck the whole thing he nnut.orad
heartsick with disgust at his utter failure
to find even the color" The sharp tool
Struck a. hard substance and bounded
away. Inc incident angered the unlucky
uieeer- Gripping the pick with fierce de-
termination, he sent it into the same pIace
with terrific force. 1t bounded further
s away: In ITS wild jump he noticed yell
10" streak the point traced in the air Ex-
aminlng the point he saw specks of gold.
Ihen his joyous heart oyerleaped the
height of his anger, and he was soon on
ms knees, prodding the dirt about the
naughty place which resisted his strength.
HIS eyes bulSed wider and wider as his
BUSY hands cleaned the dirt from about
me big yellow face. which lay near the
surface. The find was the great "Wel-
come nugget 1t was solid mass of yir-
gin gold about foot long, six inches wide
and Of irregular shape, with a thickness of
two to four inches, and weighed 2,195
ounces For this piece of gold the miner
was paid $4,000. He went home and auit
mining.
Nugget Worth $47,76O.
The Welcome" Is not the biggest nugget
ever found. The largest is the Welcome
Stranger" which weighed 2,3S31k ounces
and was worth s47.76O. The Welcome"
was found at Ballarat, June 1, 1858. A
model of 1T is in the Ballarat School of
Mines. The Berlin" 1884 ounces 10 pen
nyweights; "kenn Tow" 7lS ounces.
Beauty, 81! ounces pennyweights. are
the biggest Jumps of native gold found
m Gi0 70 oh
large nuggets of sensational size have been
found in all Australia.
The old surface fossicker left Ballarat
diggings nearly quarter of a century ago,
when systematic reefing set in to mine the
rock in the bowels of the earth The last
sensation on this famous field was In 1870.
when the Hirshfield pot was struck. Some
one found a sandlode in yard. and fol-
lowed ie 1t into gutter. 1t was called
golden gully" 1t was simply a sandwash
lodged i'll small rift. or was the filling up
of small ditch from some rich source
More than LOCO ounces of gold were taken
from 1t, which Melted the owner S25 900
and set every crazy loon to digging up his
yard for an expected find. There were
over two hundred Mother HfrshfieId I"
Sister Hirshfeld," Queens Hirshfield"
or prefix named after the original ditch. It
is now extinct. Another, the "Gold-Point-
Gutter took out 1900 600 of alluvial gold
in forty-four days.
Ten Years of Tent Life.
In its ten years of tent and semi-tent
life Ballarat put more than twice as much
gold In the ground in search of the metal
as she took out. 1t came from other
parts. SO she did not feel the strain: and,
| as millions of 1t came from abroad, Austria
| liza did not feel 1t. She only felt the unrest
and the temporary high price Of living en-
| tailed. 1t remains to be said that the alb
original meaning of Baal-a-arat is, with
| out rat" The fact is that there is not a
| rat in the modern, well-built city of 100, 600
| inhabitants.
| Those who have attempted to explain
| this curious circumstance say that 1t is
| because of the mineral character Of the
| whole country. Perhaps the hungry miner
| so cleaned up all the available food at the
| terribly high price of 1t that the domestic
mouse starved on the cheese cloth. Miners
arrived much faster than food. They
walked and rode everything which could
| carry them, seldom thinking of food or the
price of It, But that is true of every gold
| field and every feverish rush to q new field
| The succeeding generations of man never
| did profit by the poverty, suffering and
! failures of the ones before 1t in gold min.
ing. The old fever has lost none Of its fer
I vor or folly.