Victorian gold rush in the Melbourne "Argus" on 8 September 1851, leading to a rush to the Mount Alexander or Forest Creek diggings, centred on present-day Castlemaine, claimed as the richest shallow alluvial goldfield in the world. These discoveries were soon surpassed by Ballarat and Bendigo. Further discoveries including Beechworth in 1852, Bright, Omeo, Chiltern (1858–59) and Walhalla followed. The population of Melbourne grew swiftly as the gold fever took hold. The total number of people in Victoria also rose. By 1851 it was 75,000 people. Ten years later this rose to over 500,000. Surface alluvial gold was the first to be exploited.
New South Wales gold rush the Fish River discovery, a man named Edward Hargraves discovered a 'grain of gold' in a billabong near Bathurst in 1851. Edward returned to New South Wales from the Californian goldfields where he was unfortunately unsuccessful. Hargraves decided to begin searching for gold in the state of New South Wales. The geological features of the country around Bathurst, with its quartz outcrops and gullies, seemed similar to those of the Californian fields. In February 1851, Hargraves and his guide, John Lister, set out on horseback with a pan and rocking-cradle, to Lewis Ponds Creek, a tributary of the Macquarie River