Page:Rambles in Australia (IA ramblesinaustral00grewiala).pdf/177

 But in Ballarat, both east and west, there is a profitable field for further development. After having been well fortified with lunch, our host of the day took us off to see a gold mine.

We motored through the handsome main street of Ballarat, noting with surprise the number of very large and important drapers' shops, with their impressive expanse of plate glass. They were all having what they called "clean up sales," and we wondered how a population of about 42,000 could possibly support them, till our chauffeur, who was also the owner of the car, explained that Ballarat was the metropolis for the whole surrounding agricultural neighbourhood of the mines. On the way we passed through old Ballarat, the driver jumping a gutter with surprising skill. Old Ballarat is a wonderful, ramshackle-looking place, run up anyhow in the early days of the gold rush, when fortunes were made in other ways besides digging, and a "pannikin of rum" fetched an ounce of gold. It had the air of Earl's Court after the season, when the exhibition is shut; the houses were of all shapes and sizes, and the arcades over the pavement were the only concession to convenience.

Gold-mining, like all other forms of mining, is an untidy process, and we presently came to rough, shapeless patches of irregular yellow