Page:Advanced Australia.djvu/73

 colony forward by leaps and bounds, attracting population from all parts of the world. I cannot retell that old story, but let it be stated that from that time to the present over 63,000,000 ounces of gold have been produced in the colony, of the value of £250,000,000, and gold production is still going on at the rate of 800,000 ounces a year. Bendigo is the main gold-producing centre, after Ballarat; having a record of some fifty odd millions sterling. It has been frequently alleged that Lord Salisbury was once a digger on the Bendigo goldfield, and it is undoubtedly a fact that he visited the colony in the height of the gold fever. Some few years ago a colonist wrote to the Prime Minister on the subject, and received a reply stating that Lord Robert Cecil certainly visited the colony, and that he journeyed to the goldfield, and stayed there as a guest of a Government officer. But his residence, unfortunately for the tradition, was for a few days only; and he could have seen little of the practical side of mining. Bendigo is a most important provincial centre, having a population, as we have seen, of about 40,000. The deepest gold mine in the world is in this district; Mr Lansell, a wealthy and public-spirited mine owner, having sunk a shaft to a depth of 3350 feet, practically two-thirds of a mile, and at that great depth the mine is still auriferous. There are eleven other mines in Bendigo which have been sunk over 2400 feet—five of them are down to the 3000 feet level and over; and mining will probably be possible at 4000 feet, so far as the heat of the rock is concerned. There are many other private mine owners in Victoria, though Mr Lansell is by far the most successful and best known. The industry, so far, has been carried on, fortunately for the colony, as is the case with Queensland mining, almost entirely with locally-provided capital. The Victorian bred manager is perhaps rather given to the rule-of-thumb,