vein of quartz, in some places a pure white, in others stained red, ran down the cutting. Whilst looking about for a few moments, I saw the glitter of gold in the clay; quickly extricating my prize, I set up a shout of triumph, but was disgusted to find I had been deceived by a small fragment of spar, to which a yellowish lustre was imparted by the clay in which it was imbedded. My guide assured me that the clay contained no gold whatever: and although the quartz paid very well for stamping, yet it was useless to expect to see the gold in the rock. We now followed to the mouth of the pit a train of trucks loaded with quartz; here the ore was tilted down a shoot which at once brings it under the hammer of the crushing machine: this consists of sixty hammers, (each 7 cwt.), alternately rising and falling into a closed chest or trough, the front of which is composed of plates of metal, perforated with holes of different sizes: these chests contain mercury to form an amalgam for the gold: the hammers incessantly falling with a crash that shakes the wooden sheds and offices, crush the quartz and send it flying in all directions; the waters and the particles small enough to escape through the perforations fly out and escape, the rest falls back and is thus passed again and again under the hammer until crushed into an impalpable powder, from which all the gold has been drawn by the action of the mercury. The quartz, now reduced to powder, mixes with the water and flows out from the chest down an inclined plane and so escapes; ledges are fixed at different parts of the incline to break the flow of the stream, and the plane is laid with baize to entangle any finer particles that may have escaped. The deposit is collected several times a day, and exposed to the action of mercury; after which it may fairly be concluded very little gold escapes.

In some works the quartz is calcined before being crushed, but this is the only process I have omitted to mention in the foregoing account.

We now proceeded to the Band of Hope alluvial diggings, which lay upon the other side of the town. We drove through a bare plain with nothing but the unsightly sheds of the different workings to relieve the view; each shed was of wood with a great lop-sided tower, also of wood, rising out of the midst. Our guide introduced us to the manager, who asked us to liquor before seeing the works. This is an indispensable preliminary to all colonial business. Thus in the course of our visit, we liquored on this our first introduction; we afterwards drove some miles to another

working where we again liquored; upon our return to the Band of Hope we again liquored; we inspected the works and again liquored, and one of the party told me he had had a private liquor on the sly. A liquor is conducted after this manner: the party walk up to the counter and one says "I shout; What will you take?"-then you ask for brandy and water, sherry, &c. (never for beer) as you feel disposed. Our guide now took us up a rickety set of steps.

At the top we found ourselves on a raised part of the floor of a long shed with the mouth of the pit a few feet before us, whilst beyond was the machinery for hoisting up the men and ore (if the wet masses of dirty blue sand and pebbles that came up in the buckets can be called ore). The process of cleansing was very summary. The most prominent objects in the large room we were in were three large cisterns like mash tubs; the ore was tipped into these, mixed with water and stirred by harrows drawn round and round by horse power; the lighter sand was carried away and the whole well washed. After a certain time the water is drawn off and the mud scraped out and thrown into a trough or shoot. A strong stream of water is directed down this shoot and carries away the pebbles and much of the sand, the larger pebbles. are carried different distances down the trough, whilst the gold immediately sinks to the bottom in consequence of its great specific gravity.

This process is carried on for six hours: by that time the trough is filled with quartz pebbles and white sand, whilst at the top of the shoot a light yellow spot gleams through the water. In this spot is collected nearly the whole result of the work of the mine for the last six hours.

The mass of pebbles is vigorously raked over and over to get rid of all the sand and mud, the water is then turned off, and the contents of the trough shovelled into a pierced iron plate which acts as a sieve to retain all the larger pebbles: little escapes but gold and a metal, called mundick, of nearly the same specific gravity as goid. The mass is now stirred about by a magnet to which any particles of iron &c. adhere, and the remnant is taken to a furnace to be thoroughly dried. We followed to see the final process: in a few minutes the result of six hours mining in the shape of a number of drops of gold about the size of shot reappeared shining in virgin beauty. Even now it is not quite purified: a vessel, like a frying-pan with wide sides and a deep lip going right to the bottom is produced. The metal is shaken in this until the mundick (being of less specific gravity) is collected on the

outside of the mass; from time to time the workman blows out the refuse over the lip of the vessel until nothing but gold is left. The yield is then weighed, registered, sealed up, and taken to the bank. The Band of Hope employed 250 men, and the yield for the day was £400: the largest nugget, in size and shape not unlike the top of a man's little finger, was worth about £20 or £25; the cost of raising the gold was about £250, leaving a very fair profit which enabled the company to pay a dividend of 5 per cent. per mensem. This was an instance of a fair day's work on a successful mine ;-we afterwards visited another where all the visible result of the expenditure of £18,000 was a tall enginehouse and an unceasing stream of brackish water.

There is not much to be seen by descending into the mine: we met one party who had been exceedingly fortunate, for they had just hit the moment when a rich pocket of gold had been discovered, one of them described the narrow seam which had once been the bed of the river running like a band along the side of the working; and at one particular spot the nuggets stood so thickly clustered together in the clay, that, in the liberality consequent upon the first moments of surprise, the manager scratched them out with the point of a clasp knife and presented one to each of the party.

Round each mine an extensive piece of land is always covered with the sandy refuse from the workings: round its edges are pitched many small gipsy tents, whilst near at hand are crowds of Chinamen hard at work re-washing the refuse. So careless is the process of separating the gold that many of these fellows make a comfortable livelihood out of the gold they get in this way, whilst some are lucky enough to find a prize: still oftener however a poor fellow is found dead in his tent of starvation and hope deferred. Still crowds of Chinese flock to the gold metropolis. One of the most interesting street sights of Melbourne is a number of the fellows just after they have left the emigrant ship; away they go, their bright beady eyes glistening; their tails knotted up round the head; their tongues jabbering in spite of the single file they march in. All their goods are slung in a couple of square lidless boxes hung at the ends of a stout bamboo resting on the right shoulder, and giving to the spring of their motion as they trot along. We now returned to Ballarat, and having left a valuable deposit in gold, in payment of our hotel bill, we returned to Melbourne by the last train.

IN MEMORIAM G. A. P.

He has gone to his grave in the strength of youth,
While life shone bright before him:

And we, who remember his worth and truth,
Stand vainly grieving o'er him.

He has gone to his grave! That manly heart
No more with life is glowing;

And the tears to our eyes unbidden start,
Our sad hearts' overflowing.

I gaze on his rooms as beneath I pace,
And the past again comes o'er me,
For I feel his grasp, and I see his face,
And his voice has a welcome for me.

I gaze on the river, and see once more
His form in the race competing;
And I hear the time of his well-known oar,
And the shouts his triumph greeting.

Flow on, cold river! Our bitter grief
No tear from thy waves can waken:

Thy whisp'ring reed, and thy willow leaf
By no sad sighs are shaken.

Thy banks are thronged by the young and gay,
Who dream not of the morrow;

But thou hast no ear for a mournful lay,

No sympathy with sorrow.

Flow on, dull river! Thy heedless wave,
As it echoes shouts of gladness,

Bears forms as stalwart, and hearts as brave,
As his whom we mourn in sadness.

But an arm more strong, and a heart more bold,
And with purer feelings glowing,

Thy flowing waters shall ne'er behold,

Till time has ceased from flowing.

"MEMOR."

OUR CHRONICLE.

SINCE the appearance of our last number, death has carried away G. A. Paley, Esq. M.A., of this College.

Those of us who remember his athletic figure, and his genial countenance, will find it hard to believe that we shall see him no more. We believe that his death was caused by Typhus fever. Mr. Paley graduated in 1860 as a Senior Optime. He was well known as an eminent oarsman, in the days when Cambridge boats were generally successful. He rowed as No. 2 in the Lady Margaret 1st boat (1857), when it kept its place at the head of the river: he was bow of a winning Cambridge crew at Henley, in 1858; and he was No. 7 of the crew which sunk at Chiswick in 1859. In the same year he won the Colquhoun Sculls, and was 1st Captain of the L.M.B C.

But we would not speak of him here merely as an eminent oarsman. No man in his day has ever been more loved and respected in this College than George Paley. No one ever heard a harsh or ungenerous word come from his lips; no one ever heard him speak or act in a manner unworthy of a gentleman and a Christian.

High and noble qualities like his ought to be as great a source of pride to a College, as the achievement of the highest intellectual honours; and in these days, when perhaps undue importance is attached to mere intellectual ability, it may be well for us to be reminded that a man may pass his time up here without gaining any very high distinctions, and yet, by the example which he sets, produce a good influence amongst us, and be held in remembrance and honour by all who have known him.

The events of the past Term which call for notice here have been but few. The first which we have to chronicle is the unexpected death of the Master of Trinity. Away from the University, his name was that which was always referred to as the representative one of the place, and his death will leave a gap which will not easily be supplied. The Rev. W. H. Thompson, M.A., Regius Professor of Greek, and Canon of Ely, has been nominated by the Crown