Volume 01: Production and resources of the northern and western districts of New South Wales, 1854 [ca. 1850-1857] - Page 535
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NEW SOUTH WALES.
STONEY CREEK GOLD FIELD
WELLINGTON DISTRICT
JULY 9th 1856
This gold field is situated on the road to Mookerwa (Muckerawa) & is about 35 miles from Orange in Wellington District. This is the richest gold field ever discovered in New South Wales, and will answer gold finders of Small capital, from the richness of the surface diggings, & the slight depth of Sinking required to come at the gold deposits. This gold field may justly be termed the poor mans diggings.
There are at present twelve hundred diggers at work, either in sinking shafts or surfacing upon the ridges, and it is considered that there is room for twelve thousand diggers.
The whole country which is hilly and abounds in gullies, is covered with stringy bark trees and box wood, and is said to resemble the country about Forest Creek in Victoria in its formation and appearance. At this field the whole of the earth from the grass to the bottom consists of a kind of rotten soft slate, and shaft sinking at present is confined to about nine feet, the shallow or surfacing to about two feet. The Yield is astonishing, and already vies with the richest of the Victorian gold fields. Some diggers are obtaining twenty ounces of gold in a day, & this continues with them for days together. One hundred ounces were taken out of three adjoining claims in one day, the gold being nuggety [nuggetty] and weighing from 1 to 18 ounces. The surface diggings contain more or less of he precious metal, yielding in many places one ounce to the bucket of earth with occasional nuggets of greater weight, small specks are also seen amidst the grass on the surface of the earth. At Golden gully the sinking is shallow & the diggings may be considered dry, although at this season there is an abundance of water, here the sinking of shafts is 9 feet. Experienced diggers consider that this field will prove to be the richest gold field yet discovered in any part of the world.
These diggings are situated in the undulating country, and will extend to the plains in the westward they are of a considerable distance from the great Cordillera in which the discoveries of gold in New South Wales have been confined and are the first of the extensive fields to develope [develop] the immense deposits of which lay embedded in the interior of Australia. the gold diggers of New South Wales will leave their claims on this great range & like their brethern [brethren] in Victoria spread themselves
over the vast plains & undulating Country situated in the west. The northern diggers will occupy the plains and undulating country of Liverpool, Gwyder and Darling, and the anticipated discoveries to the westward of Port Curtis to which I refer [to] in my writings will at a future time be made either from the plains & undulating Country situated in the most northern parts of Gwyder District from the western parts of Darling District on Lower Condame [Condamine] river, or from Port Curtis,