Australian gold rushes a £1,000 reward as "the first actual producer of alluvial gold for the market". The following goldfields were discovered in New South Wales during July 1851: On 20 July 1851 gold was found near present-day Castlemaine, Victoria (Mt Alexander Goldfields) at Specimen Gully in today's Castlemaine suburb of Barkers Creek. The gold was first found by Christopher Thomas Peters, a shepherd and hut-keeper on the Barker's Creek, in the service of William Barker. When the gold was shown in the men's quarters Peters was ridiculed for finding fool's gold, and the gold was thrown away. Barker did not want his
Gold mining in the United States Mountains of southwest Oregon in 1850, starting a rush to the area. Lode gold deposits were also discovered. Travellers along the Oregon Trail bound for the Willamette Valley are said to have discovered gold in northeastern Oregon in 1845, but mining in earnest did not begin until 1861. About of gold was produced from the Cornwall iron mine five miles south of Lebanon, Lebanon County, Pennsylvania. Although the deposit produced iron since 1742, no gold was reported from the mine until 1878. South Carolina had a number of lode gold mines along the Carolina Slate Belt. The Haile deposit was