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“GOLD IEGOLD IE 323

rough weather, live or stay in bark huts. On the sea-shore they have
bark canoes for their fishing. They don’t like steady work, their ideas
ef religion are low, and they would make good Mormans if they were in
Salt Lake City, judging by the number of wives the men like to have.”
We return to the ride in the cars.

“Now, boys, I will tell you about the finding of gold in Australia,”
said Uncle Nat. “Gold was first found in a little stream called
Summerhill Creek, in New South Wales. That was in May, 1851.
The next month it was found in. Ballaarat, Victoria. When it was
known, a furious rush for the gold-country began. They came flocking
to Ballaarat at the rate of five hundred a day. The shearer quit
his sheep and the house-servant left the kitchen. Policemen had no
further use for their badges and sailors forsook their ships. Every-
body was going to the gold-digeings. Of course no houses were
there, and so there were streets of canvas tents. But very naturally,
the question came up, ‘Who owns the.gold?’ Could a man stick
in his pick wherever he pleased? Government said a miner must
pay thirty shillmgs a month for the privilege of digging, and then
the tax was raised to three pounds a month. It was difficult for
government to collect the tax, as the miners hated it; and some re-
fused to pay. At Ballaarat there was so much trouble that, the
miners having fortified a certain position, an attack was made upon
them at night, and thirty or forty of the miners were killed. But
things quieted down at last. Gold has now been found in Sandhurst
and other places. It is said that in Victoria one-third of the soil
is considered to be gold-bearing.”

When the boys alighted at Ballaarat, Rick expected to see a
string of canvas tents and run into a lot of miners carrying picks
on their shoulders and shovels in their hands; a wild, rough country
all about them. He hoped, too, he might see a piece of shining