The History of Ballarat: From the First Pastoral Settlement to the Present Time

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Preface To The First Edition

This little History, in eight chapters, only touches a few of the more prominent incidents connects with pastoral settlement and the gold discovery in the Ballarat district The compiler has seen the growth of the town from a mere collection of canvas tents among the trees and on the grassy slopes and flats of the wild bush to its present condition. Less than 20 years ago there was not a house where now stands this wealthy mine and farmgirdled city, whose population is nearly equal to the united populations of Oxford and Cambridge, and exceeding by several thousands the united populations of the cities of Winchester, Canterbury, Sab'sbury, and Lichfield at the time of the gold discovery. This is one of the truths which are magnificently stranger than fiction.

Some of the first workers in this mighty creation are still here. Of the pastoral pioneers there are still with us the Messrs. Learmonth, Pettett, Waldie, Winter, Fisken, Coghill, and Bacchus ; and the Rev. Thomas Hastie is still living at the Manse at Buninyong.

Down the valley of the Leigh, where the Sebastopol streets and fences run over the eastern escarpment of the table land, may stiU be seen the sandstone foundations of a station begun by the Messrs. Yuille, whom the coming of the first hosts of gold-hunters scared away from a place no longer fit, in their opinion, for pastoral occupation. Those unfinished waUs are in a paddock overlooking a little carse of some four or five acres by the creek side, owned by an Italian farmer, and close to the junction of the Woolshed Creek with the main stream in the valley. On the other side of the larger stream rise basaltic mounds, marked with the pits and banks of the earlier miners. Like the trenches of an old battle-field, these works of the digging armies of the past are now grass -grown and spotted with wild flowers. All around, the open lands of fifteen years ago are turned into streets and fields and gardens. A little way lower down the valley, where the ground

VIU PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.

has a broad slope up from the left bank of the Leigh to the foot of the ranges, was the Magpie rush of 1855-6. For a mile nearly every inch of frontage was fought for then, and a town of over four thousand inhabitants sprang up. Gold was found plentifully, and warehouse, hotel, and saloon crowded close with dwelling and church along the thoroughfare. A summer flood surprised the dwellers on the lowland and carried off lives as well as property, mingling a tragic sorrow with the losses of the unsuccessful. Time, less sudden than the midsummer freshet, but more sweeping, has cleared the ground of almost every vestige of the busy but fragile life of fifteen years ago. But the eternal sense of the Infinite survives " our little lives" and all their fitful pulsations of varying passion. Yonder, where, by the bush track side, the rounding slope swells upon the south, stands a church, sombre, lonely, and silent as the Roman sentinel at Pompeii when all around him had fled or fallen. This is all, save here and there heaps of broken bottles and sardine tins half hidden by the grass, and a few faint trench and building lines, softened by the rains, and bright at this time with the young verdure of the turning season. The most curious eye could now discover no other traces of the rush if it were not for the broader and deeper marks left where the first miners fought their industrial way, and where, for years, their followers retraced the golden trail On going up the Yarrowee banks northward a space, as one looks up the valley he sees, beyond the city, the bare top, the white artificial chasms and banks and mounds, where Black Hill raised its dark dense head of forest trees before the digger rent the hill in twain, and half disembowelled the swelling headland.

Besides the pastoral settlers already mentioned, there are yet with us some of the first discoverers. Esmond is still here. Woodward and Turner, of the Golden Point discoverers, are still here in Ballarat, and Merrick and some others of that band remain in the district. Others who followed them within the first week or two are also amongst our busy townsfolk of to-day.

While these remained it was thought desirable to gather some of the honey of fact from fugitive opportunity, that it might be garnered for the historian of the future. Nearly all the per-

Preface To First Edition. IX

sons whose names have been mentioned above have assisted in the preparation of this narrative by furnishing valuable contributions from their own recollections, and the compiler takes this occasion to thank them and others, including legal managers of mines, whose ready courtesy has enabled him to do what he has done to rescue from forgetfulness the brief details here chronicled touching the history of this gold-field. He has borrowed some facts and figures, too, from Mr. Harrie Wood's ably compiled notes, published in Mr. Brough Smyth's " Gold-fields, and Mineral Districts of Victoria." To the officers of most of the public institutions referred to he also owes the acknowledgment of much courtesy ; and to Mr. Huyghue, a gentleman still holding office in Ballarat, and who was in the public service here at the time of the Eureka Stockade, thanks are due, both by the publisher and compiler, for notes of that period, and for the extremely interesting illustrations of the Stockade, the Camp, and other spots copied from original drawings. The publisher also acknowledges the courtesy of Mr. Ferres, the Government printer, in supplying original documents, and of Mr, Koone in giving valuable assistance in connection with their reproduction by the photo-lithographic process. The contributions of newspaper correspondents during the Eureka Stockade troubles have also assisted the compiler, and notably the letters of the correspondent of the Geelong Advertiser in 1854-5. But to Mr. John Noble Wilson, the commercial manager of the Ballarmt Star, is due, on the part of all concerned, the recognition of his suggesting the narrative, of his constant cordial co-operation, and his untiring ingenuity in making suggestions and collecting materials both for the text and the illustrations. The reproduced proclamations by the Government, which the reader will find at intervals, as well as many of the original documents, are the fruit of that gentleman's assiduity in collecting materials of interest and pertinence.

It has been necessary to record the fact Uiat the tragic issue of the license agitation was mainly due to the mistakes of Uie governing authorities, even as the unrighteous rigors of the digger-hunting processes were made more poignant by the haughty indiscretions and brutal excesses of commissioners and

X PBBFACE TO FIBST EDITION.

troopers. But it is equally incumbent on the recorder to recognise the more agreeable fact that there were officers in both grades who did their harsh duties differently. Some of these are still in the service, and retain the respect they won in the more troublous times by their judicious and humane administration of an obnoxious law, for the existence of which they were in no way responsible.

In the matter of gold statistics there has been found great difficulty, for the early records were imperfect, and the latter ones are little, if in anywise, superior ; while searches for the first newspaper accounts of the gold discovery have shown that, both in Melbourne and Geelong, the public files have been rifled of invaluable portions by the miserable meanness of some unknown thieves.

The future we have not essayed to divine. What the past and the present of our local history may do to enable the reader to speculate upon the future, each one must for himself determine, though the faith of the Ballarat of to-day in the Ballarat of the future may, we think, be more accurately inferred from the stable monuments of civic enterprise, and the many signs of mining, manufacturing, and rural industry around, than from the occasional forebodings of fear in seasons of depression. In less than two decades we have created a large city, built up great fortunes, laid the foundations of many commercial successes, and sown the seeds of yet undeveloped industries ; and those who have seen so much should not readily think that we are near the exhaustion of our resources, either in the precious minerals, or the still moi'e precious spirit of enterprise and industry necessary for the development of the wealth of nature around us. For the good done, and for the doers of the good, we may all be thankful, if not proud ; and, in proportion as we are thus moved, we may look with confident hope towards the future, whose uncertain years are lit up with the radiance of the past, and shaped to our vision by the promise of the present.

Among modest writers it is the fashion not only to write prefaces, but to excite attention to wonderful merit by apologies for defects. The present writer bums to be in the fashion. He

PREFACE TO FmST EDITION. XI

craves the indulgence of the reader in informing that important personage that the ordinary duties of a reporter on a daily morning paper are not luxuriously light, and that the compilation of the following narrative has been a refreshing appendage to the daily discharge of such ordinary duties, plus a bracing exercise of sub-editorial function. He has, no doubt, amply vindicated Bolingbroke's accurate apothegm, and especially in this preface. Both preface and narrative may be regarded as a verbose exaggeration of the importance of the subject. The answer to that is, that the writer has written mainly for those who know the place, and, knowing it, are proud of it ; for those who believe in the future in reserve for it, for the colony to which it belongs to-day, and for the empire of which it some day may be a not altogether unimportant portion.

In the City of York, where memory and fancy, busy with the records and the remains of the past, make of the softened lights and shadows and many-colored figures of mediaeval English history an inexpressible charm, the glorious Minster rises over all supreme in its solemn and saintly beauty. Whatever pilgrim there has studiously perused that marvellous " poem in stone" may have seen over one of the doorways the work of some loving and pious egotist in the following inscription : — " Ut rosa flos florum, sic tu es domus domorum." Let us be permitted, with similar egotism, if not with equal piety, to inscribe here, as over one of the portals of approach to one of the golden fields and cities of Victoria : — Ut aurum metallorum pretiosissimum, sic tu es camporum aureorum princeps, urbiumque opulentissima.

W. B. W.

Ballarat, 22nd June, 1870.

Preface To The Second Edition

This second edition was called for as the first was out of print, and this new issue and all the author's interest in the History are the sole property of the publishers. In transferring my rights to the publishers, I undertook to write what was deemed necessary to bring the narrative " up to date." To do this and supply some omissions from the first edition were, both, desirable, and the attempt has been carried out as far as the publishers' views as to space have permitted. How inadequate the realisation is, my repeated wails in the text admit as frankly as possible. Independently of the omissions from the first edition, the developments of the city and suburbs during the 17 years since 1870 involved so much matter that it was found impossible to deal with it all in a satisfactory manner within the space available ; but it is hoped that the leading events of the period have, at least, been in some way recognised. And even that could not have been done had it not been that the author, with some few exceptions, met everywhere the readiest will to assist him by supplying the official information required. In the body of the work these courtesies have been generally acknowledged, and I desire to repeat here my sense of indebtedness in that respect to very many citizens. It is not for me to judge how ill or well my part of the work has been done, but it may be permitted to me to say that the publishers and printers have finished their work in a manner that does credit to them and to the arts they represent. Mr. Niven has enriched the edition with many illustrations from his own pencil, and the photo-lithographs of official and other documents which give fac similes of those papers, bespeak the resources of the publishers' establishment. The apposite designs on the cover, and their engraving and printing, are all the product of the publishers' own office, and compare creditably with the work of old-world firms. The map of the mines, at page 232, has been prepared from surveys specially made by Mr. Bobert Allan, mining surveyor, and is a dooument d

PRRFAOR TO SECOND EDITION. XIU

interest and value. To Mr. Anderson, the head printer, I owe my thanks for many intelligent suggestions in the course of the revisal of proofs, and his vigilant eye detected some errors in Appendix A which had lain unnoticed ever since the issue of the edition of 1870. It is hoped that the present edition is nearly free from literal errors, but two or three have been noticed since the matter passed through the press. In the bottom line, page 61, the date 1855 should be 1854 ; in the heading to Chapter VI. '* representative charges" should be " representative changes ;" and in the bottom line, page 285, the date 1857 should be 1856.

A word to scholars, that they may not believe a lie. I am no Latinist. As a poor pavior on the high road of letters, I picked up some Roman teaser ce by the way side, and, to please my fancy and give bits of color and tone of reminiscence and meaning not else handy, inserted them here and there in the ruder work. Only that, my learned brothers of the great republic.

The writer of even so small a history as this, is but as the voice of one crying in a wilderness of facts and dates, in hope of reducing them in some sort to cosmic order. Like the life it essays to depict, history is only a drama, and the historian merely sets the scenes, and lifts the curtain, where else had been uncertainty or oblivion.

Our revels now are ended. The actors here, too, were all spirits. Many, as squatters Pettett, Waldie, Winter, Bacchus, one of the Learmonth's, besides a host of mining and civic pioneers, have melted into air since the first edition was issued. The veteran Thomas Hastie still lives at the Buninyong manse, and others still grace, or disgrace, with their corporal presence, the scenes of their exploits. There remain Humffray and Lalor, and, with other of Lalor's Stockade subalterns, the goldfinder Esmond. Humffray and Esmond are in the shallows, but Lalor, on whose " rebel" head a price was once set, floats proudly as the able and well-salaried Speaker of the Legislative Assembly. His political friends are not ashamed to plead for a retiring pension for him, after he has, for many years, been liberally paid for his services in a nominally pension-hating democracy ; whilst

XIV PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

Esmond, but for whose discovery Lalor might never have been here, has failed to get leave to earn State wages enough to keep the wolf from the door.

The fingers of change move swiftly. Whilst facts and figures have been shaping for the printers of this edition, the funerals of some of those who furnished the matter have passed by. Since the last chapter has been in type, the old mess-room of the civil and military officers of the Camp has been sold, and its materials have been removed piece-meal. Thirty years ago, the present Premier of Victoria stood in his blue serge shirt on the verandah of the house, and unsuccessfully tried to persuade his brother blue-shirts to return him, at that time, to the court then sitting there. " Rebel" bullets fell about the house during the ante-Stockade trouble, and then the vanquished victors of the Stockade sent representatives to sit in the mess-room as a Local Court, with Warden Sherard as first chairman, and thereafter, as long as the court lived, with the merry, brown-eyed Daly, and with the merrier and caustic Miskelly as the clerk for awhile. Ex-Chairman Sherard is still here, as Savings Bank actuary, but Daly and many others, who sat there a generation agone, are dead. The old historic house itself is now gone, too, and a free public library is to be built upon the site.

For myself, I now vanish for ever from this stage, to write

editions of this History no more — if this be history. But

though I now retire behind the scenes, so far as this work

is concerned, I shall not forget the play nor the leading

players. The largest portion of my life has been spent here, and

if there be any possibility of the realisation of such a sad conceit

as that of the Tudor Mary, who said Calais would be found

written upon her heart, the name of this beautiful city of Bal-

larat may be found written upon mine.

W. B. W.

Ballarat, 3rd August, 1887.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, PLANS, &c.

General View of Ballarat, 1887 ...

King Billy and Ballarat Tribe, 1850

Ballarat in 1852 from Mount Buninyong ...

Drays on the Road to the Diggings

Creswick Creek from Spring Hill, 1855 ...

Ballarat Flat, 1855, from Black Hill

The "Township" from Bath's hotel, 1855...

John Alloo's Restaurant, Main road, 1853

Deep Sinking, Bakery Hill, 1855

First Quartz Mill, Black Hill ...

Arrival of the Geelong Mail Coach

Gold-digging License ...

Business License

Arrival of Troops

Site of the Eureka Stockade

Government Notices

Pi'oclamations

Soldiers' and Diggers* Graves ...

The Stockade Memorial

Golden Point and Yarrowee Creek

First Horse Puddler

Band and Albion Consols Mine, 1887

Madame Berry Mine, 1887

Mining Plan of Ballarat

Mining Registrar's Old Office

View of Sturt street ...

Lake Wendouree

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TABLE OP CONTENTS

Chapter I. Ballarat Before The Gold Discovery

First Exploring Parties. — Mount Buninyong. — Mount Aitkin. — Ercildoun. — Ballarat. — Lake Burrumbeet Dry. — Settling Throughout the District. — First Wheat Grown. — First Flour Mill. — Founding of Buninyong. — A Wide Diocese. — Appearance of Ballarat. — The Natives. — Aboriginal Names. — The Squatters. — Premonitions of the Gold Discovery. 1 — 16

CHAPTER IL THE GOLD DISCOVERY.

California and the Ural. — Predictions of Australian Gold. — Discoveries of Old Bushmen. — ^Hargreaves and others in New South Wales. — Effects of Discovery at Bathurst. — Sir C. A. Fitz Roy*s Despatches. — First Assay. — Esmond and Hargreaves. — Esmond's Discovery at Clunes. — Previous Victorian Discoveries. — Esmond's the First Made Effectively Public. — Hiscock. — Golden Point, Ballarat.— Claims of Discoverers as to Priority. — Effects of the Discovery. — ^Mr. Latrobe's Despatches.; — His Visit to Ballarat. — The Licenses. — Change of Scene at Ballarat. — Mount Alexander Rush. — Fresh Excitements. — Rise in Prices. ... 17 — 45

CHAPTER in.

FROM THE GOLD DISCOVERY TO THE YEAR OF THE EUREKA

STOCKADE.

Great Aggregations of Population. — Opening up of Golden Grounds. — A Digger's Adventures. — Character of the Population. — Dates of Local Discoveries. — Ballarat Township Proclaimed. — ^First Sales of Land. — Bath's Hotel. — First Public Clock. — Tatham's and Brooksbank's Recollections. — Primitive Stores, Offices, and Conveyances. — Woman a Phenomenon. — First Women at Ballarat. — Curious Monetary Devices. — First Religious

XVm TABLE OP CONTENTS.

Services. — Churches. — Newspapers. — Theatres. — Lawyers. — First Courts. — Capture of Roberts, the Nelson Robber. — Nuggets. — Golden Gutters. — Thirty or Forty Thousand Persons Located. ... 46 — 71

CHAPTER IV.

DIGGER HUNTING.

The Gold License. — ^Taxation Without Representation. — Unequal Inci dence of the Tax. — Episodes of Digger Hunting. — Irritating Method of Enforcing the Tax. — Suspicions of Corruption among the Magistrates and Police. — Visit of Sir Charles and Lady Hotham. — Big Larry. — Roff s Recollections. — Reform League. — Murder of Scobie. — Acquittal of Bentley. — Dewes Suspected. — Mass Meetings. — Burning of Bentley's Hotel. — Irwin's Narrative. — Arrest of Fletcher, M *Intyre, and Westerby. — Re-arrest of Bentley. — Conviction of Bentley. — Rich's Experiences. — Conviction of Fletcher, M'Intyre, and Westerby. — ^Demand for their Liberation. — Increased Excitement. — Fdte to the American Consul. — Foster. — Sir Charles - Hotham. — Arrival of Troops. — Troops Assaulted. — Bakery Hill Meeting.— Southern Cross Flag. — Burning the j^icenses. ••. ... ... ••• ... ,,, / ju .to

CHAPTER V.

THE EUREKA STOCKADE.

The Last Digger Hunt. — Collision between the Diggers and Military and Police. — Southern Cross Flag again. — Lalor and his Companions Armed, kneel, and swear Mutual Defence. — Irwin's Account. — Carboni Raffaello. — His Pictures of the Times and the Men. — More Troops Arrive. — The Diggers Extend their Organisation Under Arms. — Lalor "Commander-in-Chief." — Forage and Impressment Parties. — Original Documents. — Shots Fired from the Camp. — The Stockade Formed. — Narrative of a Government Officer in the Camp. — Attack by the Military and Taking of the Stockade. — ^Various Accounts of the Time. — Rafiaello's Description. — Other Tragic Pictures. — First Stone House. — Bank of Victoria Fortified. — ^A Soldier's Story. — ^List of the Killed. — Burials. — Rewards Offered for the Insurgent Leaders. — Their Hiding and Escape. — Charge Against A. P. Akehurst. — Proclamation of Martial Law. — ^Feeling in Melbourne. — Foster's Resignation. — Deputation of Diggers. — Humfiray Arrested. — Vote of Thanks to the Troops. — Legislative Council's Address to the Governor. — His Reply. — Prisoners at the Ballarat Police Court. — Royal Commission of Enquiry. — ^Trial and Acquittal of the State Prisoners. — Humfi&'ay. — Lalor 's and his Captain's Hiding Place and Peculiarities.—

TABLE OF CONTENTS. XIX

Cost of the Straggle. — Compensation Meeting at the Stockade. — Raffaello there Selling his Book. — Subsequent Celebrations. — Soldiers' and Diggers' Monuments. — The Burial Places. — The Insurgent Flag. — Death of Sir Charles Hotham. — Hotham and Foster Vindicated. ... 97 — 163

CHAPTER VI.

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT.

Ballarat Politically Active and Influential. — New Constitution. — Humffray and Lalor Elected. — Their Addresses. — Humffray in Trouble. — Lalor on Democracy. — Lalor on the Star, — The Grand Trunk Affair. — Petition for a Private Property Mining Law. — Neglect by the Parliaments of Mining Interests. — Probable Causes. — New PoliticalJ)emands. — ^Votes of Lalor and Humffray.— Burial Expenses of Governor Hotham. — O'Shanassy Chief Secretary. — Haines Succeeds, with M*Culloch as Commissioner of Customs. — O'Shanassy in Power Again. — Nicholson Cabinet. — Succeeded by Heales, with Humfi^y as First Minister of Mines.— O'Shanassy in Power Again.— Succeeded by M*Culloch. — ^The Tariff. — Re-call of Governor Darling. — Darling Grant Crisis. — Death of Governor Darling.— Grant to his Widow and Family. — Sladen Ministry. — M*Culloch in Power Again. —Representative Changes. — Jones Declared Corrupt. — Defeats Vale. — The Macpherson Ministry. — Its Resignation. — Macgregor's Failure. — M*Culloch and Macpherson in Office Together. — Michie Elected for Ballarat West. — First Berry Government. — M'CuUoch in Power Again. — Joseph Jones, Minister of Railways. — Major Smith in the Second and Third Berry Governments. — His "Merry Millions." — His Breach with Berry. — Ballarat Sticks to him. — C. E. Jones Returned Again. — He and his Tribune, — R. T. Vale and Jones beat Bell and Fincham. — Ballarat East Candidates : their Ups and Downs. — James, Minister of Mines, Loses his. Seat, and Leaves Political Life. — Council Elections. — Wanliss Petitions Against Gore's Return. — A Local Self- Government Paroxysm. — Local Court. — Mining Board. — Court of Mines. — Local Courts Wrongly Constituted. — Mining Boards. — Judge Rogers and Black Wednesday. — One Code of Mining Law Required. — Valuable Services of the Earlier Courts and Boards. ... ... 164 — 192

CHAPTER VII.

DEVELOPMENT OF MINING.

Block and Frontage Claims. — Some Early Diggers. — Election Excitements. — Opposition to Extended Areas. — Such Opposition a Mistake. — Present Areas. — Progress of Mining Discoveries. — Increased Operative Difficul-

XX TABLE OF CONTENTS.

ties. — Introduction of Machinery. — Luck in Digging. — Mining Agreements and Litigation. — The Egerton Case. — The Clunes Riot. — The Browns Leases. — Pleasant Creek Jumps. — Stink Pots. — Private Property Leases and Law. — Foreign Capital. — Sebastopol Drainage. — Prospecting Board. — Koh-i-Noor, Band and Albion Consols, Llanberris, and Black Hill Quartz Companies. — The Kingston Alluvial Field. — Gold Returns and Mining Statistics. — Pre-eminence of the Ballarat District. — Westgarth on the Purity of Ballarat Gold. — Assays of Ballarat Nuggets. — Table of Nugget Dates, Weights, and Localities. — Sebastopol Plateau Revival. — Increasing Proportion of Quartz Gold. — The Future to be Chiefly Quartz Mining.— The Comer.— A Great Transition. 193—238

CHAPTER VIII.

THE TOWN OF BALLARAT.

Area and Population of Ballarat. — Great Mining Collapse. — Municipal Statistics of Ballarat West, Ballarat East, and Sebastopol. — Water Supply. — Lake Wendouree. — Yacht and Rowing Clubs. — Hospital. — Benevolent Asylum. — Orphan Asylum. — Female Refuge. — Ladies' Benevolent Society. — Roman Catholic and Anglican Dioceses. — Churches. — State and Church Schools — School of Mines. — Museum — Observatory. —Public Art Gallery.— The Stoddart Gift.— The Russell Thompson Bequest. — The Burns Statue. — Other Statues Projected. — Typography. — Photography. — Lithography. — Public Libraries. — Mechanics' Institute. — Academy of Music. —Eisteddfod. — Cambrian Society. — Musical Societies. — Agricultural and Horticultural Societies. — Iron Foundries. — Implement Factories. — Woollen Mills. — Coachbuilding. — FJour Mills. — Bone Mills. — Breweries. — Distilleries. — Cordial Factories. — Bacon Factories. — Tanneries. — Boot Factories. — Juvenile Industrial Exhibition. — Fire Brigades. — Volunteers and Militia. — Gas Company. — Banks. — Recreation Reserves. — Cricket and Football Clubs. — Hunt, Race, Coursing, and Gun Clubs. — Roller Skating Rinks. — Acclimatisation, Caledonian, and Hibernian Societies. — Reformatory. — Hope Lodge. — Railways. — Tramways. —Public Offices. — Public Halls. — Gaol and Court House. — Camp. — Last of the Military. — Explorers' Monument. — Queen's Jubilee and Old Pioneers. — Electric Telegraph and Telephone. — Rainfall and Temperature. — Henry Sutton. — Local Journalism. — Royal and Other Visitors. — Reminiscences. — Past and Present Contrasts. ... 239 — 328 i

HISTORY OF BALLARAT.

CHAPTER I.

BALLARAT BEFORE THE GOLD DISCOVERV.

ir U111.— FoundiiD; of Uuninyont,-.~A Wide Diocese. - Appmninre ot Ballaiit.-The Lv-es.— AhorigiDHl Nsines.-The Squatters. -Pi-emonitloTis of the Gold Discovery.

( A L L A R A T is one of tlie wonders of tliis century. Young in years its mutations have been many and rapid, and its marvellous progress has given to it n seeming antiquity beyond its urban years. Our task is to trace I outline of the rise and pi-ogress of this , golden city. This task takes us back to SyjJI days that seem, in the swift inarch of colonial events, to belong already to a remote antiquity, Wliile the sailor- King William IV. was but newly buried, and Queen Victoria was still an uncix)wned maiden ; while only a few rude liuts, sprinkled about the still uncleared slopes and gullies, failed to scare away the native animals that haunted the bush where the City of Melbourne now stands ; while the pleasant borders of the Bay of Corio, where Geelong is to-day, were not graced by a single house, but only bore on their silent slopes a few scatt«red tents, a small band of settlers started from the Corio shore to explore the unknown country to the north-west. This was in the month of August, 1837. The party comprised Mr. Thomas Livingstone LearuiontI) ; Mr, D'Arcy, a surveyor ; Dr. Thompson, late of Geelong ; Mr. David Fisher, then maiutger of the Derwent

Company, Tasmania ; Captain Hutton, of the Bast India Company's Service; and Mr. Henry Anderson. With them they took suitable equipment and provisions. From Bellpost Hill they saw in the distance, north-westward, a mount, to which they directed their course, steering their way by compass, and thus they arrived at and ascended Mount Buninyong. From the Mount the explorers saw fine country to the north-westward, Lake Burrumbeet, and the distant ranges of the Pyrenees and the Grampians. An ocean of forest, with island hills, was all around them, but not a speck visible that spoke to them of civilisation. But the promising landscape drew the explorers on westward and north-westward. They descended the Mount, the party divided, their compass-bearings were not well kept, the provision-cart failed to be at the appointed rendezvous, and thus, broken into sections, the explorers found their way back to the coast, some of them unable to find their provisions, and therefore fasting by the way.