REMARKABLE "FINDS" OF GOLD

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 4, Issue 1204, 14 October 1882, Page 2

REMARKABLE "FINDS" OF GOLD

A volume might be filled with anecdotes of remarkable "finds" iutl>e Victorian goldfields. In midsummer. 1869, two poor men were at work in a gully, whon, on digging round the roots of a tree, the pick of one cf them came upon something hard. The man exclaimed he wished it had been a nugget, even if it had broken the pick, It proved to be a nugget, and one destined to be famous. A waggoner one day was driving his team sbng the road, when his wheel, in turning np 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 nugget which SroTed ti be worth £I6OO. In the early ays of sluicing, a Scotchman was working an extensive elaim, and employing a number of men under him, His last shilling was spent before any gold was found. He told his men he had no more funds, and could go on no longer. They had great respect for him, and I subscribed among themselves enough to carry on the works for a few weeks. Gold wai soon afterwards fonnd in ■ abundance. The Scot retired with £40,000, and made over tb 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 was a broiling hot day, and they were glad, after their toilsome walk up the country, to rest in the shade of an old gum tree. As they sat, one of them rubbing up the earth with his heel disclosed to view something hard and yellow looking. Pulling it from the ground they fonnd it was a huge cake of veritable gold. Without having had to use pick or spjde they had realised a fortune, and speedily turning their backs on the diggings thev took the first ship home.-" Cities of the World."