REMARKABLE “FINDS” OF GOLD.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2657, 12 October 1882, Page 3

REMARKABLE “FINDS” OF GOLD.

A volume might be filled with anecdotes of remarkable " finds” in the Victorian goldfields. In midsummer, 1869, two poor men were at work in a gully, when, on digging round the roots of a tree, the pick of one of them oame upon something hard. The man exclaimed he wished it had been a nugget, even if it bad broken the pick. It proved to be a nugget, and one destined to be famous, A waggoner one day was driving his team along the road, when hia wheel, in turning up the soil, suddenly exposed to view a considerable lump of shining matter. The waggoner stopped to pick it up, and by so doing became the owner of a nuggot which proved to be worth £IBOO. In the early days of,sluicing, a Scotchman was working an extensive claim, and employing a number of men under him, His last shilling was spent before any gold was found. He told hie men he had no more funds, and could go on no longer. They had great respect for him, and subscribed among themselves enough to carry on the works for a few weeks. Gold was soon afterwards found in abundance. The Scot retired with £40,000, and made over the mine, while still in full yield, to the men who had so generously helped him. On one occasion two men who had just arrived from England sat down to rest on the outskirts of a spot to which there had been a recent rush. It wss a broiling hot day, and they were glad, after their toilsome walk up the country, to rest in the shade of uu old gum tree. As they sat, one of them rubbing up the earth with the heel of his boot, disclosed to view something hard and yellow looking. Pulling it from the ground they found it was a huge cake of veritable gold. Without having bad to use pick or spade they had realised a fortune, and speedily turning their backs on the diggings they took the first ship Home.— ‘‘Cities of the World.”