plum-pudding. Where there is gold on the surface, there is sure to be gold lying on the rock below.
"Sinking in gullies and flats, I have always found the clay predominating, generally lying in strata more or less mixed with gravel, and sometimes a stratum of pure gravel or pure sand; the latter is reckoned a bad sign. In this sort of sinking you come to the rock at various depths to twenty-five feet; I have seen none deeper. Hill sinking is more tedious, as the strata are always harder—going through a hard red conglomerate gravel, or a hard white cemented quartz, very gritty—the base rock is often forty or fifty feet down.
"These base rocks, on the top of which the gold lies, are sandstone, generally red, and pipe-clay. This pipe-clay appears to be slate in a softer state. It is laminated, and will cut easily with a knife. The top of the slate is softish for four or five inches, and contains gold. It is this top that is scraped off with a knife and washed. The pipe-clay is seldom a good gold-bearing bottom. All the rocks run almost north and south—are in laminæ and on edge, like a ream of paper placed on its edge, not laid flat. Often you will find these different sort of bottoms in the same hole.
"We have done very little here for six weeks past in gold-finding, though we have worked hard. In the above time we have seen (three of us) the bottoms of ten holes, two of them upwards of twenty feet deep, and all turned out not worth the washing. We have just bottomed two others, nearly twenty feet deep; two or three days will show what it will turn out. In my hole I have to-day commenced mining; but I do not expect to see gold in any quantity till I get six or seven feet in. I took out a few pounds of gold about two months ago, but I am sorry to say that it is all spent, everything is so expensive. I have also been speculating foolishly in things I knew nothing about, and naturally got burned. I cannot, therefore, leave this till I have made a few pounds. By persevering at the digging, I have no doubt fortune will favour me at last. Spring, of course, is the best time for digging, so that it is not likely I shall be in New Zealand soon, unless my luck turns very soon."
SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
South Australia seemed about to be depopulated by the rush to the gold diggings of Victoria, when the happy idea was suggested of establishing an overland route, so as to give Port Adelaide the advantage of a gold escort. The following journal gives a better idea of the country and bush life than the most elaborate description:—
