A Short History of Australia by Ernest Scott

Strzelecki finds gold among the mountains--W. B. Clarke's prognostications--Gold found in the Port Phillip district--Official disfavour of gold discoveries--Hargreaves's Discoveries--Ballarat-- Bendigo--Wonderful finds--Inrush of Chinese--The digging days--Digging licences--Riot on the Turon--Unrest at Ballarat--The Eureka Stockade--The miner's right--Gold-mining as an industry--Gympie--Mount Morgan-- Coolgardie--The Golden Mile--Broken Hill--The Burra.

From the first discovery of gold down to 1939, Australia contributed nearly 715,000,000 pounds to the world's stock of this metal. The history of gold-mining presents three broadly marked phases. First, there were the occasional discoveries of fragments, and the more or less confident predictions that rich deposits would be found. Secondly, there were the exciting years of the gold 'rushes,' when the diggers flocked from the ends of the earth to pick up fortunes in yellow lumps or to wash it out of the gravel of streams. Thirdly, as the surface alluvial deposits became exhausted, there was the period when gold mining became an organized industry, to which science and capital were applied, liable to be flushed with unexpected successes or depressed by sudden collapses--speculative, spasmodic, perhaps incalculable, but a regular industry nevertheless.