[For Amanda Witt] In February 1869 this irregular
object resembled an evening cloud. That its
substance attracts greed never ceases to amaze. Were its substance earth it
would be ploughed back in. Ice, it would melt by mid-morning. Fire, it would be
next second some other shape. In the
eighteen-eighties Melbourne was the wealthiest city in the world. These claims
come and go, fickle as climate, unpredicted and subject to conjecture.
Two blokes pranged, by chance, into this
irregular object. It glistered and shaded just below the surface, an evening
clod of unsurpassed dimension. Dirt lumps fell out of ledges.
A wood engraving of the Welcome Stranger published in The Illustrated Australian News for Home Reader on 1 March 1869. The scale bar across the bottom represents 12 inches (30 cm)
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