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.
San Francisco Fire of 1851 San Francisco Fire of 1851 The San Francisco Fire of 1851 (May 3–4, 1851) was a catastrophic conflagration that destroyed as much as three-quarters of San Francisco, California. During the height of the California Gold Rush, between December 1849 and June 1851, San Francisco endured a sequence of seven bad fires, of which this was the sixth and by far the most damaging. In terms of property value, it did three times as much damage as the next most destructive of the seven fires. Around 11 pm on the night of May 3, 1851, a fire (possibly arson) broke out