is scant, affording but a bare subsistence for the horses and cattle. Descending over the ridge which shadows what is called the Rock, you arrive at the "Hanging Rock Creek," and the "Swamp Diggings." All these are liable to interruption in the wet season.
The bed of the creek is composed of a very compact mass, interspersed with quartz. The banks are chiefly a black, thick loam, intermixed with red, ferruginous clay. The richest claims are where the quartz ridges dip down into the creek.
The Dry Diggings are in one of many deep gullies which prevail in this region.
Oakenville Creek is in this (the rainy) season a narrow, rapid rush of water down the bed of a deep, precipitous, rocky gully.
The Peel River Diggings.—The Peel River diggings are divided into two classes. The field on the western side of the river belongs to the Australian Agricultural Company, whose stations extend seventy or eighty miles along the banks of this stream. The gold-field is situated about five miles from Hanging Rock, and was discovered in March, 1853. The company, in the first instance, endeavoured to raise a revenue by issuing licences, but as only thirty-six were taken, while more than one hundred and fifty were at work, the deputy-governor adopted means for driving off all trespassers, and at length succeeded. The gold is found on the banks of the river in thick ferruginous clay; in some instances nuggets are found clinging to the roots of the grass. The greatest wealth is supposed to exist in the quartz ridges. The reporter found several lumps the size of a duck's egg, thickly speckled with gold.
The river diggings on the crown side are principally three spots:—Golden Point, Blackfellow's Gully, and Bold Ridge.
Of the remaining gold-fields, which are so only by anticipation, their riches not having been developed, and but little being known of their extent, the Abercrombie is one of the longest known, and probably one of the most important. Gold has been found in considerable quantities, not only in the river itself at the Sounding Rock, or Tarshish diggings, but also on its tributary creeks, the Tuena, Mulgunnia, Copperhannia, and Mountain Run. The Abercrombie lies some forty miles to the southward of Bathurst, and forms the upper portion of the Lachlan River. Dry diggings abound on some of the creeks—the Tuena especially—and large earnings have been made here. The gold is coarse. The field may be regarded as unexplored, as there are not more than 200 persons at work on it.
North of the Abercrombie lie the diggings at Campbell's River called Havilah, and those on the Gilmandyke and Davis Creeks, its tributaries. Gold was found at Havilah shortly after the discovery of the Turon diggings; but as the yield was small, the latter soon drew away the enterprising pioneers at Campbell's River. The gold procured was very fine, but no locality has yet been discovered where the deposits are so plentiful as to entitle these diggings to consideration. On the Gilmandyke and Davis Creeks coarse gold is obtained, and there are promising indications of future richness. Perhaps about 100 miners are engaged at these diggings, who are making fair earnings.
There is about the same number of persons engaged in digging on Winburndale Creek, which rises on the tableland a few miles to the northward of Bathurst, and, flowing in a north-west direction, falls into the Macquarie several miles above
