FORTUNE FROM A DREAM.

Otago Witness, Issue 2892, 18 August 1909, Page 80

FORTUNE FROM A DREAM.

[ HOW COOLGABDIE GOLD WAS > 1 DISCOVERED. : Dick Whittington is not the only person w'hoee imagination went far towards maki ing, his fortune. There are many authenti- : cated cases of dreams being the cause of : leading men to places where hidden treai sures or great mineral wealth was concealed. One of these is said to bft the discovery of the famous Coolgardie gold ■ mines in Western Australia. In April, 1892 (the story goes), two miners of Victoria, Bayley and Ford by name, struck out for the north-east of Australia. *After traversing 250 miles of the Australian bush country, their horseß died, and they had to turn back. On the return journey Bayley dreamed every night that gold in quantities beyond their wildest hopes lay just 100 miles beyond their farthest camping place. Arriving in Victoria, Ford hesitated again to undergo the hardships and perils of" the overland a-ip through waterless, tr&silass, and uninhabited wastes, and favoured the abandonment of their project. However, so strong was the impression of Bayley's dream that he declared) that if his partner forsook him he would go alone. The two, therefore, secured new horses, bought fresh supplies, and again started forth. When far from human habitations 4heir water ran low, and they were again farced to take the back track. It was now Ford who had the dreams of golden sands, and of rocky ledges in which gold nuggets gleamed as plentifully as plums in a plum pudding — this time on the return journey. They suffered incredible privations ; but both had received supernatural assurance of final success, so that now neither entertained the idea of abandoning their difficult and hazardous enterprise. •> On their third trip their supply of water again ran short ; but they were lucky enough to discover a natural well in the . desert, known to tne scattered bushmen by the name Coolgardie. Pitching their camp by the side of the grateful water, they turned their horses loose and decided to rest for a day or two at least. That night both prospectors dreamed of untold wealth all round them, and in the morning with high hopes they set out to find it. In an hour Ford- picked up a nugget that weighed half an ounce. More I eagerly than ever .they- continued tneir search, and by nightfall had 1 gathered up over 20 ounces of gold, in small nuggets. Three weeks of surface prospecting brought a reward of more than 200 ounces of the precious metal. By that time their food suplies were nearing exhaustion ; so they made a hasty trip to civilisation, laid in a fresih supply of provisions, and hurried back to their Golconda, keeping the fact of their discovery a profound secret. A few days after they reached their old camping place they stumbled upon the outcrop of the Coolgardie reef which made the fame of the giieatast of Australian mining districts. Beginning with a slug that weighed 50 ounces (worth nearly £200), in a few hours they picked from the cap of the reef upwards of 500 ounces of gold. Next day, Bayley started for the nearest mining town, carrying 554 ounces of gold with him. This he exhibited to the mining warden, putting in a claim for a lease of the land on which the amazing discovery had been made. Receiving his papers, he started back to his partner, who had been left on guard. Within 12 hours after the facts pertaining to Bayley and Ford's lease had been made public more than 150 men, with waggons, poaches, horses, and all the ! paraphernalia of mining, were on Bayley's^ trail, hastening to the most sensational of* all mining discoveries. In a few weeks ! th© new camp contained a population of I thousands ; and in the years that have i since elapsed the Coolgardie mines have i added hundreds of millions of pounds to the world's wealth. In nine years Bayley I and Ford extracted) from their mine 134,000 ounces of gold, valued at well over half a mi'lion pounds.