Volume 01: Production and resources of the northern and western districts of New South Wales, 1854 [ca. 1850-1857] - Page 574
You are here
Primary tabs
Transcription
22
THE WHITE HILLS OF BENDIGO
The system of second bottoming next attracted general attention, and this involved the question whether there [there] were richer auriferous treasures to be found than they were working. Whether gold would be found in remunerating quantities beneath the pipe clay, Sandstone, and slate floors from which it had hitherto been gathered. The question of Second layers of golden deposits agitated the gold fields & there was a great diversity of opinions regarding it. Many had gone forty or fifty feet through the pipe clay Some came upon occasional layers of soft Sandstone, others had blasted through sand rock, while another party found large veins of small quartz & ferruginous stones intersecting the clay and amidst which substances they discovered gold some twenty or thirty feet from the original bottom. This was the greatest distance in which gold had been found embedded in pipe clay.
CHALK HILLS BENDIGO DIGGINGS.
Experienced men were working on a range of hills which extend for several miles down the Bendigo and northwards with very great success - They are known as the chalk hills - On these shafts have been sunk to depths from ten to fifty feet. Great labour was bestowed in sinking in as much as solid masses of Conglomerate quartz & Sandstone were gone through to the thickness of twenty feet. The work was so difficult that experienced miners seldom sink more than two feet daily & blasting is frequently resorted to. Underneath this hard strata is the stuff which contains the gold which is compound of fine powdered quartz and laying on a bed of chalk in thickness varying from one to eighteen inches which yields on an average six ounces of gold to the cart load. The hills here described are very extensive and will furnish ample scope for the diggers for years to come. The flats which were at first neglected were now dug up, and very large quantities of gold were taken from them. From one claim two young men obtained 52 lbs another
nine pounds in one day and from another twenty eight pounds this last was sold for £4 per ounce. Several pieces were found varying from an ounce to several pounds any thing under ten or twenty pounds was not taken notice of. One party on the chalk hills obtained in
a short time one hundred & twenty pounds weight of gold amongst four, and many in the Same locality have got from twenty to sixty lbs of gold in the Course of two months.
WHITE HORSE GULLY 1852
This gully is celebrated for monster nuggets of gold found in it. In October 1852 a monster nugget or rather a bar of gold was got in this gully weighing forty seven pounds, another weighing twenty eight pounds, & one weighing twenty four pounds. The monster bar weighing 47 lb nine ounces was struck with a pick about foot under ground while the men were surfacing. It was rugged in appearance, not bright but like a lump of ironstone with the edges dotted with gold. It is thicker at one end than the other and about a foot long. An eye witness describes it "When I got news I saw a man asking something in a bucket, which appeared to be a lump of burnt clay. Close inspection Soon revealed what it really was. the man was washing the dirt off with a shoe brush previous to depositing with the Commissioner for transmission by escort. The party without looking to see if there was any more gold near it brought it in a cart to the Commissioners rolled up in a rug and blanket and sold their claim [?] to the owner of the Cart. It is the largest lump Yet found in Victoria.