Leading mining historian Kerby Jackson introduces us to a classic mining publication on the gold mining history of Australia. First published in 1852, it has been unavailable since those days and sheds important light on Australia's gold mining history. Included are rare communications between British agents and the British Crown when gold was first discovered in Australia in 1851. This rare text contains hard to find details on Australia's first mining camps and Britain's early attempts to provide for the orderly regulation of gold mines in that part of the world. Also of interest are hard to find extracts of articles that appeared in the early colonial newspapers that did their best to report on Australia's gold rush as it took place. Note: This edition is a perfect facsimile of the original edition and is not set in a modern typeface. As such, some type characters and images might suffer from slight imperfections or minor shadows in the page background.