No other mineral can excite the world in the way gold does. In 1851 gold was discovered near Bathurst in New South Wales setting off a series of gold rushes that attracted fortune seekers from around the world. When the rush spread to the infant colony of Victoria the continent was transformed. Here we see how the power of the pastoralists and squatters was broken by a new class of people whose wealth was not based on landholdings or an accident of birth. This is the story of how gold changed the face of the Australian colonies to build a new and prosperous nation.