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upon you. At last, after a rather uncomfortable journey, we reached the outskirts of a large town, and in a few minutes more we found ourselves safely jolted into Ballarat.
I am not at all up in the statistics of the colony, and cannot tell the population or the number of inhabited houses in Ballarat.[13] But it is an immense place, second in importance in the colony only to Melbourne. Big though it be, like most of these up-country towns, Ballarat originated in a rush. It was only in September, 1851, that a blacksmith at Buningong, named Hiscocks, who had long been searching for gold, traced a mountain-torrent back into the hills towards the north, and came upon the rich lode which soon became known as the "Ballarat Diggings." When the rumour of the discovery got abroad, there was a great rush of people to the place, accompanied by the usual disorders; but they gradually settled down, and Ballarat was founded. The whole soil of the place was found to contain more or less gold. It was gathered in the ranges, on the flats, in the water-courses, and especially in the small veins of blue clay, lying almost above the so-called "pipeclay." The gold was to all appearance quite pure, and was found in rolled or water-course irregular lumps of various sizes, from a quarter or half an ounce in weight, sometimes incorporated with round pebbles of quartz, which appeared to have formed the original matrix.
The digging was at first for the most part alluvial, but when skilled miners arrived from England, operations were begun on a much larger scale, until now it is conducted upon a regular system, by means of costly machinery and highly-organised labour. To give an idea of the extensive character of the operations, I may mention that one company, the Band of Hope, has erected machinery of the value of 70,000l. The main shaft, from which the various workings branch out, is 420 feet deep; and 350 men are employed in and about the mine. It may also be mentioned that the deeper the workings have gone, the richer has been the yield of gold. This one company has, in a comparatively short time, raised gold worth over half a million sterling; the quantity
September, 1851, to the end of 1866, having been worth about one hundred and thirty millions sterling.
The morning after my arrival in Ballarat I proceeded to survey the town, I was certainly surprised at the fine streets, the large buildings, and the number of people walking along the broad pathways. Perhaps my surprise was magnified by the circumstance that nearly fifteen months had passed since I had been in a large town; and, after Majorca, Ballarat seemed to me like a capital. After wandering about the streets for half an hour, I looked into the Court-house, where an uninteresting case of drunkenness was being heard. I next went into the adjoining large building, which I found to be the Public Library. The commodious reading-room was amply supplied with books, magazines, and newspapers; and here I amused myself for an hour in reading a new book. Over the mantel-piece of the large room hangs an oil painting of Prince Alfred, representing him and his "mates" after the visit they had made to one of the Ballarat mines. This provision of excellent reading-rooms--free and open to all--seems to me an admirable feature of the Victorian towns. They are the best sort of supplement to the common day-schools; and furnish a salutary refuge for all sober-minded men, from the temptations of the grog-shops. But besides the Public Library, there is also the Mechanics' Institute, in Sturt Street; a fine building, provided also with a large library, and all the latest English newspapers, free to strangers.