Australian gold rushes The specimens have been subjected to the most rigid test by Mr Patterson, in the presence of other competent parties, and he pronounced them to be beyond any possibility of doubt pure gold...The particulars of the precise location, with Esmond's consent, was published in the "Geelong Advertiser" on 22 July 1851. Publication of Esmond's find started the first official gold rush in Victoria in that same month. By 1 August between 300 and 400 diggers were encamped on the Clunes Goldfield, but soon moved to other fields as news of other gold discoveries spread. Esmond was in 1854 to receive
Fraser Canyon Gold Rush the gold-bearing sandbars of the Fraser were depleted. Many of the miners had either drifted back to the U.S. or dispersed further into the British Columbia wilderness in search of unstaked riches. Other gold rushes proliferated around the colony, with notable gold rushes at Rock Creek, the Similkameen, Wild Horse Creek and the Big Bend of the Columbia River spinning immediately off the Fraser rush, and gold exploration soon after led to the Omineca Gold Rush and the Stikine Gold Rush, which led to the creation of the Stikine Territory to the colony's north. The Fort Colville Gold Rush in