A short account of the late discoveries of Gold in Australia;

With notes of a visit to the Gold District. London; T. & W. Boone; 1851. First Edition. Octavo, contemporary calf-backed cloth boards, armorially stamped; pp. [ii], 102 (last blank); folding map (partially hand-coloured, a little toned) showing the location of the goldfields; (first four leaves slightly foxed; otherwise fine and clean); top edge gilt, others uncut; a very good copy. Rare.

The first eyewitness account of the goldfields.

Erskine, better known for his Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific, visited Australia in 1851 and wrote this account of the discovery of gold in New South Wales on his passage back to England. He made a personal excursion to the new discoveries, or diggings, as he refers to them at Summer-hill Creek and the Turon River. His dated notes of this journey form the appendix to this volume which commences with a brief account of the earliest discoveries of the 1820s and earlier, and continues with a detailed account of the discoveries from the late 1840s onwards. The map is adapted from Mitchell’s map and information from H.M.S. Acheron and drawn up by Captain John Lort Stokes for the Author. This was the first eyewitness account of the goldfields and is particularly rare in this first edition. A second edition was published in 1852; this is also of considerable rarity.

Ferguson 9461 (collation inaccurate).

Provenance :

Sir William Stirling, noted historian, politician and collector, his bookplate to front pastedown, and with a typewritten summary of his life loosely inserted.

Australian Book Auctions, 2005