GOLD RUSHES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 170, 27 October 1910, Page 4

GOLD RUSHES.

The fact that a phenomenally rich goldfield has been discovered at jSullfineh, in Westralia, is a reminder that no other form of adventure has ever stirred men to deeds of daring and enterprise as golel-seeking. The annals of ''digging" are full of illuminating tales of pluck, self-sacrifice and crime. Gold is only valuable while it is scarce, and in the early days of the diggings those who had plenty squandered it ridiculously—shod their horses with it, and "shouted" champagne in bucketsftil. The stories of rich finds are fascinating. Byers, the discoverer of the greatest nugget ever found in Australia, simply put a charge of blasting powder into a cleft of rock and bared to his eyes a slab of gold taller than himself. Byers became enormously rich, went into Parliament, and subsequently became poorer than ever he had been. The great silver field of Broken Hill was found by a wandering bushman who was attracted by a curious stone. Mount Morgan, one of the richest fields in the world, was hit upon by a boundary rider; the Mudgee field, in New South Wales, where "gold was literally hanging to the roots of the grass," was a purely accidental discovery, as also were ''Pipeclay," "Lambing Flat," "Possum Gully," "Hargreaves," and other rich alluvial patches. It is likely enough that fossicking pays as well now as ever it did. On the old fields in Australia scores of men, including Chinese, delve away with cradle and dish and- shovel the year round. It is common enough to drop across men who are making twenty pounds a week and to find others who are "not making tucker." Curiously, too, the old Australian "hatters" wiio seem to do best at the fossicking business are those who potter around "worked out" diggings. A burst-up digging township is one of the visual tragedies of the big country. There are few things more pathetic than a rotting town, silent machinery, empty houses, rabbit-infested shops, with an ancient "hatter" the sole inhabitant of a once busy hotel. It is a common belief in Australia that once a man takes to fossicking, he will fossick until he dies, and it certainly is true that in the back-country of the Commonwealth one frequently meets ancient human wrecks with "one foot in the grave" who are certain up to the moment that they expire of hunger in the bush, that they could "make a rise" if Old Man Death waited a bit longer.