Volume 01: Production and resources of the northern and western districts of New South Wales, 1854 [ca. 1850-1857] - Page 552

upon the summits and slopes of the hills. In the western districts they are in the gullies or on the table land. There is scarcely any quartz to be seen, the gold is as fine as the finest gunpowder, & very difficult to clean, the gold assays well, but is stated to lose [?] in melting. The great drawback being its extreme fineness, which renders the removal of the dirt with which it is intimately mixed almost impossible without great loss of the precious metal. At Mount Welsh claim is being wrought which has turned out very rich; in one day the washing of one ton, was 60 ounces & the next day 80 ounces of pure gold was realised. The strata is so rich that a portion of this fine gold is found in Compact Masses. quite pure; it is however necessary to work also the poorer strata at the same time. There is very little shallow sinking, The successes are various Some parties are getting from 50 to 60 ounces of gold per load of washing stuff ( 50 buckets) while some are failures as occur at all diggings.
The present working gold fields are situated on the South and West side of Mount Jones which range runs east and west for one Mile; the old claim that are in full work are all on the brow of the hill looking South.
At Mounts Jones & Welsh more that half of the diggers are only in the Course of sinking, the description of rock to go through is much the same at both diggings. Four men are in general
parties; two working night & two working day, until they bottom the shaft, it then takes either three or four to work a claim, - one tunnelling, one attending the bottom, & one at top of shaft &
one washing the stuff - On Mount Jones the gold is pretty equally distributed, day six out of ten shifts get gold more or less. On Mount Welsh it would not average one in twenty. The lava named ironstone varies from six to thirty feet & in many instances they cannot get through more than eight or twelve inches in the 24 hours. The sinking of all the good claims now working is from seventy to one hundred feet. The assay Office proves that the gold from this field equals
in quantity to that got at Bendigo in Victoria or 22¾ carat gold.
The fine gold from the Rocky river has been sold in Armadale at from £3.9.0 to £3.11.6 per ounce. The nuggety gold from the gold fields at Oban, Mount Mitchell & Guira [Guyra} river or Cameron
Creek is sold at £3.12.6 per ounce.
Fine samples of Rocky river gold are sold in Sydney at £3.18.0 the present method to seperate [separate] the black sand & Iron stone from the Rocky river gold, are sifting by means of
sheets of paper, or pasteboard, pierced with holes. The black sand & Iron Stone which occupies the digger hours to seperate [separate] from the gold, burns and evaporates in a crucible in a few minutes.

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Volume 01: Production and resources of the northern and western districts of New South Wales, 1854 [ca. 1850-1857] - Page 552

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