The covers are lightly shelf worn, else a clean, unmarked and solid copy. 156 pages, indexed, illustrtaed. "During Christmas in 1851 there were 800 people on the Bendigo field, by the following June 20,000 diggers had arrived. The diggers travelled from all over the world and risked everything to make a living (and, if they were lucky, a fortune) from gold mining in Bendigo. Margaret Kennedy's discovery sparked a gold rush that would leave Bendigo with a history of being one of the richest producers of gold in the world, yielding over 700,000kg between 1851-1954 (which would be worth about $30 billion in today's prices). Bendigo was literally built on gold and is still known today as 'Dai Gum San' or 'Big Gold Mountain' by the Chinese.....Bendigo of the 1940s - the heyday of Central Deborah Gold Mine - was a very different place to the one we all experience today. Former Central Deborah Gold Mine Manager, Ray Beer, remembered the Bendigo of his childhood as "streets that literally flowed with gold." "The streets around Bendigo were all dirt back then. After a good rain, in just about any gutter, you could pan for gold. We used to do well out of it too, enough to buy our drinks, lollies and comic books. For those of us who came from large families we would give a bit back to our mothers." The downfall? When the wind blew there was dirt everywhere, you couldn't keep it out of the house. You ate dirt, you drank dirt, you slept with dirt in your bed. (Bendigo Golden Heritage)