When We Come To Consider How Many Prospectors Pass Over Gold,
It Is Not So Wonderful That Explorers, Whose Business Is To See As Much
Country As They Can, In As Short A Time As Possible, Should Have Failed To
Drop On The Hidden Wealth.
Bayley and Ford, its first discoverers, were by no means the first
prospectors to camp at Coolgardie.
In 1888 Anstey and party actually found
colours of gold, and pegged out a claim, whose corner posts were standing
at the time of the first rush; but nobody heeded them, for the quartz was
not rich enough.
In after years George Withers sunk a hole and "dry blew" the wash not very
far from Bayley's, yet he discovered no gold. Macpherson, too, poked out
beyond Coolgardie, and nearly lost his life in returning, and, indeed, was
saved by his black-boy, who held him on the only remaining horse.
Other instances could be given, all of which show that Nature will not be
bustled, and will only divulge her secrets when the ordained time has
arrived. It has been argued that since Giles, for example, passed the
Coolgardie district without finding gold, therefore there is every
probability of the rest of the country through which he passed being
auriferous. It fails to occur to those holding this view, that a man may
recognise possible gold-bearing country without finding gold, or to read
the journals of these early travellers, in which they would see that the
Desert is plainly demarcated, and the change in the nature of the country,
the occurrence of quartz, and so forth, always recorded.
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