Australian gold rushes 5000 ounces (57 kg). In January 1851, before Hargraves' find of gold in February 1851 at Ophir near Orange in New South Wales which started the first Australian gold rush, George Hermann Bruhn had left Melbourne to explore the mineral resources of the countryside of Victoria. On his trek Bruhn found, on a date unknown, indications of gold in quartz about 2 miles (3 km) from Edward Stone Parker's station at Franklinford (between Castlemaine and Daylesford). After leaving Parker's station Bruhn arrived at Donald Cameron's station at Clunes in April 1851. Cameron showed Bruhn samples of the gold that had
Gold rush Sierra Nevada, which captured the popular imagination. The California gold rush led directly to the settlement of California by Americans and the rapid entry of that state into the union in 1850. The gold rush in 1849 stimulated worldwide interest in prospecting for gold, and led to new rushes in Australia, South Africa, Wales and Scotland. Successive gold rushes occurred in western North America: Fraser Canyon, the Cariboo district and other parts of British Columbia, in Nevada, in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, eastern Oregon, and western New Mexico Territory and along the lower Colorado River. Resurrection Creek,