Handy gold prospecting hints

By JMcJ

THE PATHFINDERS TO GOLD

Many prospectors will give country consisting of limey rocks a miss if they’re looking for gold but don’t you do it. Limey rocks can be the host of disseminated gold deposits. While such deposits may not be of much value to the individual, a mining company would certainly find them very interesting! A disseminated deposit is one that is scattered, a bit like micron-sized wheat that’s been cast about. You may not even see the gold in such deposits but you can test for it. A lack of visible gold at grass roots level shouldn’t mean much to a prospector that knows his or her stuff. A good prospector has an “earth map” and by that I mean they have the knowledge of and can recognise minerals that are pathfinders to gold. Arsenic, stibnite, cinnabar, scheelite and so on are all indicators that gold could be in the vicinity. A good prospector also won’t ignore zones of silification in sediments (brecciation, jasperoids etc) also acid volcanics. Learn as much as you can about such minerals and the type of country in which they’re found. Only time and experience will teach you the craft. You don’t need a degree in geology although a little geology acquired in the field certainly helps.

OPEN YOUR EYES AND YOUR MIND

In open country I have always been one for getting up on an open-topped knob and spending time with a pair of binoculars, a map, compass, notebook and pen. I study the country about me, taking it in until I form a picture of how it once was, what happened in between and how it looks today. I could write a whole article on this but let me just say that I look for rock features that might be conducive to my quest. I look for colour changes in rocks of the same type, and for changes in rock types. I also look at soil colours including what is evident in ant hills (the great Gove bauxite field was prospected after its red ant hills were spotted from the air). Vegetation is also important. A lack of or abundance of plant life can tell you many things. I next enter onto the map what I find at my marked points and in time these things form a picture. It may not be a clear picture at once but the more time you put into your study the clearer the picture becomes. But remember that you must always be flexible. The map you have made might work very well in the area you have charted but the same conditions encountered elsewhere could present you with an entirely different set of possibilities.

THE NUGGET PUZZLE

Nuggets of gold, true nuggets, pose a bit of a puzzle as to how they came to be where they are. They may be as smooth as a baby’s bottom, as if they had just been plucked from a river, yet be found in country that sees only a couple of drops of rain every fifty odd years. You will not find a true nugget in a reef, specimens yes but nuggets, no. You will find nuggets on the paddock but rarely more than a little distance below it. Only on a small number of fields will you find patches of nuggets and fine gold together. On some mining fields you will find nuggets in the gullies and not on the flats, while the reverse also occurs, which flies in the face of the theory that gold will always work its way to the lowest points in any area. In New Guinea I picked up nuggets high on a terrace when so-called logic said they should have been washed down into the gully below. Gold nuggets certainly are strange creatures and while all sorts of theories have been tossed into the ring, don’t let anyone fool you into believing they know the answer to the question of how gold nuggets end up being where they are found.

LOOK PAST THE JUNK

If you dig a piece of junk such as a nail or horseshoe, don’t just fill in the hole and move on, but run your detector over the hole again. I once saw a nice fourounce pancake nugget taken from below a horseshoe and I picked up a 20-gram slug from beneath a section of heavy iron plate that was visible to the naked eye. Incidentally, when you find junk, do yourself and others a favour and take it with you when you leave.

LOOK TO YOUR ROOTS

If you ever encounter a great old riverbank tree that has been uprooted in a flood or gale, never ignore it if the creek or river nearby carried gold. The tree’s root system will hold plenty of rocks, pebbles, sand, silt and clay and very likely gold. And if the tree came from the inside of the waterway’s bend, where the water runs slowest, it’s almost certain you’ll score some nuggets.

A TIP FOR WEIGHT WATCHERS

Long ago a prospector who had spent many years in South Africa told me of a blind native who picked through old mine heaps. If he picked up a rock that contained gold, he knew so by its weight. Many times I’ve picked up a lump of quartz that seemed to be too heavy for its size but I couldn’t see any gold. These lumps also tested negative with the detector and even on inspection with a hand lens, I couldn’t see anything. But, after crushing the lumps to dust and dishing, there was the yellow stuff. Quartz is about seven times lighter than gold so a few grams of gold added to a fist-sized lump lets you know it.

In search of lost treasures

By TP

There are at least 5,000 known ships (not all treasure ships) wrecked around the Australian coastline and probably a very large number of ships met the same fate before Australia was colonised. Ships foundered on Australian reefs, islands, and the coast, well before Captain Cook sailed up the east coast of Australia in 1770. The Dutch treasure ships Batavia, Gilt Dragon, Zuytdorp and Zeewyck had already come to grief off the Western Australian coast. It is generally accepted that the Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch knew of Australia and visited its northern shores centuries ago. Items have been found to tease the historians and in some cases, they have wondered if the items found were brought here by the original owners or whether a collector carelessly dropped or lost the article. A coin was once dug up at Cairns and created a flurry of interest as it bore the stamp of Ptolemy IV, who supposedly ruled Egypt more than 2,000 years ago. Torres Strait Islanders once practised the art of embalming their dead. They then took the mummy to sea in a canoe and this is a similar ritual found in Egyptian mythology.

UNEARTHED AT ROCKHAMPTON

Gold coins, gold scarabs and an Egyptian calendar stone were also reported to have been unearthed at Rockhampton in 1966. These were estimated to belong to the 2nd or 3rd dynasty of about 2,780 BC. Were the Egyptians really in Australia so long ago? Australia’s notorious undersea explorer and treasure hunter, the late Alan Robinson, mentioned a discovery that could well prove that seamen from the Mediterranean reached the west coast of Australia approximately 600 years before Christ. Robinson also claimed credit for locating the wrecks of the Gilt Dragon and Zuytdorp. An old prospector showed Robinson a plate made of bronze that had been found on the north-west coast of Western Australia near some deposits of galena ore (silver, lead and zinc). The bronze plate was sent to a US university and they wrote back saying the plate was “of Phoenician origin, possibly from the period 200 to 700 BC.” The university was unable to decipher the writing on the bronze plate. Historians claim that the Phoenicians were excellent seafarers and that Emperor Darius sent Admiral Scyax to the Indian Ocean on a voyage of exploration around 500 BC. The Admiral returned with his ships’ holds full of silver ore. It seems quite a coincidence that a bronze plate found near an old silver mine has been identified as belonging to the Phoenicians.

CHINESE WRECK

Another wreck Robinson claims to have found is Chinese, built in either the 11th or 12th century. In a museum in Taiwan is a map believed to be 2,000 years old. It shows the southern coastline of New Guinea and the eastern coastline of Australia. Marco Polo in the 13th century mentioned that the Chinese spoke of a large and rich land 320km south of Java and that the people worshipped idols and spoke the Persian language.

Booby Island was a haunt of Asiatic pirates

A porcelain map made by the Chinese in 1477 depicts the Pacific Ocean and coastline of the east coast of Australia. The Chinese Admiral, Cheng Ho, lost some of his 62 ships in 1420 during a severe storm off the south Sumatran coast. The ships blown off course are believed to have reached Australian shores. A prawn trawler friend of Alan Robinson showed him an 86cmhigh vase that had handles shaped like coiled serpents. The trawler brought the vase up in its nets while working in Exmouth Gulf off the Western Australian coast. Robinson dived in the area and found relics which included a pottery case and a bronze cooking vessel from a sunken ship. The Western Australian Museum identified them as coming from China around the 11th or 12th century.

A JAPANESE PIRATE

Yama da Nagamasa, a Japanese pirate, claimed to have visited with his 40 ships, every land from Australia to Japan, between 1628 and 1633. A missionary, Father Ricci, working in China in the 16th century, drew up a map showing the coastline from Cape York to where Townsville is situated today. The British Museum deciphered an inscription on the map and it gave details of a Castilian (Spanish) ship that had been wrecked somewhere on the Queensland coast. All this proves that ships from many countries have visited or have been wrecked on our shores, especially the Western Australian coast, around to Queensland and on the Great Barrier Reef. Research can help the treasure seeker find the general locality where treasure ships have been wrecked but diving and salvaging is for the experienced and in some past cases, it has proved costly and dangerous both in money and lives. In 1975, American treasure seeker Mel Fisher, lost his son and daughter-in-law in a tragic salvaging mishap while bringing up the treasure from the Spanish galleon Senora de Atocha off Florida.

The late treasure hunter Alan Robinson (second from right)

MODERN SUCTION EQUIPMENT

Modern suction equipment, and expensive and sophisticated magnetometers can help find wrecks. The magnetometers or other underwater type metal detectors usually can help find old wrecks by homing in on the ship’s cannon. This was how the six-man team from the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, USA, in 1968, found the cannon jettisoned over the side of Captain Cook’s Endeavour on the 10th of June, 1770. The cannon were discovered on the Six Mile Reef (9.6km) under nearly 1.5 metres of coral growth. I feel any yachtsman who sails the Australian coastline would benefit by purchasing a good metal detector and using it on islands where it is possible that early shipwrecked sailors might have landed. One of the first things the captains of treasure ships did when hitting a submerged rock or reef, was to try and get the treasure into a longboat. The Torres Strait area should yield numerous treasure ships as many Spanish gold and silver coins, guns, swords and other relics have been sold by Trepang fishermen and pearlers to passengers on ships that used to sail through the Straits.

WELL-KNOWN HAUNT

A well-known haunt of Asiatic pirates was Booby Island and a lot of early coins have been found there. The pirates terrorised European treasure ships and the island is one of those isolated places that is riddled with caves. One cave was used as a “Sailor’s Post Office” and when you research northern wrecks, you will find that many people from shipwrecks reached Booby Island. Years ago, a team from the Queensland Museum searched the island with metal detectors but didn’t find any buried treasure. They had been searching for relics to learn more of the lifestyles of sailors who had been wrecked on northern islands during the 19th Century. More than 40 years ago a friend of mine once wrote from Cairns saying he knew of a prospector who had found an old Portuguese suit of armour containing the bones of a sailor. The armour had been found with the aid of a metal detector under bat droppings in a cave on one of the Torres Strait islands. The detector, a Red Baron, was in a Cairns shop for repairs and it still smelled strongly of bat droppings.

The Big Hole swindle

These days there are any number of opportunities that present themselves to people who don’t put any faith in the adage that if it looks or sounds too good to be true, it probably is. The black holes they disappear into come courtesy of the internet. In 1887 there was no internet but there was also no shortage of conmen looking for an opportunity to relieve the gullible of their hard earned. Back then the black hole that presented itself was actually a 100-metre-deep geological formation known as the Big Hole. Located in Deua National Park, east of Canberra, it is thought to have formed about 50 million years ago when the roof of a cave collapsed. The hole was quite legendary and the source of numerous fictional claims. Some said it was bottomless, others said it was haunted by the unfortunates who had intentionally or accidentally plunged to their deaths. Religious zealots declared it was the gateway to hell and the inebriated claimed there was untold pirate treasure buried at the bottom. In 1887 a sizeable crowd watched on as Sydney photographer, Alexander Fraser, descended to the bottom of the Big Hole. He disappeared from sight under an overhang, later emerging claiming to have found “a ready-made gold mine giving promise of great riches”.

Fraser began selling £1 shares into a mining operation at the Big Hole and a neighbouring mine he said was the source of the gold. The scheme attracted interest from Sydney’s wealthy elite: barristers, attorneys, and even a judge. To convince his investors and give the scheme credibility, Fraser invented characters, notably, a London-based mining investor and millionaire called Mr Stangor, and a German mining expert Gustave Von Dahl – who supported the project and confirmed via written correspondence that the rocks were likely rich in gold and diamonds.

The Big Hole in Deua National Park

“You have, at least, a very excellent gold mine and one of the sort that lasts forever,” Mr Stangor (aka Alexander Fraser) wrote in a letter dated the 8th of January, 1902. Fraser promised investors a £26,000 return on a £150 investment, at which point anyone with a modicum of intelligence would have asked why, if he already had a multi-millionaire backer in Mr Stangor, would he need to offer anyone else the opportunity of such a fantastic return on such a comparatively small outlay. But greed has a way of warping people’s judgement. Fraser then began crafting letters from Stangor explaining why the project had some delays and added to his duplicity by taking the letters to some of his investors and asking them to explain the more complex sections to him. As the delays dragged on, investors became more and more suspicious. When some of his more prominent investors demanded to meet Stangor, Fraser told them he was a recluse because he had a disease “from a fractured leg, which had developed into necrosis of the bone, causing an unpleasant smell.” Then the entire scheme unravelled because of a quirky typewriter. An investor noticed all the letters written from Stangor, regardless of where he purportedly was in the world, were written on the same typewriter – identifiable because the top of the letter ‘a’ was missing, and the N was out of alignment. The quirks all matched Fraser’s typewriter. After this revelation the whole scheme crumbled and Fraser was summarily arrested. We’ll let the Braidwood Dispatch and Mining Journal of Saturday the 6th of July, 1907, finish the story: At the Darlinghurst Sessions on Tuesday morning Judge Murray passed sentence on Alexander Fraser.

The prisoner had pleaded guilty to having at Sydney, on June 15, 1903, falsely pretended to William Hessel Linsley that Fraser had purchased certain land known as the Big Hole, situated at Little Plain, in New South Wales, and that the title deeds for the land were lodged in the Bank of New South Wales at Braidwood, by means of which false pretences Fraser obtained from Mr. Linsley the sum of £290. He also admitted he had obtained £100 from Anthony Weaver at Sydney on January 2, 1906, by means of a similar false pretence. Detective Gallagher said that he made inquiries, and he had ascertained that Fraser had obtained between £8,000 and £10,000 as a result of the Big Hole Swindle. The money went wholly to Fraser, as it could be proved be had cashed the cheques himself at business places in the city. He spent money freely. He gave dinners to his friends and acquaintances and thus made himself popular. Fraser has a wife and ten children.

In passing sentence, Judge Murray said: “This is one of the most extraordinary cases of persistent and deliberate fraud which in my opinion has ever come before the Court. I do not know if there ever was a man named Stanger (sic), but in my opinion there was not. The swindle had a small start, no doubt, but it appeared to have gone on like a snowball, and involved in its operation men of ability. Doctors had been induced to come into it, as also others who were ready to rush into anything savouring of mining speculation, but because there are some fools in the world that fact does not give knaves the right to exploit them. “Fraser is himself a man apparently of ability and considerable energy, and appeared to have led an honest life up to the time of starting the swindle. It seems clear that he did go once to the bottom of the Big Hole, but what be found there no one but himself knows. With his knowledge of mining, and the use of explosives, he managed to impose upon, and successfully rob a number of people of large sums of money.

“Great speculations in crime are very alluring unless those engaged in them have over their heads the fear of heavy punishment. A man who goes for a big stake must expect to suffer heavily if he goes down. I should be doing very wrong if I did not inflict a heavy sentence where a man has perpetrated such a big swindle as in this case, when he has at last been bowled out. Fraser certainly pleaded guilty, but only when the game was up. Therefore, under the circumstances, I really do not see what I can do but either pass the highest sentence or something very little short of the highest sentence the law provides. “The full term is five years’ penal servitude, and this is one of the offences where sentences amounting to something like a century or more could have been passed. There are two charges to which Fraser had pleaded guilty, but I shall take them as one offence. I cannot see how I can pass a sentence of less than five years’ penal servitude. That sentence I now pass on each charge, the terms to be concurrent. This I will say, that if it can be proved that some mastermind had controlled the prisoner, as has been stated, and that Fraser was not the leader, but only a tool – a dishonest tool – I shall then recommend that the sentence be cut down. I must, however, take it that he is the only criminal.” Fraser, who seemed dumbfounded at the sentence was ordered to be removed from the court.

Fortunes lost and found

by Trevor Percival

THE MADAGASCAR

Whoever finds the wreck of the Madagascar could well be on the way to becoming a multi-millionaire. The treasure is estimated to be worth more than $250 million at today’s gold prices. Underwater adventurer, Ben Cropp, mentions in his book This Rugged Coast, how he located some old wrecks on the Great Detached Reef, Queensland. Cropp at first thought he might have found the treasure ship as one of the mystery ships was approximately the same size and of the same era as the missing Madagascar. The party must have been very excited as they thoroughly searched the remains of the old wreck but unfortunately, all they came away with was a large collection of brass keel bolts.

The 951-ton frigate, Madagascar

The 1200-ton frigate, Madagascar, was built for the Blackwall Line. She was one of numerous sailing ships bringing out the thousands of emigrants to Australia in the early 1850s. Most of the “new chums” headed for the goldfields and many returned to England on the Madagascar after making their fortune, but there were a lot more returning home nearly penniless after paying their fares. The year 1853 was the last time the Madagascar would sail from Australia for England. The McIvor Gold Escort robbery at Kyneton, Victoria, in July 1853, was the cause of the delayed departure of the 16-year-old frigate. On Wednesday the 10th of August, just as she was preparing to sail, police went on board and arrested a bushranger John Francis, who was later found to have been one of those responsible for robbing the gold escort. The next day the police arrested two others, one on board the ship and the other as he was preparing to board. As a result of these arrests Madagascar did not leave Melbourne until Friday the 12th of August 1853. She was carrying 110 passengers and a crew of around 50. Fourteen of her original crew of 60 had jumped ship and headed for the diggings and it is estimated she only managed to sign on three or four replacements Her cargo consisted of wool and rice and the small matter of 68,890 ounces of gold, nine chests of sovereigns, eight chests of silver and a box of specie.

The Madagascar was due back in England for Christmas but by February 1854, relatives and the shipping company became concerned about the length of time the ship was overdue. In July 1854 the Madagascar was officially declared lost at sea with all hands. When the ship became overdue, many theories were floated, including spontaneous combustion of the wool cargo, hitting an iceberg and, most controversially, being seized by criminal elements of the passengers and/or crew and scuttled, with the gold being stolen and the remaining passengers and crew murdered. In 1872 rumours of a supposed death-bed confession by a man who “knew who murdered the captain of the Madagascar” were first published. Over the next century many purely fictional stories based on this rumour have been published. Most 20th-century versions state that the death-bed confession was by a woman passenger who was taken by the mutineers, and by implication raped, and was too ashamed of what had happened to her to confess beforehand.

THE GOTHENBURG GOLD

I first heard about the sinking of the SS Gothenburg from someone who had read about it in Ernestine Hill’s book The Territory. The Gothenburg sank off Cape Cleveland, Queensland, taking a vast amount of gold down with her. Many passengers carried gold on them and one person in particular carried a gladstone bag containing £3,000 worth of gold that he was bringing south from the Pine Creek goldfield in the Northern Territory. On the evening of the 24th of February, 1875, the Gothenburg was still heading south in almost cyclonic conditions with fore, top, and mainsails set and the steam engines running at full speed. Flooding rains lashed the Queensland coast and Captain Robert Pearce reportedly could not see land or sun. About 7pm, and for reasons undetermined, he changed course and shortly afterwards, at full speed (11 to 12 knots), hit a section of the Great Barrier Reef at low tide 50km north-west of Holbourne Island. The Gothenburg struck with such force that she was left high up on the reef.

I wanted to see if I could find out how much gold the Gothenburg was carrying so I went into the Oxley Library in Brisbane and asked the librarian if I could read copies of the Brisbane Courier dated 23rd February to the end of March 1875. She gave me a roll of microfilm that contained photographs of each page of the Courier from February to August 1875. Checking through the film I came across an account of the shipwreck dated Thursday the 11th of March, 1875. According to the report, some 102 lives were lost and there were 22 survivors (12 crew and 10 passengers). All 25 women and children on board and all the officers perished. Edward W. Price, Magistrate and Commissioner Circuit Court of the Northern Territory, who remained behind in Darwin, lost his wife and six children. The Gothenburg lay in three fathoms (5.5m) of water 28 miles (45km) NNE of Cape Upstart.

The most interesting piece of information in the article was that a diver named James Putwain, went to the wreck with his diving apparatus and was successful in finding the gold box that contained 3,500 ounces of gold. He informed the police and handed the gold to a bank. If that gold hadn’t been recovered it would be worth at least $12.3 million today. I have mentioned the Gothenburg wreck as it could be one of the pitfalls in searching for sunken treasure. If you know of a wreck, do a thorough search of available records to make sure the bulk of the treasure has not already been recovered.

History through the barrel of a gun

By JC

Every night on the Bendigo goldfields of the 1850s and 1860s there came the evening volley. As darkness advanced across the valley, almost every digger with a gun, and almost every digger had a gun of some kind, pointed it skyward and loosed off a shot or two. One observer of the nightly practice wrote that “It seemed the strangest of customs in the strangest of places. As night fell the volley began. A ragged, crackling of discharges at first, quickly deepening into a deafening roar. Then, tapering off to a few late shots and rebel yells from those who had already sipped more than they had supped.

“After the volley the encampment echoed to the sound of music and revelry until the early hours of the morning. As the camp settled down there often came the sound of shots and screams as thieves were discovered and discouraged. Or their victims murdered and dropped down a handy shaft. Life was cheap on the Australian goldfields where every man went armed and in fear of his life.”

RELICS OF A BYGONE ERA

Anyone who has used a metal detector on the goldfields can testify how easy it is to find relics of the bygone era. Hundreds of thousands of old musket balls have been dug from every field in Australia. Many times they have been mistaken for a gold nugget – until the dirt was wiped off. They have been found miles from the nearest sign of diggings or human habitation. Our diggers were a wild lot in a wild and almost lawless land. Few Australians know anything about the American gold rushes other than what they have read in books or seen as a result of a Hollywood movie director’s fantasy. The fact is, our gold rushes were so wild, so full of excesses of violence and adventure that they made the American rush of the 1840s look like a bit of a kindergarten outing. It was in answer to that violence that every digger went armed. The resulting demand created a huge shortage of firearms and many weapons that had not had a shot through them for generations, started to appear on the diggings. Smooth-bore flintlocks were common in the early days of the rushes. No doubt there were even some examples of the earlier wheellock pistols and hunting muskets. But it was the cheap and popular flintlock firearm that was carried by most diggers when they flocked to Ophir and shortly after to the diggings in the colony of Victoria.

WILDLY INNACURATE

The flintlock came in myriad shapes and sizes. As a pistol it was wildly inaccurate but that didn’t deter people carrying it for self-defence. There was the Flintlock Box Lock pistol with a screw-off barrel that had to be removed to load the weapon. There were Pocket Pistols that looked as if their protruding mechanisms would catch on everything as it was drawn from the pocket. There were Muff Pistols that were designed to be secreted in ladies’ muffs. There were double-barrel pistols with spring bayonets fitted under the barrels. Triple-barrel and even seven-barrel pistols. Military pistols of the Flintlock Blunderbuss type were probably in the greatest supply as they had been manufactured in great numbers during the many wars just prior to, and during the early part of the 1800s. In the early 1820s copper percussion caps were designed and applied to single shot firearms, both pistols and muskets. These caps are commonly found with a detector along with the balls themselves. They are easy to recognise – small, not much bigger than a match head and made from thin-ribbed copper. They sound very much like a small nugget when detected. In 1838 the British army adopted this type of weapon and it started to be produced in large numbers. This was the end of the more complex and expensive flintlock that had served so well for so long.

A BEWILDERING ARRAY

Like the flintlock, the percussion pistol and musket soon started to be produced in a bewildering array of shapes and sizes. Single and two-shot pistols often retained the spring bayonet in case the bullets missed their mark. Before the advent of the single-barrel revolving cylinder firearm, anyone wishing to have more than a couple of shots up their sleeve purchased a “pepperbox” pistol that carried up to six barrels, each of which acted as its own chamber and carried a percussion cap on each. These were extremely heavy and cumbersome weapons that appeared around the 1850s. But despite the drawbacks of the pepperbox, they were still being manufactured and used long after Samuel Colt started manufacturing his new type of revolver. By the mid-1850s the percussion revolver was being made in large numbers by Samuel Colt, Robert Adam, H. Holland and many others. Quickly gaining preference amongst those who could afford it was the new percussion revolver. Some of these looked remarkably like a modern revolver. As newfound wealth began to flow, there came a call for more and better weapons. The well-known Navy Colt, a single-action percussion revolver, was soon a firm favourite on the diggings as was the .44 calibre Army Colt.

FIRST LOCALLY PRODUCED REVOLVER

As the call for more firearms went out, the Tranter company started making revolvers in a factory in Melbourne. This was the first locally-produced revolver in Australia and possibly the only brand of revolver produced locally during the 1800s. Of the more curious types of pistol was the “Horsman’s” Percussion Knife Pistol that looks for all the world like an early Swiss army knife with a square tube attached along the spine. A great many firearms have been found with detectors on our goldfields. Very few, if any, would be in working order but they make marvellous keepsakes of those wild gold rush days. Found more often are the lead balls fired from smooth bore flintlocks and early percussion pistols. Some .44 and .45 calibre balls showing distinct rifling marks are also found. As the Victorian gold rushes petered out, prospectors looked further afield. The Palmer River Goldfield in far-north Queensland was opened up with the aid of the Snider breech-loading rifle. A good and reliable firearm was essential to survival around the Palmer where the fierce and warlike Merkin aboriginal tribe fought desperately to stem the flow of prospectors. Here you can find many rifled balls from the now plentiful percussion weapons, including the enormous lump of lead from the Snider. It was about this time (1870s) that the famous Martini-Henry rile and the Lee-Metford rifle began to appear, followed closely by the famous Lee-Enfield .303 rifle.

RELENTLESS SEARCH FOR GOLD

As the ever-industrious 19th century prospector moved across the top of Australia in his relentless search for gold, the evolution of the firearm continued. By the time the Western Australian goldfields were opened up, centre-fire cartridges had appeared and had been universally accepted. The Lee-Enfield was joined by the Winchester, the gun that had won the American west. The Colt Peacemaker and many other famous American weapons soon found their way across the Pacific. But the times, and the type of weapons needed, were changing. At the turn of the century in Western Australia, a good, light-weight, accurate rifle that could supply food for the pot as well as protection was more important than a pistol. The Western Australian gold rushes were the last of the great rushes that had originated on the east coast of Australia and continued almost unabated in an anticlockwise direction around the coast to the south west corner of the continent. In the 50 years following Ophir, the handgun, the musket, and the rifle, had evolved from crude muzzle-loading weapons to breechloading centre-fire and rimfire firearms of great accuracy and workmanship. This evolution can be easily traced through the projectiles fired by these weapons on the goldfields around Australia.

DIFFERENT MUSKET BALLS

Every detectorist finds them. I have found the remains of an old pepperbox pistol and thousands of different musket balls from smooth-bore flintlocks and percussion weapons to the rifled ball and bullets from percussion and breechloading centre-fire handguns and rifles. Whenever I dig one of these seemingly common and worthless lumps of lead, I wonder about it. Was it fired in anger? Was it fired in self-defence? Was it fired while hunting for meat for the pot? I will never know. But the thought that it may have been fired by some gold miner desperately defending his gold from merciless bushrangers is part of the romance of history when viewed down the barrel of a gun.

The debt opal owes Tully Wollaston

Tully Cornthwaite Wollaston

As it fell to my lot to pioneer in turn each new opal field of Australia – Queensland, White Cliffs, Lightning Ridge and Coober Pedy, excepting only the first boulder – and market its product in Europe and America, I felt I was better equipped than most to tell the story of the Opal: Furthermore, the general and growing interest in the stone, now greatly stimulated by the Empire Exhibition, has encouraged me to make the attempt. “If my book is somewhat unorthodox in structure, it is but in keeping with much of the Opal which it describes.” This was Tully’s preface to his book Opal – the Gem of the Never Never, published by Thomas Morely and Co. in 1924. The book is a chronicle of the activities of Tully Cornthwaite Wollaston, the man who arguably founded and ensured the success of the Australian opal industry. It gives very little insight into the man himself. However, reading between the lines of his understated prose, it indicates that he was a man of great vision and determination. Slim and dapper in appearance, Wollaston was also a cultured, humane and religious man who loved children. He was hardy and resourceful in outback travel and “fair and square” in business. However, he tells us very little about his childhood and early adult years. Mention is made of his spending his early years in Port Lincoln, on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia, and the fact that as a child, he had had a passion for collecting mineral crystals and coloured stones. His interest in lapidary was started and fostered by an old aunt. Wollaston’s involvement with opal started in November, 1888. He was 26, had a young wife and new-born daughter and was off to the Kyabra Hills in central west Queensland, to buy opal. He mentioned in passing that he had previously been “caught by the burst Silver Boom”, and had “preliminary canters in Australian ‘rubies’ and Tasmanian Sapphires”. He was fortunate not to be “caught” again, because he was off to find a miner named Joe Bridle, who had been reported as making a find at Kyabra – three years previously! His journey, together with a good bushman named Buttfield and an Aboriginal youth named Tomtit, was an epic of bushcraft and determination. Tully tells of how they travelled through the height of the worst drought then recorded and completed the trip in just seven weeks. Between Farina Station, near Marree, where they hired two riding camels, and Windorah, he describes days of temperatures of 110 degrees Farenheit (45°C) and more, dust storms, flies and mosquitoes.

Cattle were dying in large numbers, not for lack of water – there was plenty in Government bores and tanks – but due to a lack of fodder. They made 10- to 20-mile stages each day, and reached Innaminka on Coopers Creek in 23 days. His description of conditions at Windorah is amusing. Thirteen days’ march from Innaminka, the party arrived there on New Year’s Eve. The races were on and the town was full of boisterous, fighting drunks. It was “a dreary hole” to the men fresh in from crossing Sturt’s Stony Desert, and they chose not to mix socially with the locals. The miffed locals planned to pull some pranks on our travellers during the night but Tully guessed their probable intentions and cunningly shifted camp after dark. The locals were a bit peeved to find the camp empty but quickly found solace back at the pub.

The drought was broken by torrential rain on the 2nd of January, 1889. This was a great New Year’s gift for the country but the travellers were now inundated by frogs and mosquitoes! They faced disaster on the last day of travel because they did not carry enough water with them. By good fortune, they stumbled on a track which led them out of trouble. They explored and pegged four leases, which they registered in Windorah. Buttfield and Tomtit set up miners on the leases, bringing up supplies and equipment from Windorah on the camels. They were to return home overland when all was properly set up on the field.

Tully found Joe Bridle and bought his first parcel of stones. He tells of his disappointment during the first couple of days, when Joe showed him only rubbish. Finally, he saw fit to bring out the good ones and Tully realised that the trip had not been in vain for the syndicate of which he was the major shareholder. The parcel had good colour but most of the stones were small. The return trip was no picnic for Tully, though he did not go back across the desert, rather, first by buckboard for the 250 miles to Charleville, then by train back to Adelaide via Brisbane. Three days after his arrival at home he received news of Buttfield’s death. The seasoned bushman had made the most basic of mistakes – he went too far from camp without water, searching for the strayed camels. When he realised he was in trouble, he headed for a bore but perished a couple of miles from it. Tully returned to the leases to put affairs in order, then returned to Adelaide.

Eight days later he and his family were on a ship bound for London with his parcel of opal. The syndicate had raised the money for the journey. In addition, they sent a “purser” to the field to oversee their interests. He proved to be unreliable, passed worthless cheques and generally ruined the syndicate’s reputation on the fields. Meanwhile, in London, Tully faced a hard battle with the patronising, negative attitude of the jewellery “establishment”. The dealers could not comprehend that the gaudy Queensland stone would sell in a market place that was used to the anaemic Hungarian stone which had been supplied to the European market since the time of the Roman Empire. These gems had white matrix and very little colour. Finally, Tully convinced the firm of Hasluck Brothers of Hatton Garden, to take a small parcel for a trial run. Several cutters were hired and put to work. Their product sold well and returned “a handsome profit” mainly in the USA. It seems that the folk of the “Big Apple” had less preconceived ideas about what opals should look like! Upon his return to Adelaide, Tully found that all was not well with the syndicate The other members had little interest in actually mining gemstones. They were much more interested in getting rich by floating scrip. Does that sound like our paper mining boom of 1969 and 1970?

Anyway, Tully was very disappointed and withdrew from the syndicate, which folded soon after. Tully once more boarded the luxurious, air-conditioned trains and far less salubrious buckboard for his return to the Queensland fields. There he met with William Johnson, owner of the Little Wonder Mine. Once again, the miner showed only the rubbish, until he finally decided that he liked the cut of Tully’s jib. He went to his hiding place and returned with “60 pieces of red grained opal the size of walnuts”. Writing of his first sight of these beautiful stones some 40 years later, Tully still captured his wonder and excitement. He would have mortgaged his soul and given Bill Johnson the world for that parcel. They settled on a thousand pounds – quite a fortune in those days. Returning home again he found some samples from White Cliffs awaiting him. So, two days later, it was back to the old train and buckboard again, travelling through Broken Hill. The samples were like Hungarian opal – flat cakes of white matrix – but they had a brighter and better play of colour. The sample parcel had been sent by Charlie Turner and his partners, shearers who were shooting kangaroos during the off season at the time of their find.

Plaque commemorating Tully Wollaston’s importance to White Cliffs opal

Tully had great difficulty in deciding what to offer because he was not at all familiar with the stone and had no idea what it might fetch in London. He finally offered £140, and was nearly knocked down in the rush! Charlie and his mates had decided that if he didn’t offer at least £10, they would “chuck their find back into the bush and go back to shooting ‘roos”. Tully then raised the money for another trip to England. It is astounding to realise that he sailed this second time only 16 months after he left Adelaide for his first overland journey to Kyabra. It would be quite a feat with modern transportation and is almost incomprehensible in the conditions under which he achieved it. This time, Haslucks readily accepted some of his parcel and within a year they had six cutters working.

The opal, both Queensland and White Cliffs stones, sold as fast as they could cut it. Even allowing that the cutting equipment of the day may not have allowed quick work, it must have been a pretty big parcel to keep that team going for so long. The actual size of the parcel is one of the many things about which Tully’s book does not enlighten us. With Hasluck’s success, other dealers finally wanted rough stone as well. As the demand increased, Tully moved, over time, entirely to dealing in rough material. Opposition buyers on the fields made business brisk. His first venture to Lightning Ridge was made in 1903.

There he bought a parcel of black opal from Charlie Nettleton and his partner. Once again, he did not know how this new style of stone would sell in Europe. Surprisingly, in view of his now established reputation in the trade, it took him three years to get the black accepted. He spent the first two years in London working on establishing a market, with limited success, so he went to New York where he was ultimately successful. For the second time, it was the Americans who led the way in acceptance of a totally new form of Australian opal. Tully bought his first parcel of Coober Pedy stone in 1915. Survived by his wife, three sons and six daughters, Tully Wollaston died of cancer at the age of 68 on the 17th of July, 1931, at his Lower Mitcham home and was buried in St Jude’s Anglican churchyard, Brighton, Adelaide. His estate was sworn for probate at £17,719

Some diamonds aren’t forever

The daring theft of the Golconda d’Or

On Saturday the 18th of October, 1980, in the midst of a crowded room in Sydney Town Hall, the fabulous 95.4 carat Golconda d’Or diamond was stolen. The flawless golden diamond, one of the last diamonds taken from India’s Golconda mines, was several hundred years old. Since then, despite numerous inquiries in many parts of the world, nothing has been heard of the diamond or the thieves who stole it. Golconda was famous for its diamonds, won from the conglomerate rocks in the nearby hills. The territory lay between the Godavari and Krishna Rivers and extended to the coast of the Bay of Bengal. The Golconda d’Or was one of the most famous diamonds to come from this area and was cut in rose form after the Hindustan fashion. It was of the finest quality, golden in colour and in its original form was 130 carats before being cut down to 95.4 carats by Asscher of Amsterdam. The diamond was first mentioned in records dating from 1739 when it was part of the booty seized in the looting of Delhi by the Persian invader, Nadir Shah.

Exact details concerning the Golconda d’Or were not recorded during these turbulent times but after the death of Nadir Shah in 1747, the diamond ended up as part of the crown jewels of the Sultan of Turkey. Around 1876, Abdul Hamid II became the crown head of Turkey and through various persecutions and repressions, earned himself the title “Abdul the Damned”. His atrocities gave rise to a secret society calling itself the “Young Turks”, who plotted to overthrow his regime and restore the constitution. Backed by Western powers, this group managed to gain control of the army and on the 23rd of July, 1908, a bloodless revolution saw the end of Abdul Hamid II. When his fortune of precious stones was seized, amongst it was the famous Golconda d’Or which, it was decided, had to be sold to finance the Young Turks movement. In 1909 Mustapha Kemal, later Kemal Ataturk, first president of the Turkish Republic, sold the diamond to a wealthy Turkish family who retained it for the next 50 years. In 1962 it was bought by the Melbourne company of Dunklings, a subsidiary of Angus & Coote Ltd. In October 1980 the diamond was part of an exhibition on display at Sydney Town Hall. On Saturday the 18th, at 11.55am, an Angus & Coote executive noticed the gem in place in its special glass case. Fifteen minutes later it was gone. A woman visitor later remembered seeing a man with his hand up through the trapdoor of the case. She spoke to him and said, “Isn’t it beautiful,” and the man replied, “It will be better when I rearrange it and put it back on the stand.” He added that the revolving mechanism of the stand was not working and he hoped to have it operational again shortly – all this conversation with a security guard only a short distance away.

The 95.4-carat Golconda D’or in its showcase before the theft

About 80 people were in the immediate vicinity of the diamond when it was taken out and a worthless piece of glass put in its place. Detectives later believed that a gang had been responsible for the theft rather than any one person. They reconstructed the crime, believing one member of the gang hid underneath a showcase and opened a small padlocked trapdoor by undoing two screws which held the lock. A skilled thief might have taken three or four minutes to carry out the substitution. What places the robbery among the great jewel thefts of history is the fact that the padlock and trapdoor were intact after the robbery and it was all performed in broad daylight in front of a crowd of onlookers!

Detectives were almost certain a gang of four took part in the robbery, which had obviously been carefully planned in advance. Two of the gang were females who carried out diversions while the robbery took place. One of the women placed two large paper-wrapped parcels just in front of the stand but when the parcels were later examined, they were empty. The second female accomplice distracted a St John’s Ambulance officer who sat at a nearby table facing the showcase. The fourth member of the gang must have stood near the showcase and acted as a lookout. As mentioned, an Angus & Coote executive saw the diamond in its showcase at 11.55 am that Saturday but by 12.10 pm it was gone. Angus & Coote placed a figure of $500,000 on the diamond but in the hands of a collector it could have sold for as much as $2 million. Despite extensive local and overseas investigations into the theft of the Golconda d’Or, nothing further has ever been heard of it.

The story of the “Pride of Australia” nugget

Thanks to a touch of gold fever, Victorian prospector, the late Rod Steed, decided not to sleep in or even have breakfast on his 70th birthday in May 1981. Instead, by 7am on the bright autumn morning, he was out in the bush at Mosquito Gully, near Wychitella, 11km north of Wedderburn, wandering up and down with his Garrett metal detector. Then he got a very solid signal beside a dirt track. In less than an hour after he had set out, Rod was back at home with a 256oz gold nugget taking pride of place on the dining room table. He could scarcely contain his excitement when he telephoned two of his prospecting partners who lived nearby, to break the news. There were four men in the partnership and they had an understanding that when one or more of them found gold in the area they had been prospecting, all would share in the spoils. They gathered to admire the nugget and settled on the name “Pride of Australia” because it roughly, and very roughly at that, resembled a map of the continent.

This image is all that remains of the “Pride of Australia”

Once again, Tasmania missed out, though a second small nugget found beneath the “Pride of Australia” did vaguely resemble the Apple Isle. The fourth member of the syndicate was Brian Shelton, who was in Switzerland at the time negotiating the sale of some gold specimens. He was asked to fly home urgently although he was not told just how significant the find was. As the group’s spokesman, he was the one to officially break the news of the discovery. Some time later Mr Shelton showed the nugget to Dr Birch at the Museum of Victoria. A plaster cast was taken for official records before they set off on their campaign to preserve the nugget itself. While the meltdown value of its gold content was about $80,000 at the time, the nugget’s worth as a specimen was estimated at $250,000. In terms of purchasing power today, the value of the “Pride of Australia” as a specimen would be around $1.17 million. Together Brian Shelton and Dr Birch travelled to the major centre of Australia’s eastern states determined to find an Australian buyer. “The Pride of Australia” was even tabled in Parliament House, Canberra, in a dogged attempt to influence the powers that be to purchase the nugget for the nation. The beautiful reddish-gold specimen caused a sensation when it was passed around from MP to MP but there were no takers until the State Bank of Victoria stepped in almost two years later.

Rod Steed discovered the 256oz “Pride of Australia” on the morning of his 70th birthday

At the time, the bank’s chief manager of marketing, Mr Jack Roach, said the nugget was the last remaining major specimen of alluvial gold in Australia and the bank decided to preserve it as its contribution to the 150th Anniversary of Victoria. The nugget was on display at the State Bank of Victoria headquarters in Melbourne before being permanently exhibited in the Museum of Victoria. Alas, sometimes permanency doesn’t last very long. Around 9.15pm on Friday, 28th of August, 1991, a museum security guard had just finished clearing the Planetarium of visitors. He was walking up Latrobe Street when he noticed a light shining from a doorway. Upon investigation, he discovered a panel of the fire door had been broken. The thieves had reached in through the hole they’d created and turned the door handle to let themselves in. Once inside the building, the thieves made their way to the Stawell Gallery, where the gold nugget was on display in the far corner. Using a sledgehammer, they smashed their way into the display case and made off with the nugget. Police estimated that the entire operation had lasted just three minutes. Security around the gold nugget had been tight. An alarm was attached to the door of the display case, and there was a separate vibration alarm housed inside. Both alarms had failed to go off, even when the case was smashed open by a sledgehammer. When the alarms were checked the next day, both of them were found to be in working order. A security camera had also been trained on the display case but police discovered it had failed to record any footage of the crime. The museum staff and security officers who were on duty that night, were interrogated, but neither the thieves, nor the gold, were ever found.

The eclipse of Captain Moonlite

In 1879, the year that Ned Kelly and his gang held up the Bank of NSW at Jerilderie, a siege took place at McGlede’s farm at Wantabadgery on the Murrumbidgee River, 34 kilometres east of Wagga Wagga, NSW. All of the bushrangers were young and inexperienced and except for their leader, were largely unknown to the police.

The head of the gang was Andrew George Scott who, in an attack of poetic licence, called himself Captain Moonlite. Scott was born on the 5th of July, 1842, in Rathfriland, Ireland, son of Thomas Scott, an Anglican clergyman, and Bessie Jeffares. His father’s intention was that he join the priesthood, but Scott instead trained to be an engineer, completing his studies in London.

The family moved to New Zealand in 1861, with Scott intending to try his luck in the Otago goldfields. However, the Maori Wars intervened and Scott signed up as an officer and fought at the battle of Orakau where he was wounded in both legs. After a long convalescence, Scott was accused of malingering, and court-martialled. He gave his disquiet at the slaughter of women and children during the siege as the source of his objection to returning to service.

Scott arrived in Melbourne in 1868, and met Bishop Charles Perry whereupon he was appointed as a lay preacher at Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, with the intention of entering the Anglican priesthood on the completion of his service. He was then sent to the gold mining town of Mount Egerton.

Here he preached to the population and befriended many people with his easy charm and Irish wit. One particular young man he befriended was 18-year-old Ludwig Bruun, an agent for the London Chartered Bank. One night, as Bruun was entering the bank to retire for the night (he had a room at the back) a voice ordered him to “Open up the safe”. Recognising that it was Scott, Bruun assumed it was a practical joke.

But upon turning around, he saw a masked man armed with a pistol and realized that the situation was serious. Scott forced Bruun into the room and after removing the contents of the safe, including an amount of gold, ordered Bruun, at gunpoint, to walk down the road towards the stables. Scott kept repeating that he was waiting for a mate and that they were going to rob the bank at Gordon. After a while they proceeded to the schoolhouse where Bruun was forced against a wall while Scott wrote a note saying “I hereby certify that L. W. Bruun has done everything in his power to withstand our intrusion and the taking away of the money, which was done with firearms.” The note was signed, “Captain Moonlite”. Scott then fled after tying Bruun up but Bruun managed to raise the alarm soon afterwards.

Andrew Scott, alias Captain Moonlite (left) and James Nesbitt (right)

Excitement raged in the small community as Bruun kept insisting that the robber was Scott, but when no evidence was found implicating Scott, the blame was fixed on Bruun. The police arrested Bruun and also the school master, James Simpson, as it was thought it was he who had written the letter in the schoolroom. They were bought to trial but were acquitted due to lack of evidence. The police now knew that they had a bandit on the loose who went by the name of “Captain Moonlite” and the newspapers soon picked up on it. Not long after this, Scott tired of his congregation and headed for Sydney, leaving the unsolved disappearance of £1,000 and an amount of gold for the police to worry about.

In Sydney, using a dud cheque and some of the gold from the robbery, Scott purchased a yacht but his crime was quickly uncovered and he ended up serving 12 months in Maitland Goal. Meanwhile, the police had been thorough in their investigation of the events surrounding the Egerton bank robbery and upon Scott’s release from Maitland Gaol, he was arrested and charged with armed robbery. While awaiting trial in Ballarat Goal, Scott escaped but was captured a week later. In July of 1872 he was gaoled for 10 years for the Egerton robbery and sentenced to a further year for escaping custody, but with a bit of Irish luck, he was released from HM Prison Pentridge after serving only seven years.

After his release he reacquainted himself with James Nesbitt, a young man he had befriended in Pentridge. While some disagree on the grounds of speculation, he is considered by many to have been Scott’s lover and there is significant evidence to support this. Scott’s handwritten letters, currently held in the Archives Office of NSW, profess this love for Nesbitt. While it is difficult to definitively claim the exact nature of Scott and Nesbitt’s sexual practices, it can certainly be said that their relationship was an overtly romantic one. With the aid of Nesbitt, Captain Moonlite began a career as a public speaker on prison reform trading on his tabloid celebrity.

However, throughout this period Scott was harried by the authorities and the tabloid press who attempted to link him to numerous crimes in the colony and printed fantastic rumours about supposed plots he had underway. In light of all this adverse publicity, Andrew Scott, alias Captain Moonlite, decided he might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb and set about gathering a band of followers, mostly young unemployed youths. One such disciple, Tom Rogan, declared that “The Captain was the only friend I ever had”. Nesbitt and Rogan were joined by three other young men – Thomas Williams, Augustus Wreneckie and Graham Bennet. It was an association that would have disastrous consequences.

The gang commenced their careers as bushrangers near Mansfield, in Victoria. While travelling through the Kelly Gang’s area of operation, Scott and his band were frequently mistaken for the Kelly Gang and took advantage of this to receive food and to seize guns and ammunition from homesteads. Inspecting Superintendent of Police John Sadleir, made a highly improbable claim that Scott sent word to Ned Kelly, asking to join forces with him but Kelly sent back word threatening that if Scott or his band approached him he would shoot them down. Scott seems to have never received the reply as his gang left Victoria in the later part of 1879, after operating there for a short time.

One story has it that Scott promised to lead them to his “property” near Wagga Wagga where he had assured them of work, but whatever their motivation, the gang turned up at Wantabadgery station and were told that the owners were not on the property and to come back the next morning.

Upon returning next morning, they were abruptly ordered off the property. The young men had not eaten for more than two days and it was then that Scott decided to again don the mantle of “bushranger”. The young men, lead by a lay preacher, cum bank robber, cum bushranger, attacked the undefended homestead and over the course of the next two days, 40 prisoners were taken hostage. But one man managed to escape and raise the alarm in Wagga Wagga. Four troopers then rode to the homestead and were met with volleys of gunfire from the bushrangers. The police retreated to a homestead close by and got a message out to Gundagai, 43 kilometres away, to send reinforcements.

Captain Moonlite knew what was coming and ordered his followers to “ride out or be caught and shot”. The young bushrangers did not hesitate, and fearing for their lives, saddled up and rode out of the homestead after Scott, heading for Edmund McGlede’s farm. Here they had food and drink and were mounted and about to ride out again when the police came galloping towards them. Ten troopers demanded that they “Surrender in the name of the Queen!” Scott and his men immediately took cover behind a fence and bushes near McGlede’s farmhouse.

When Scott refused to surrender, the shooting started. The first of the bushrangers to be hit was 15-year-old Wreneckie. As he was running from a fence to reach a better position, he was shot through the side, paralyzed from the waist down and mortally wounded. The bushrangers backed into the farmhouse firing, and then Williams was hit in the arm. As the police advanced on them, Senior Constable Edward Webb-Bowen was struck. Recent investigation pointed to Wreneckie being the likely shooter while on the ground to Webb-Bowen’s left, hitting him in the neck with a bullet fired from a Colt revolver. By this time a large crowd had gathered on the hills around the farm to witness the “showdown”. The scene was similar to the crowd that would gather to see the shootout involving Ned Kelly and his gang at Glenrowan one year later. The bushrangers were down to only three men and then a bullet came through the window and hit Nesbitt in the head. Realising that the game was up, Scott shouted out that he wanted to surrender.

Immediately the police entered the farmhouse to find Nesbitt lying on the floor and Williams crying near the chimney. Scott threw down his gun and surrendered, as did Bennet but there was no sign of Rogan. Some troopers went towards Junee looking for him thinking that he had somehow managed to escape. After the shooting stopped, the crowd came down from their vantage points to have a closer look at the bushrangers. Scott, ever defiant, glared back and seemed to enjoy the attention.

Wreneckie was carried inside the house and laid beside Nesbitt. He died at 3pm that afternoon and James Nesbitt died in Scott’s arms at 5pm. That night the remaining bushrangers were closely guarded in the farmhouse before being taken to Gundagai next morning. Rogan joined them as he was found hiding under a mattress in the McGlede’s bedroom next morning.

Senior Constable Webb-Bowen died five days later and the bushrangers were now not only up on charges of “Robbery-Under-Arms” and “Wounding with Intent”, they were facing a murder charge. The Wantabadgery Bushrangers stood trial in Sydney in December 1879. The four of them were found guilty and sentenced to death but after an appeal, Bennet and Williams had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. Andrew Scott, alias Captain Moonlite, and 21-year-old Thomas Rogan, were to be hung. Even on the gallows platform, Rogan, ever faithful said, “I want to die near the Captain.” Scott always maintained that Rogan took no part in the gunfight at McGlede’s farm and was surprised that he had to hang.

While awaiting his hanging, Scott wrote a series of death-cell letters which were discovered by historian Garry Witherspoon. Scott went to the gallows wearing a ring woven from a lock of Nesbitt’s hair on his finger and his final request was to be buried in the same grave as his constant companion, “My dying wish is to be buried beside my beloved James Nesbitt, the man with whom I was united by every tie which could bind human friendship, we were one in hopes, in heart and soul and this unity lasted until he died in my arms.” His request was not granted by the authorities of the time, but in January 1995, his remains were exhumed from Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney and reinterred at Gundagai next to Nesbitt’s grave.

The Marble Man of Orange

It was the discovery of the first payable goldfield in Australia that really put Orange on the map. The township, now in its 177th year, prospered in a way nobody could predict. First named by Major Mitchell in honour of Prince William of Orange, (later the King of Holland), town lots had first been sold back in 1835. A church, flour mill, court house and an inn known as the Brickmakers Arms had already been built at that stage, but in 1851 with the discovery of gold at Ophir, 30km north of Orange, then at Lucknow, only 9km to the east of the town, things changed. Gold can still be found in the district, and many fossickers still work around the old gold diggings at Ophir today. Out along the road to Ophir, just 3km out of the town, is the birthplace of one of Australia’s most famous sons – Banjo Patterson, at Narambla Homestead. Only the foundations remain of the house, and a park has been created with an obelisk, at its western end, near the Ophir Road, to honour the poet. It was unveiled by his widow in 1947.

LEADING SCIENTIFIC EXPERTS

Banjo Patterson would have been 25 years old when, in 1889, a man called Fred Sala produced his extraordinary “Marble Man” which the authorities later claimed to be a hoax, while leading scientific experts insisted it to be a real petrified human corpse. Whether it was a fraud or not has never been proved satisfactorily, but exhibiting it certainly helped Sala become a rich man. The saga of the “marble man” began in 1889 when rumours spread that an Orange quarryman had discovered something incredible at Caleula quarry (about 50km out of Blayney). Top quality marble was found at this quarry which had something of an international reputation, and was exported to other countries abroad. Here Sala worked as a labourer, although he was believed to have financial interests in the quarry. One day in May 1889, Sala arrived in his cart outside the surgery of Dr Souter in Anson Street, Orange, with a coffin-like box. It took several men to lift and carry it into the doctor’s rooms and when the lid was removed, inside lay a reclining figure which had seven toes, one eye and no arms, although in other ways it looked exactly like a well-proportioned man in a petrified condition. Sala claimed to have found it at the Caleula marble quarry and said he was bringing it to the doctor for an opinion as to whether it was a statue or a fossilised human being.

The mysterious marble man of Orange

EXAMINED THE FIGURE

The doctor examined the figure before him and a week later announced that it was a statue, no doubt about it. He did, however, wish to see the place where it had been unearthed. Sala told the doctor he was unable to show him the exact place, thus reinforcing Dr Souter’s belief that the “marble man” was nothing more than a statue. Dr Souter went on to produce a paper in which he confidently claimed that the marble man was a sculpture done by an amateur sculptor, one of his reasons being that moisture from the eyes and the cartilage of the nose dried up after death, while the nose and eye of the marble man looked well formed. He claimed also that there was an unequal number of ribs each side. Although the marble man was of white marble, while the Caleula quarry produced a mottled-looking marble, he was quite adamant that the whole thing was a fraud. Undeterred by such observations, Sala went about the country with his “marble man” displaying it to willing crowds who were only too happy to pay a shilling to look at it. He even went as far as Sydney where the marble man was exhibited on a felt-covered platform, while thousands filed by (after paying for the privilege) most respectfully to look, while controversy raged as to its authenticity of being a fossilised human being.

STAKES HIS REPUTATION

An eminent Sydney scientist, Dr C. W. McCarthy, was willing, he said, to stake his reputation on its being a petrified human corpse. The outward groupings of muscles and the bone structure, Dr McCarthy was sure, were exactly like a human being who had died. Also, the pittings on the body which Dr Souter had put down to the work done by Sala with a chisel, he claimed were pittings caused by falling pebbles. This, he said, was proved by the fact there was an absence of such marks on the back. He also claimed the body did not have irregular ribs, but that the irregularity was caused by the pressure of earth and rock, creating a fold. Notice was taken of Dr McCarthy’s views mainly because he was highly qualified in such matters and also a collector of statues. He was a man who ought to know. Marble dealers, however, had a variety of views, one believing it to be an old statue belonging to an early settler. Fred Sala was uneasy about the opinions of Dr McCarthy and other medical experts. He suddenly realised that his moneymaking enterprise would come to an end if they somehow convinced authorities that the marble man was a petrified human, because the body would then belong to the State and be held for identification purposes. With doctors pushing to dissect it, and leading citizens in Orange calling for a police enquiry, Sala intimated that the marble man might actually be a fraud.

SET OUT TO INVESTIGATE

Sub-Inspector Ford of the Orange police now set out to investigate the marble man, starting with Caleula quarry and the local people who knew Sala. One man, Joe Bell, who worked at Cow Flat where Fred Sala lived, was able to tell the policeman that Sala had ordered a block of marble from him which he had delivered to Sala’s house three months before. He had actually seen the marble man, quite by accident. Sala had been working on it, moulding it into the figure of a reclining man, but in order that no one should see it, he stationed his son, Edward, at the back of the house, ordering him to whistle a warning if anyone was approaching, and the statue was quickly put away out of sight. Discarded chips of marble at the now-vacated Sala house confirmed Ford’s opinion too that the marble man was a hoax, and he filed his report to this effect.

MARBLE FIGURE WAS MADE

Ford’s report stated: “I am thoroughly convinced that the marble figure was made at Croaker’s old public-house, at Cow Flat, by G. F. Sala and that the marble was obtained from Bell’s quarry, about two miles from Cow Flat. I have obtained the following information, that Joseph Bell conveyed from his marble quarry about five months since, a large piece of marble, about one ton weight, to G. F. Sala’s residence (Croaker’s old public-house) at Cow Flat, and put it halfway into the back kitchen through the door, and Bell states that some ten or twelve weeks afterwards he saw that a man had been modelled out of it by Sala, and that he used acids, and whilst Sala was making the figure that his son Fred was always on the watch and would at once whistle if any person came in sight, and that Sala would then come out of the kitchen and shut the door.” Meanwhile, letters to the editor appeared in the newspaper, advancing theories about who the marble man was – one person suggesting that as one leg was thinner than the other, perhaps this man was an escaped convict who had worn leg irons. Another suggested he had hidden under a rock ledge which had fallen and trapped him while a third suggested the convict had been speared in the eye by blacks, who had removed his toes, and the rest of the body, buried in a limestone cave, had petrified over the years.

FROM A REAL CORPSE

While this was going on, behind the scenes the idea was growing that Sala had made a cast from a real corpse to create his statue, in order to get the right symmetry. A Government geologist added to the confusion by stating that the marble had not come from Orange at all. Experts also said that if it was a sculpture, it was much too professional-looking for a man such as Fred Sala, a humble quarry labourer. And so, the controversy continued. Sala eventually sold the marble man to a Sydney entrepreneur named Stockdale, who after seeing the fossilised body on display in Castlereagh Street, Sydney, immediately realised the money-making potential of the exhibit. Sala received £1,000 for his marble man but Stockdale ended up making 10 times that much, bringing in as much as £30 per day for months on end. Stockdale originally intended taking the marble man to London to allow scientists there to determine whether it was in fact a fossilised human being or simply a marble carving, but once the money started drying up on the exhibition front, Stockdale abandoned such plans.

MARBLE MAN DISAPPEARED

The “Marble Man” eventually ended up on the porch of a cottage in the Sydney suburb of Rozelle, before being moved to a vacant property further up the street. Eventually, when this site was developed, the marble man disappeared leaving people with the tantalising question of whether the marble man really was a fossilised human being or just a conman’s clever sculpture.

In search of Edinburgh Castle gold

…and a look at Burtville Cemetery

Visualise England’s Edinburgh Castle back in medieval times when bold knights fought with broadswords, slayed the odd dragon or two to keep their hand in, and were rewarded for their troubles with vast amounts of gold. There are many such stories, but this isn’t one of them. The Edinburgh Castle in my story is a dirty great big rock on the edge of the desert region of Western Australia where the old-time gold diggers earned their living.

Years ago, our “crew” secured tenure to a likely looking prospecting tenement at the old Edinburgh Castle diggings in the Mount Margaret goldfield of WA. The tenement bordered an old abandoned show named “Redeemed” that had a long history of very rich crushings. As our tenement boundary was at the southern end of the Redeemed workings and there was a large quantity of old-time shaker heaps on our block, we reckoned that the prospectors of that time were onto something given all the work that they’d put in. We thought that the gold would have either been shed from the Redeemed workings or hopefully, and this was what we had to find out, from our block.

The name of the Edinburgh Castle diggings no doubt originated from the shape of a large flat-topped rocky hill in the area that, if you try hard, resembles an old English castle. The hill can be seen on the horizon for miles. Other old workings in close vicinity to Edinburgh Castle are the Golden Ring, Edith Hope, Ophir, Sailor Prince and Rowena. All of these old shows have fantastic records of production. To reach Edinburgh Castle, a dirt road is taken from the south of Laverton and on through Mount Weld pastoral station. The actual diggings are further south from the station and can be readily identified when you are nearing them by the vast quantities of old dryblow and shaker heaps scattered about the countryside. These are a very good indication that surface gold had been found in the past.

Our first trip after gaining tenure was somewhat dampened when we found that someone had expertly gridded and detected our block. We later found out that an American fellow had gone through the whole area before our arrival and had left with a bundle of gold. At times when we weren’t on our lease detecting, we were on virgin country further out trying to find some ground that had been missed by the old timers.

Prior to one particular trip, old Jack was getting anxious to get away and decided to jump the gun by leaving three weeks before the rest of us. He planned to move around amongst his old prospecting haunts and then meet up with us at Edinburgh Castle on a given date. Three weeks later, Gary, Harold, Darrel and myself drove throughout the night and arrived at Jack’s camp about nine in the morning. We had been concerned about the weather on the way up as the sky was very overcast, but as it hadn’t rained for several years, we figured it was only a flash in the pan and would probably blow over.

Old Jack was glad to see us and to have someone to talk to. He was very sunburnt, very gaunt and looked like a bit like an Egyptian Mummy with the wrapping off. He had found some good gold and was eager to show us but before we had a chance to set up camp, it started to rain. It rained heavily for about an hour and turned the whole countryside into a quagmire. Jack was grabbing buckets, tubs and anything that would hold water so that he could replenish his water supply. When the rain stopped, we set up camp. There were scattered showers for a day or so afterwards, but it was that initial rain that made movement very difficult.

Darrel had found some nuggets on an ironstone and quartz shed on a previous trip and as the area he’d worked was close to camp, we decided to spend time there, at least until the ground dried out to enable us to move about. Gary was the first to pick up a nugget, followed by Darrel with three in a confined area. Darrel hadn’t been detecting long prior to that trip but he’d quickly picked up the knack of swinging a detector.

He decided to mark off a plot for “chaining” which is the usual thing to do when ground is found that has potential. By gridding the ground with a chain in tow, you can be assured that no area remains unscanned with the coil. This proved a good move by Darrel as he started picking up more nuggets. Old Jack also decided to mark off an area right at the end of where Darrel’s chain lines ended. Meanwhile Gary and I were doing a “wander” and hoping to jag onto some fresh ground. Harold didn’t have a detector at that time and had come along for the fresh air and sunshine which we hoped to have in a day or so. He spent his time walking and exploring in the nearby scrub.

The “remains” of Burtville cemetery

Old Jack took about an hour to remove all the rotted logs and debris from the area he planned to chain. He wasn’t taking any chances of losing a nugget because there was a log or something else in his way. He started detecting right at the end of Darrel’s chain line and had only walked a matter of a few feet when he locked onto a nice rounded nugget of about half an ounce that was lying on the surface beneath a small bush, not two feet away from Darrel’s last grid. “You know, I was going to chain another line but that bush was in the way,” Darrel sighed.

The ground began drying out after a couple of days which allowed us to start moving out a bit. A quick look around the old Sailor Prince workings didn’t raise much interest in the crew but further down the track we came to the old Rowena workings. Gary had seen an old shaft on the side of a hill prior to reaching these workings and decided to have a swing with his detector. He picked up a bright 3-gram, ribbon-shaped strip of gold that had apparently been part of a leader the old timers were onto.

“I bet this slipped through the wooden slats of the cart when they were loading it,” Gary said.

At Rowena, the monumental landmark of Edinburgh Castle can be seen about a mile further on. The Rowena workings are set near the base of a long line of breakaway country that is actually linked with the Edinburgh Castle mount. The dry blowing heaps at these workings were the largest and most concentrated I have ever seen. The old prospectors must have known their stuff as we couldn’t even raise a colour.

After leaving Rowena we went to the Edinburgh Castle mount which we climbed. The sight was breathtaking in all directions. To the east of the mount the true desert starts and there is very little in between where we were and the South Australia-Northern Territory borders.

Near the base of the mount we found a wooden structure that had been made from local bush wood and was very old. It was about 10 feet long and six feet wide and looked to have had a thatched roof at some stage. The ground within it appeared to have been dug and filled in at some time in the distant past. As we looked, it finally dawned on us that the structure was actually an old prospector’s grave which was set in such a fashion and at such an angle that the occupant, whoever he was, faced the Edinburgh Castle. Around the campfire one night Gary said, “Let’s go over and have a look at Burtville in the morning.” I had never been to Burtville before and the idea appealed to me. The usual access to this centre was from Laverton but the maps showed a track leading from Edinburgh Castle direct to Burtville. All we had to do was to find this track, or any track leading that way. Scouting around near Mallock Well the next morning, we found a faint track that led off the way we wanted to go and we knew Burtville was only about 10 miles distant, so we decided to give it a go. Several miles of pushing logs out of the way and removing overgrowth from the track, our path suddenly widened and after passing several old mining centres, we were at Burtville.

In its heyday, Burtville was one of the roughest, toughest, and richest mining centres in WA, with a peak population of around 400 in 1903. It is recorded as being the most violent of places with a larger list of unnatural deaths than any other town (see article at the end of this feature story). Many of the old mines of the area tended to reveal the nationalities and persuasions of the original miners, with mine names such as Carib, Savage Captain, Jerusalem, Craigiemore, Maori Chief, Rock of Ages and so forth.

Records show just how rich that ground was. The majority of mines averaged between two and four ounces per ton. A lot of the mines far exceeded this figure with their gold returns but unfortunately the gold was mostly in leaders which gave out at shallow depth. The eluvial gold from these leaders was the main target for the early diggers. Some of the rich mines and their average yield per ton over several years are: Treble Handed, which returned an average of 5.58 ounces of gold; Tempus 2.23 ounces; Nil Desperandum 2.58 ounces; Savage Captain 3.1 ounces; Maori Chief five ounces; Golden Bell 3.29 ounces and Karridale 2.29 ounces. Even the State Battery in its first two years of operation averaged 2.5 ounces per ton crushed over the plates. It was truly a very rich field.

On the day before we were due to leave for home, gold was very scarce. We were trying all likely spots with no result. Gary had just specked a tiny nugget when he declared that it was time to knock off. It had been a long day and we had all covered our share of ground. As I was walking back to the ute and about to switch my detector off, I heard a faint signal in a loamy patch of ground. There was very little rock in the ground or nearby and I thought the target was probably a bullet or lead shot. As I scratched away with my pick, the signal got louder and deeper and after about two minutes, I had accumulated quite a heap of dirt. This amused Old Jack who strolled over, “Digging to China?” he inquired. At the same time I placed a nice little flat 4-gram nugget into the palm of his hand. With the depth and intensity of the signal, I was hoping for at least a one ouncer but at least it allowed me to finish on a high. I later had that little gem made into a necklace for my wife.

BURTVILLE CEMETARY

How many graves there are in Burtville Cemetery is unknown. There are thought to be more than 30 but whatever the number, there were only 14 named burials. What makes this cemetery unique is the fact that of those 14 named burials, only three people died of natural causes. Two were infants and no cause was given for their deaths, while the only adult to die of natural causes was a 39-year-old Italian miner, Giovani Tellini, who it was said died as a result of a fatal heart attack and not from any injuries he suffered in his subsequent fall to the bottom of his mine shaft.

The causes of death of the 11 other members of the choir invisible were: one as a result of a lightning strike; one shot to death; four in mining accidents; and five as a result of suicide by placing dynamite in their mouths and blowing their heads off.

The first burial was that of William Massey, 57, on the 28th of October, 1901. His death was reported in the Laverton and Beria Mercury of Saturday 2nd November, 1901: “A shocking fatality occurred at the Cremorne mine, Burtville, at about 2.30 on Monday afternoon, whereby a man named William Massey lost his life under awfully sad circumstances. It appears that the deceased and his mate (Sam Milligan) were working tribute on the Cremorne. On the day of the accident Milligan, who always did the “shooting,” was away in Laverton, as witness on an assault case, consequently Massey continued working alone, the scene of operations being in a rise from the 20ft level, where stoping was in progress. At the time stated above, the men at the battery adjoining were startled by the report of a shot, immediately followed by a scream of agony. Rushing to the spot a distressing sight met their gaze. It would appear that after lighting the charge Massey made an attempt to reach the surface by drawing himself up with the aid of the timber, which towards the top was staked in, and the surmise is that they gave way and let loose about five tons earth, which jammed the deceased against the opposite wall, in close proximity to the charge, which immediately exploded. The upper portion only of the deceased was exposed, he being partially imbedded. When found he was conscious and said, “For God’s sake take me out of this, my leg’s blown off.” On being extricated, it was found that his left leg was simply blown to pieces. Medical assistance was sent for but deceased only survived the shock for about 10 minutes.”

The last man buried in Burtville Cemetery was Nicholas Moreton Tredennick on the 31st of October, 1932. He blew his head off with a stick of dynamite. He joined the four other suicides by the same means, they being Robert Archibald Grahame (1905), from Torquay, England, who had been living in Burtville for about six years and was known amongst his friends as “The Savage Captain”; Yorkshireman John Calvert Addingly (1907) who was reputedly a qualified doctor turned gold miner and was known as “The Doctor” locally; Scotsman Robert McCracken (1908), who arrived in WA about 1895 and was the manager of the Lady Loch Mine out of which he reportedly made about £20,000 pounds but managed to lose the lot; and John Thomas (1909), aged somewhere between 32 and 35, who had unsuccessfully mined for gold in the district for about 2½ years before deciding that the only option left was to blow his own head off. He had no known relatives.

The man who was killed by gunshot was 32-year-old Frederick Bond who was shot on the 27th of July, 1902, during an argument at a camp in Burtville, by his drinking companion, Charles Henry Wilkins, the manager of the Mikado GM. Bond was a single man who had been on the northern fields for about six years and in WA for 10 years. He had no known relatives. In September 1902, Wilkins was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 18 months hard labour.

Life was cheap in those days.

Owning some diamonds can be deadly

Since 1968 Copeton’s main claim to fame has been the dam which is said to be three times the size of Sydney Harbour when full. However, back in 1875, diamonds were found there in the alluvium of Copes Creek close to its junction with the Gwydir River, leading to the discovery in 1883 of the most productive field in NSW.

On the edge of the waters of Copeton Dam, near Inverell, also at nearby Bingara, commercial quantities were mined. A big strike was also made near Gulgong in 1867 during work on a deep lead for gold, more than 3,000 diamonds being recovered. There have been finds of diamonds also at Mt Airly, near Lithgow and during the years of World War II, Tom Heath, the only full-time diamond miner in Australia at that time, kept the Lithgow small arms factory supplied with industrial diamonds. The first discovery of diamonds in Western Australia was in 1895 when a digger from Nullagine brought five small diamonds which he had found in the stamper box after crushing, into Roebourne. Since then there have been many finds of diamonds in the west with excitement generated by the discovery of a huge deposit of commercial gems at Smoke Creek, near Lake Argyle in northern WA. These massive deposits exceeded any previous diamond discoveries although diamonds had been found in other states including Corinna in Tasmania, and near Stanthorpe in Queensland.

The word ‘diamond’ comes from the Creek word ‘adamas’ meaning ‘invincible’. This description seems fitting for the diamond, which is unsurpassed for its hardness, brilliance and fire. They can vary in Nature from colourless to black and the stones can be transparent, translucent or opaque. The colourless or pale blue stones are most valued although much rarer than those tinged with yellow. The diamond is composed of pure carbon and formed deep within the earth under enormous pressure and temperatures.

The 45.52-carat Hope diamond

There is more than one type of diamond and they are found in three types of deposits – alluvial gravels, glacial tills and kimberlite pipes. Australian diamonds have been found in ‘pipes’ of rock which were once the craters of old volcanoes, although the first diamonds were recovered at Argyle from where they had washed into the gravel along Limestone Creek.

Diamonds, supposedly a girl’s best friend, have been associated with their fair share of disasters, though. A scandal which rocked the court of France’s King Louis XVI centred on a diamond necklace and it so gravely weakened the position of the French monarchy on the eve of the revolution that Napoleon later cited it as one of the causes of the revolution.

It began in 1772 when Madame du Barry, mistress of the ageing Louis XV, demanded that he buy her the most expensive diamond necklace in the world. Her doting lover (who could refuse her nothing) commissioned Bohmer, the court jeweller, to create the necklace and for this he bought 600 of the best stones in Europe, stringing them together in a necklace worth however many millions today.

Confidently expecting payment, Bohmer was shocked to hear that the king had died during a smallpox epidemic, and he now faced ruin. Neither the new king, Louis XVI, or his queen, Marie Antoinette, wanted the necklace. Marie Antoinette’s dislike of the necklace was only exceeded by her dislike of Cardinal de Rohan, bishop of Strasbourg and member of a noble family, who had once been French ambassador to the court of the Empress of Austria. His affairs were well known throughout Europe, as was the fortune he had amassed in bribes. He was aware that the queen despised him and wanted very much to be back in royal favour.

In this way he fell victim to the schemes of the Comtesse de la Motte who very much desired the necklace herself. With forged letters from the Comtesse and an interview with a prostitute who was disguised as the queen, in a dark grove in the grounds of Versailles, the Cardinal bought the necklace (which was handed to the Comtesse) on behalf of, so he thought, the queen. When he failed to make the first payment the jewellers approached the queen and the whole business was exposed. Meanwhile the necklace had been carried off to London and the stones sold to several Bond Street jewellers. The cardinal was arrested, imprisoned in the Bastille and tried before the Parliament of Paris. Queen Marie Antoinette, already unpopular with the people (who imagined the cardinal to be her lover, giving her fabulous presents while they were left to starve) was judged harshly for her apparent frivolity and laxliving. The whole scandal weakened the position of the monarchy, ultimately leading to its removal.

The Koh-i-Noor diamond is also one with a very chequered history. Originally a lumpy Mughal-cut stone which lacked fire, it was recut to enhance its brilliance. According to legend, Sultan Ala-ud Din Khalji is believed to have taken the diamond in 1304 from the Raja of Malwa, India, whose family had held it for many generations. The name Koh-i-Noor means ‘mountain of light’ and it is the central diamond of the crown made for Queen Elizabeth (The Queen Mother), to wear at her coronation in 1937 during the reign of her husband, King George VI. It is held with the crown jewels in the Tower of London.

One legend has it that it was cut from the Great Mogul diamond but this seems unlikely. It most likely formed part of the loot of Nader Shah of Iran when he sacked Delhi in 1739. After his death it came into the hands of his general, Ahmad Shah, founder of the Durrani dynasty of Afghans, and a descendant, Shah Shoja, was forced to surrender the stone to Ranjit Singh, the Sikh ruler. Upon the annexation of the Punjab in 1849, it came into British hands and was placed amongst the crown jewels of Queen Victoria. Two myths surround the diamond – that its owners will rule the world and that it must never be worn by a male as it will bring death.

More than 20 deaths have been blamed, similarly, on the Hope Diamond, held at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. A Hindu priest is believed to have stolen it from the forehead of an idol in an Indian temple. For his trouble he was caught and put to death. In 1642 it turned up in the hands of jewel trader Jean-Baptiste Tavernier and was purchased by Louis XIV in 1668 as part of the crown jewels. To do this the sapphire-blue diamond had to be cut from its original 112.5 carats down to 67.

Disaster seemed to follow everyone who had it – Nicolas Fouquet, a government official who borrowed it for a state ball, was imprisoned in 1665 after accusations of embezzlement and spent the rest of his life in prison, and Louis XIV died a broken man. The Princess de Lamballe who wore it many times was beaten to death by a mob; and Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, who inherited it, died on the guillotine.

In 1792, in the crown jewel robbery which followed in the wake of the Revolution, the diamond vanished. During this time it is thought to have been in the hands of the French jeweller Jacques Celot (who killed himself after going insane); and the Russian Prince Ivan Kanitovski who allegedly gave it to his French mistress before shooting her and later being murdered himself. Even Catherine the Great is believed to have worn the diamond before dying of apoplexy.

The stone was later cut down to 44.5 carats by a Dutch diamond cutter and passed through many hands before being purchased in 1830 by Thomas Hope, after whom it was named, who bought it for £30,000. Later Harry Winston bought the stone and presented it to the Smithsonian Institution.

Dick Greaves and the dawn of the Eastern Goldfields

Adapted from Truth (Perth), 6th of May, 1916

Some early memories of the late Dick Greaves, the pioneer prospector who blazed the track to the Eastern Goldfields, and who recently died at his residence in Roe Street, Perth, will make interesting reading for goldfields people. The memoirs are compiled from documents and letters in the possession of the writer, added to which memory plays a part. Dick Greaves’s father, who was a miner, arrived in South Australia in 1846, and Dick was born in 1850 on the banks of the Yarra, near Flinders Street, Melbourne, two years before gold was found in that State, and his father was on the first rushes at Clunes, Ballarat, Castlemaine, Bendigo, Eaglehawk, etc. At the latter place the family made their home, where a second daughter was born.

For 17 years or more Dick’s parents travelled from rush to rush and as soon as Dick was old enough and strong enough to make himself useful, he followed his parents in the quest for the golden god, and saw much of the auriferous fields, including Eaglehawk, from whence they journeyed to Whipstick, Wild Duck, McIvor Creek, Rushworth, and Spring Creek.

Dick’s dad did well on the last-named field, and the lucky digger made up his mind to give up the hard life and settle down in comfort. There was now a family of seven – five girls and two boys – each of whom was born in a tent, and the family went to Williamstown, with the ultimate intention of travelling to Warwick, England, which was the father’s home originally, and where Dick’s grandfather resided. This, however, was not to be, for the head of the family made his mind to go to the Hokitiki rush in New Zealand, in company with the late Dicky Seddon, by the S.S. Gottinberg, in 1866. In that same year the miner contracted a cold in the loins and went back to Williamstown, Victoria, where he died at the early age of 39, his wife, with a broken heart, following him to the last resting place nine months later, at which time she, also, was 39 years of age.

Dick Greaves, on the death of his father, was taken in hand by a Welshman named Hopkins. Dick, who was then 17 years of age, was a big, strong lad, and the contractor gave him a job as hod-carrier, but he afterwards took to the plastering trade and, being always used to hard work, got on well till the building business slumped in Victoria in the early seventies.

In 1874 Greaves was induced to join the Victorian police force in which position he remained only 14 months, during which time he received the only education he ever had, there being few schools in those days, the nearest one from Dick’s home being at Bendigo, a distance of 80 miles.

After resigning from the police, Dick went to Sydney, and again took to plastering, and then blossomed as a contractor, though always imbued with the glorious glamour of the quest of the golden god, and he could not resist two calls from the New South Wales goldfields, wending his way to a rush at Mullin’s Creek, outside Orange, and also making to the Temora rush and around Blayney.

In 1877 Greaves married, and in the same year joined the volunteer artillery, and was promoted to sergeant. For several years he was the crack shot of the regiment, but in 1885 he got word from a man named Inskip that plasterers were in demand for work at the banks in Perth and Geraldton.

Acting on this information, Greaves sold his house and went to Melbourne to catch a boat for Western Australia. The time, Dick said, was the year before Kimberley was found by Hall and Slattery.

He made up his mind to see if gold did exist in this part of Australia, and the first man he met who could give him any information on the subject was the late William Lawrence, a boat-builder, who, on the first day of Greaves’s arrival in WA, took the latter to his home in Mile Street, where the gold-seeker was considerably surprised by the sight of a number of mineral specimens, including mica in all sorts of forms, galena, asbestos, talc, pyrites, lead, ironstone, and much quartz of varied colours. One piece of ironstone, about the size of a brick, particularly caught Dick’s attention, as he detected coarse gold in the specimen, though the boat-builder said it was copper, and that Dick was quite welcome to it if it was of any use to him.

This was the foundation stone of rich gold discoveries, and the gift eventually led to the dawn of the Eastern Goldfields. Further inquiries led Lawrence to state that the stone was brought into Perth by a shepherd named Beare, and was left in a Mr Habgood’s office, where it was kicked about as a door-weight until it was secured by the boat-builder as a specimen of iron and copper ore.

Greaves dollied the stone and the gold content realised six pounds and eight shillings though for obvious reasons Dick did not deem it advisable to divulge that result. Beare, the shepherd, had informed people that there were tons and tons of the same class of stone scattered over a wide area where he found the specimen.

Greaves, in quest of the El Dorado, made his way to Wongong (now known as Armadale), and prospected along the Darling Ranges, but could find no stone resembling that which he was seeking, though the search was continued with indefatigable zeal, and every place where the shepherd had been, Greaves visited in turn.

Then a man nicknamed Moondyne Joe, otherwise John Johns, induced the gold-seeker to prospect a creek near Bailup, on the way to Newcastle, though there, also, it proved a fruitless search. Other localities were equally disappointing, and in November, 1885, Greaves went to Geraldton to plaster the Union Bank.

Later Lawrence and Greaves met a Mr Watson, who had been associated with Edmund Hammond Hargraves, the former (Watson) giving the information that Hargraves, so far as gold deposits were concerned, had condemned WA up hill and down dale. However, Watson volunteered the statement that the shepherd Beare was out at Gollaway some years previously, and this led to Greaves visiting and prospecting the back flats of the Chapman River and Gollaway country, though he was no more successful there than he had been at other places, not a trace of gold being revealed.

Returning to Perth in 1886, and backed up with the advice of Lawrence and information received by the boatbuilder, Greaves prospected about Bindoon, Gingin, Cardup and then on to the Bannester River, Williams River, and Arthur River, which were all places where Beare had shepherded his flocks. During these many wild golden goose chases, Dick made the acquaintance of numerous farmers and sandalwood cutters, a few of whom knew something about gold, while others who volunteered information, knew little or nothing of the vagaries of gold deposits. Consequently, Greaves visited many places in vain.

Late one night Lawrence went to the house where Greaves, who had returned to Perth, was living, and informed Dick that at last he had supposedly learned the exact location where the golden “doorweight” specimen had been found by the shepherd and he wanted the prospector to set off straight away on another search for the elusive ore; but at this time Greaves had a plastering contract at the Governor Broome Hotel, which had to be completed by a certain date, and he could not go at once, so he persuaded a man named Robert Kirkman (also Kirkham), in company with Ted Payne (Dick’s old mate), to go out on the hunt for gold.

They went in the direction of Mishon, Victoria Plains district, and in about a fortnight’s time returned with quartz showing free gold, which they found on Glover’s run.

Greaves, when shown the specimens, was working outside the Governor Broome Hotel on the cement columns, and the sight of the precious metal gave him another severe attack of gold fever, the “metalitis” affliction being so strong that he dropped his tools and declared there was no more plastering for him, as he was going to make a name for himself as well as for Western Australia. This pronouncement was hailed with keen delight by old-man Lawrence, who had great faith in Dick’s ability as a prospector.

The party was equipped and went out to where Payne had found the specimen and prospected the locality for several days, though not another colour could be found. They then chummed in with the Well brothers and found them right good fellows, too, as they showed them all the likely-looking places they knew of. By what they thought was the best of luck, they met a shepherd named Burns, or Bunes, who had known Beare very well, and they were put on to the run where the latter had shepherded his sheep for years.

Bindoon and Gingin were again prospected, including intervening country, but the party returned to Perth with barren results. Here Lawrence had continued inquiries, and he informed the party that there was another place for them to go to – Charlie Glass’s station – where a small speck of gold, probably carried by an emu, had been found on top of a granite outcrop. They were so anxious to find out where Beare’s stone came from that they did not care where the quest led them, though here again there was little or no luck.

After Greaves and Payne found the Yilgarn in 1887, they returned to Perth for a few days, where they equipped in good style, having six well-laden pack horses, and two for riding, and they made through Wongan Hills to the Hampton Plains, Lawrence having arranged every detail for an eight months trip. Unfortunately, Greaves was taken with a serious illness, referring to which he said in a recent letter to a goldfields friend: “As you know, I took ill at the Wongan, and was bedridden for two years; and, after arriving in Perth with £589, came out of the Melbourne Hospital £40 in debt. After many operations my muscles were so weak that I had to be held together for three years with tightlylaced and specially-made stays and could not work. I have still great faith that there are tons and tons of gold in WA which may be revealed if well-equipped parties get out into the mulga during a wet winter season.”

The writer of these reminiscences had the pleasure of drinking a cup of tea in company with Greaves a few days before he departed from this troubled world on his last prospecting trip to the Golden City of Peace and Plenty, and during that all too brief visit, Dick soliloquised on times gone by.

“It was a thousand pities,” he mused, “that I was taken ill at the very moment when success seemed so near. I got hydatids, and I know where I got them; it was at Ennuin (Yilgarn), where the claypan from which we got our water was full of dead kangaroos. We had suffered terrible from thirst, and when we came to the water we were so parched that we drank the filth without even waiting to strain it through a cloth – madness of course, but there is no worse or severe temporary insanity than that occasioned by want of water.

“Of course, we cleared the filth out later on, there being two or three tons of all sorts of unwholesome stuff. There was another claypan seven miles south of the one I just mentioned, and when we camped at that spot, we had to empty an over-ripe emu out of the hole. That same evening we had a visit from Brook Evans, who heralded a great thunderstorm, which filled to overflowing all the rockholes and claypans for miles around, and was, no doubt, welcomed when the rush set in after Harry Anstey blabbed the news of the gold find to the people and press of Perth.

“The people who got the reward had the gold found for them, and I (Dick Greaves) and my mate (Ted Payne), the pioneers of the Eastern fields, never got enough out of the find to buy a suit of clothes.”

Greaves was in a reminiscent mood, and referred to the fact that Harry Gregory, during his early term of office at Minister for Mines, when a commission or committee was appointed to inquire into the old prospector’s claim for a Government reward for finding the Yilgarn, had mentioned that he (Dick) was getting 30 shillings a week with the prospecting party.

“That is true enough,” remarked Dick, “but the Minister forgot to mention, or did not know, that I threw up a job worth 30 shillings a day when I went in search and found the field which ultimately led to Tom Riseley’s discovery of Southern Cross, and which pioneered the rush to Coolgardie, Kalgoorlie, and other fields too numerous to mention.”

Before Greaves and Payne found the Yilgarn there was little beyond sandalwood and kangaroo skins in commercial circles, and there is not the slightest doubt that these two pioneers did all the hard work and suffered privations for the alleged leader of the party, Harry Anstey, who always made for civilisation when there was an indication of the water becoming soup-like.

Greaves and Payne were the only prospectors east of Northam till their find was rushed – only two men, and how many are there today?

During the search for the place from whence Beare’s stone came. Greaves went over the country from Toodyay to Victoria Plains, Northam, York, Beverley, Mount Churchman, Lake Moore, Ningan, Yalgoo, Mullewa, Gullewa, Peterswongie, White Hills, and between 1885-96, including the foregoing, he visited country from Southern Cross to Lake Gulis, Menzies to the White Feather, and from Londonderry to the White Feather.

Greaves must have been a man of wonderful vitality and iron constitution, for he underwent no less than 21 serious surgical operations, which were rendered necessary chiefly to hydatids on the liver. When Dick Greaves passed away peacefully in his sleep, we lost one of the most remarkable men of this State, and his memory should live in history whenever the gold discoveries of Australia are mentioned. Good old Dick, splendid old Dick! Generous almost to fault, we mourn for him as for a brother, and when shall we meet his like again.

NOTE: Dick Greaves died on Friday the 17th of March, 1916. To say that he didn’t accumulate much of the precious metal during his lifetime is an understatement. Up until his death at the age of 66, he held the post of caretaker of Perth’s James Street School, where he was a great favourite with both the teachers and the children.

Edward (Ted) Payne fared no better. Ted died at the age of 49 in Geraldton Hospital on the 7th of April, 1912, and is buried in the old Geraldton Cemetery. He had little more than the shirt on his back when he died and his obituary simply described him as “one of the founders of Paynesville, on the Murchison.”

What price an ounce of gold

At some point in your life you’ve probably been told that gold was, is, and forever will be the greatest investment of all time, considering its retention of value, millennia-long history, scarcity etc., etc. However, the companies selling gold will gladly take your cash in exchange for it, which ought to tell you something about gold’s short-term prognosis.

A permanent bull market for gold is impossible. If the price of gold had risen consistently and measurably in value since the days of Tutankhamun, its price would now be such that Elon Musk probably couldn’t afford an ounce of it. The metal’s price clearly rises and falls, so what makes one day’s supply and demand intersect at one price, then intersect at a different price the next day?

Indeed, the price of gold has fluctuated throughout history, reaching an all-time high of US$2,074.88 per troy ounce during August 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic sent investors searching for safe havens and a store of value. However, in dollar value terms, the all-time high was back in late 2011 when it hit US$1,920. Allowing for inflation, that would be the equivalent of US$2,611 per ounce today. Since 2020 the price of gold has come off a bit from its all-time highs but has remained fairly strong, even as the stock and bond markets experienced downturns through 2022.

SURGE IN SUPPLY

The supply of gold is largely static from one period to the next. Gold mines are large and plentiful, but almost the entirety of what they produce is wasted. As technology improves, ore with lower concentrations of gold becomes more economically feasible to mine. Discard all the billions of tons of worthless ground rock, and it has been estimated that all the gold discovered thus far would fit in a cube that is 23 metres wide on every side.

As a long-standing commodity, gold is not a security for the speculative. No one, or at least no one sane, buys physical gold in the hope that it will quadruple in value over the next year. Instead, buying gold is a defensive measure: a guard against inflation, currency devaluation, the failure of less tangible assets, and other woes.

Unlike many other commodities, precious metals differ in that, for the most part, they are not consumed. Less than 10% of gold is mined for technology/industrial purposes (e.g., rheumatoid arthritis drugs, wiring in F1 racing cars), leaving the rest to be held and later sold at the buyer’s will, whether in bullion, coin, or jewellery form. Fundamentally, the total supply of gold is more or less static.

MARKET CONDITIONS

Speculation is one reason for changes in gold prices. Investors speculate as to what governments and central banks are going to do and then act accordingly. Gold prices dropped when the US Federal Reserve announced in 2014 that it was wrapping up its stimulus program after the financial crisis of 2008. That announcement, coupled with low inflation rates of the time and a red-hot stock market meant that people asked why sit on the sidelines with an inert shiny metal when other investors were getting at least temporarily rich? In the late 1990s, gold was hovering in the $360 range. That’s per ounce, not per milligram. People who have been shrewd and patient enough to hold onto their gold stashes throughout terrorism, war, prolonged recession(s), and other assorted global upheavals are justifiably proud – and probably still not selling – particularly when you consider that worldwide economic and political distress are often the norm, not the exception – in 2023 I give you war in Ukraine, China vs Taiwan, North Korea vs Everyone Else, riots in France and wildfires in Greece.

CAN GOLD PRICES CONTINUE TO RISE FOREVER?

Probably not, but it may continue to trend upward over the long run, interrupted by pullbacks and bear markets. It’s important to note that gold prices have historically been volatile and have fluctuated quite a bit over time. The price of gold, like any other commodity, is subject to the laws of supply and demand. When the supply of gold is low, and demand is high, the price will rise. Conversely, when the supply of gold is high, and demand is low, the price will fall. Additionally, other factors like interest rates, inflation, currency value, geopolitical events, and economic conditions can have an impact on gold prices.

THE ROLE OF MINING TECHNOLOGY IN THE SUPPLY OF GOLD

Improvements in mining technology can affect the supply of gold by making it more economically feasible to mine lower-grade ore with lower concentrations of gold, thus increasing its supply. As mining technology improves, it becomes possible to extract gold from previously uneconomical deposits. Also, technological advances can improve the efficiency of existing mines, which can lead to increased production of gold.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Gold is often seen as a safe haven investment and a store of value, but as a produced commodity, it is also subject to economic forces like supply and demand. When gold miners produce an excess of gold relative to demand, the price will experience downward pressure. Additionally, speculation and shifts in investor sentiment can cause rapid changes in the price of gold. Despite the volatility, gold remains a popular choice as a store of value and a hedge against inflation and currency devaluation. It’s tempting to think that gold represents an objective, unswayable measure of wealth, particularly given the metal’s role as an investment throughout the course of civilization. However, it is not. Gold’s value rises and falls just like any other investment.

While gold will almost certainly never gain or lose relative value as quickly as some crypto currencies and dot-com initial public offerings, gold’s price movements can still convey information. That information reflects investor confidence, the probability of stock price and currency increases, expectations for rising inflation, and more. A wise investor is one who recognizes gold’s place in the market, without attaching too much or too little significance to it.

The true story of Billy Blue’s Reef

Adapted from the Braidwood Revue and District Advocate (NSW), 8th February 1938

The story of Billy Blue’s Reef is an epic story of an El Dorado that never existed. The tale of an outcrop of pure gold, alleged to exist somewhere in the gorges of the Shoalhaven River in NSW, has been told the world over. This writer has heard it in drover’s camps, where sheep men congregate; by bivouac fires beneath the shadow of the Sphinx, and in the forecastle during the watch below. Gold! Dinkum gold! Knobs of it that could be hewn off with a tomahawk; and only Billy Blue knew where, and he never told; and then indignation would subside into sullen silence.

The whole matter is easy of explanation. Billy Blue was a cunning aborigine and in the course of his wanderings along the Shoalhaven he occasionally obtained fair specimens from potholes when the river was low. He stored his findings in a pickle-bottle and carried the gold either to Marulan or Nowra, and the fertile imagination of the whites did the rest – creating an El Dorado that was not.

When the truth of the situation dawned on Blue, he naturally enough assumed an air of stolid mystery, accepting meanwhile all the libations of rum and contributions of cash that were lavished on him – all in the vain hope that he would disclose the whereabouts of the reef.

For liquid and monetary consideration, Billy would consent to lead an expedition. Such expedition would set out in good order, only to find that friend Billy was missing from the first night’s camp.

Theories were advanced from time to time, only to be exploded when put into practice. A blazed tree on the mountain side was a hot scent; a series of blazed trees spelled near success that ended in dreary failure. The appearance of Billy at Marulan on one occasion, dripping with water, gave rise to the conclusion that his find could only be reached by means of a swim under water to a mysterious cavern; diving suits and subterranean exploration then became the order of the day.

None realised more than Billy the true meaning of the old adage, “Silence is golden.” To him it was more golden than gold; he wanted for nothing that a gold-fever victim could supply him with, and they were many.

Billy Blue used to wander along stretches of the Shoalhaven River when it was low and pick up the odd bit of gold from potholes

Times innumerable he was “shadowed” in his meanderings by hill and dale on Shoalhaven side, with the view of finding that which was not – the medieval search for the Philosopher’s Stone and the Elixir of Life pales into insignificance when compared with the search for the visionary reef.

After the demise of the astute black, some 62 years ago, the business of Billy Blue’s Reef Unlimited was carried on with less success by his bereaved wife, Fanny Blue. For the consideration of a fig of tobacco the secret of the location of the reel was imparted to many, and the result was the fervid curses of many disappointed goldseekers.

The late Henry Moss, of Nowra, a geologist and explorer of some attainments, had the confidence of Blue, and knew he had nothing to tell of, save his own duplicity.

Vainly Mr Moss strove to disillusion would-be seekers of the reef, but he usually only succeeded in convincing them that he knew of the location, and was endeavouring to put them off the scent.

Down the years gold-hunters called at the old inn and demanded the secret from the relatives of the late Mr Moss, and always they have scorned the suggestion of the non-existence of the reef. It is safe to say that somewhere in the hills today, where the Shoalhaven winds its way, there are lonely “hatters” diligently searching, patiently hoping to find the lost El Dorado of Billy Blue; and that search will be carried on whilst ever red blood runs in Australian veins.

While there is much tragedy in the story, comedy is paramount; in the beginning Billy Blue was innocent, the secret was created and literally forced upon him, and then he slowly realised that he had indeed the equivalent of a gold mine. Certain it is that if the reef existed neither he nor Fanny could have kept the secret of its location.

Quite recently an inquiry was afoot in Nowra for a photo of the unlamented Billy. It was elicited that the photo was required for the use of a spiritualist, to use in the locating of the reef. A humourist supplied a photo of an aborigine of unknown identity, and the credulous goldseeker supplied the spiritualist with some money.

A trance was staged, with the usual trimmings, and then followed a vivid description of a subterranean cavern, from the roof of which hung stalactites of gold. The goldseeker appeared to be getting value for his outlay, until the medium indignantly refused to act as guide on a fifty-fifty basis.

Billy Blue was tersely described by a Nowra lady, since deceased, as having been “a real old scoundrel.”

Note: The Billy Blue in this newspaper article should not be confused with William “Billy” Blue, an Australian convict who, after completing his sentence, became a boatman providing one of the first services to take people across Sydney Harbour. Although Billy Blue’s place and date of birth are uncertain, convict records suggest he was born in Jamaica, New York, around 1767. Other people reading his records believe him to have been from Jamaica, West Indies. In 1817, Governor Macquarie granted Billy Blue 80 acres on the shores of Sydney Harbour at what is now Blues Point, which was named after him. He died in 1834.

The Dee River rush

By Matt Fitzgerald

While researching the Dee River goldfield, situated a few kilometres north-east of Mount Morgan, I found the locals to be most helpful, with one old timer supplying me with valuable information about the goldfield, which was once known as Peter’s Rush. Who’s rush? Well, I’ll tell you. My great-great-grandfather, Peter Fehring, was a typical prospector. He lived in the nearby township of Bouldercombe and prospected the surrounding areas. On one prospecting trip to the Dee River, he stopped at a rock bar, liked what he saw, sampled and decided to peg a claim. Deciding to dig down a bit, to his amazement and at a depth of only two feet, he unearthed a fist-sized gold nugget followed by a number of smaller nuggets. Peter hurried home stashing his find in a bag of wheat in the kitchen for security. Together with his son-in-law, George Talbot, and close friend, Thomas Moore, they formed a syndicate known as “The Prospectors”, and headed off to the local pub for a few beers. This would prove costly as word of the find leaked out. When the men returned to the claim days later, the area around it had already been pegged out. Peter had only staked out one man’s ground and the opportunity to expand the claim was lost, although they could have pegged another claim reasonably close by. Believing there would be ample gold for all three on his claim, Peter convinced his partners to only work the one claim. More than one thousand ounces of quality, rounded nugget gold, some nuggets in excess of one hundred ounces and affectionately named “mangoes”, were found by Peter and his party. Their largest nugget, named the “Northcote”, weighed 171 ounces and a replica went on display at the Sydney Metallurgical Museum.

Unfortunately the Dee River today has the reputation of being one of the most polluted rivers in Australia, having been polluted by acid mine drainage from the Mt Morgan gold mine for more than 100 years. The Mount Morgan mine is a ‘classic’ legacy site – generating enormous wealth in its heyday but leaving an environmental disaster which will ultimately cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars

The field, though small, produced more than 5,000 ounces. The gold was found at varying depths, from two feet in the creek bed to 20 feet on some banks, and was usually associated with water-worn shingle or bluish-coloured pug. The sheer number of nuggets found suggested there would still be large gold nuggets waiting to be unearthed so I decided it was time to drag out the detector and find me a “mango”. I detected the creek bed and surrounding banks all day with no luck, my only reward being the finding of the exact spot where my great-great-grandfather’s nugget was discovered.

The next time I visited the Dee River I was better prepared, armed with Minelab’s latest (at the time) SD2200D. This detector took some getting used to, especially the discriminator, but once mastered it saved you hours of tedious junk digging. There are professional detector operators today who swear by the 2200D and still have one in their detector armoury. I was just getting into the swing of things only to be interrupted by that oh so familiar “wonk” sound. A quick dig and my first ever Dee River nugget (no mango unfortunately) came to light. A very nice 6-grammer. Within 30 minutes and only ten metres away, I unearthed another nugget, this time eight grams. Finding gold is one thing but this was the icing on the cake. Having drooled over the pictures of Peter’s gold nuggets, I’d often dreamed of finding one. The gold “The Prospectors” found had to be sold in accordance with Government regulations of the time, and only replicas of the large nuggets exist in museums today. It was a real buzz to be able to show people the early photos and handle some real Dee River nuggets.

During the following trips to the Dee River, we managed to find several small nuggets, all of which were top quality but none larger than eight grams. Most of the gold we found came from mullock heaps, and I presume they were simply lost or forgotten by the miners in their haste to find larger nuggets. Gold found in this field has a distinctive look, usually well rounded and smooth, from grain to rockmelon in size, free of quartz and with almost no impurities. It was the shape of the gold and the fact that only “The Prospectors” party had found gold during the first few days of the rush, that led to some interesting rumours.

A quantity of gold had been stolen from the Mt Morgan gold mine years earlier and some miners believed it was this gold that had been melted down and was being passed off as nuggets. But it wasn’t long before these rumours were proven totally unfounded as some 4,000 ounces of nuggets were unearthed in other claims, over a distance of one mile along the creek.

I’ve been to plenty of goldfields but I’d never seen so many diggings; it looked like World War II was fought right here. I can only imagine the thousands of men labouring with picks and shovels in their claims, hard yakka all right. Whenever a new nugget was discovered, the diggers would attack their claims with new-found vigour. Not surprising when you consider the biggest nuggets, in descending order, were 182, 179, 171, 114, 108 and 100 ounces, while a further 23 nuggets exceeded 50 ounces. When discovered in 1903, the area was overgrown with lantana, an impenetrable noxious weed. Unfortunately, a lot of the diggings are now covered by this plant and access and detecting are difficult.

Disaster at the New Australasian No. 2 Mine

The evening of the 11th of December, 1882, was just like any other for the 41 night-shift miners who had assembled at the head of Creswick’s New Australasian No. 2 Mine. Laughing and talking amongst themselves, they descended 250 feet in the lift then walked 2,500 feet to the working face to resume their quest for gold. Only 19 of them would ever see the light of day again.

Around 4.45am on the 12th of December, water from the flooded Australasian No.1 Mine burst through the reef drive the men were working. Following is part of a report by an Age correspondent regarding the tragedy. “The most terrible accident which has yet occurred in connection with gold mining in the colonies took place on Tuesday morning at the claim of the New Australia Co, through the bursting-in of a flood of water from a prospecting drive going towards the workings of the old shaft. Since the reorganisation of the company some years since, a new shaft, the No. 2, was put down, and the old workings abandoned, but leaving about 1,000ft of the gutter between the termination of the old drive and the No. 2 Shaft. On sinking the No. 2 shaft, the gutter was driven north, and at present the washdirt faces are in about 2,500ft. Lately it was resolved by the directors to put in a drive south of the shaft to work the 1,000ft left from No. 1 shaft; and it was in this drive that the influx of water occurred.

“The reef drive had been put in about 800ft, and according to the plan the old working should have been about 250ft away and 38ft or 40ft above the new reef drive, so that there was no danger. “However, as insurance against an accident, the mining manager had caused bores to be put at intervals, for the purpose of testing the accuracy of the plans of the old workings, which had been prepared by a previous mining manager. At the end of last week two bores were put up, and both appeared to be in sound ground. “About 4.30 this morning however, Henry Reeves, the contractor for the sank reef drive, was in the face, and he said the water broke away over the point of the back laths without the slightest warning, increasing in volume every second. He, with his mate, William Mason, immediately ran to the plat, and then made their way to the intermediate level by means of the ladders. In the meantime, the water rushed from the south drive into the north drive, where about 30 miners wore working 2,500ft from the shaft in the washdirt faces. “The platman, seeing the rising water, at once gave the alarm to John Hodge, captain of the shift, and he with a trucker named Henry Polglase, ran along the drive and cried out to the men, “Water is coming. Look out!” At this time the water was rushing from the south drive about 5ft high, and driving the trucks before it, and Hodge and Polglase had great difficulty in finding their way to No. 5 shoot which is connected with an air drive about 30ft up the shaft for the ventilation of the mine. “The men working in the face over the main drive, on the alarm being given, endeavoured to breast the torrent, but the majority were driven back, however several of the trackers who were in the drive managed to reach No. 5 shoot, and were hauled into the air drive by Hodge, who could only manage to clutch them by the hair. Two facemen, named Fisher and Menner, also reached the place of escape and were saved but Menner said he heard Wood and Chegwin coming behind him and the latter cried out “There is no chance. We had better go back to the workings. We can’t reach No. 5.”

Scene at the head of the New Australasian No.2 shaft showing the braceman announcing the death of the miners

“The workings alluded to are about 30ft above the main level where the water was rushing, and as the water was only about 20ft in the shaft at the highest level, it is within the bounds of probability they may have escaped if not suffocated by foul air, but there is reason to believe that several of them were drowned in the main drive. “The water at 11am was 17ft in the shaft, but an hour later it commenced to lower. Several hours will elapse before the water is down and the fate of the men is ascertained, but at 4pm it was gradually lowering. “The greatest excitement prevailed both in Creswick and Ballarat today, and mining business is entirely paralysed. The scene at the shaft was of the most harrowing description. The wives and children and friends of the unfortunate men were weeping and wringing their hands, while stout brawny miners were perfectly overcome by the sad occurrence, and shed bitter tears. Indeed, the women were perhaps the strongest in bearing their sorrow, for they, hoping against hope, appeared to believe that their loved ones would be found alive.

“Strenuous efforts to lower the water were made on Tuesday, and at 9pm the water was down 5ft. On Wednesday two divers attached to HMS Cerberus arrived at the mine early in the morning, but as it was found that their apparatus only provided for 100ft of air-piping, when at least they should have had 700ft, their services were of no avail. “Mr John Hodge, captain of the night shift, who assisted so many of the survivors to escape, gives a very graphic account of the velocity with which the water rushed down the drive. He had been having his morning meal, and was preparing to proceed to work, when he heard a boy running towards, him crying out, “Swamp! swamp!” He at once ran down the drive to see what was the matter, but before he had gone many paces his progress was blocked by a large body of water that, with a loud noise, came rushing onward, sweeping everything before it. There was nothing for him to do but to turn round and endeavour to save his own life.

“There were about 30 trucks in the drive, and over those that were not driven forward by the force of the rushing stream the water bounded with terrible velocity. Fortunately, the No. 5 shoot was near at hand, and offered the brave fellow a means of escape. When he first met the water, it was no higher than his ankles, but before he reached the ladder at the shoot he was battling with it breast high. After securing his hold on the ladder, he waited to help all those who might attempt to make their escape by the same way. He was in complete darkness, but for all that he managed to assist out of the reach of danger no less than six of his fellowworkmen. A man named Menner was the last to receive his help. Following Menner came Hodge’s own son, but the father was unfortunately powerless to extend to the lad the aid he had afforded to the others, and the poor boy turned back and fled with the rest of his ill-fated companions to the doom that has undoubtedly overtaken them in the list of those not saved.

New Australasian Gold Mine

“There are many heartrending cases. One of the most lamentable is that of a poor woman named Bellingham. Her case is indeed a sad one. A few years ago, her husband suddenly dropped dead, and a few years later one of her three sons was killed by a kick from a horse, and now the remaining two, who were her sole support, are entombed in the flooded mine. “The mine is situated about a mile from the North Creswick railway station, and is within a stone’s throw of the line. The workings are exclusively alluvial, and the area, which is considerable, has been pretty well mined. Originally the mine was principally owned by Mr Peter Lalor, the present Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, and was carried on with varying success. It however, passed into the hands of the Bank of Australia, from which institution the mine was purchased several years ago by the New Australia Co, the present proprietors.” It transpired that the 27 trapped miners had managed to reach the very small space of the No.11 jump-up. There they huddled together in darkness, singing hymns and praying for deliverance and for their loved ones. Some wrote messages on their crib pails to their families. The Bellingham brothers tied themselves together for fear they would be separated. For almost three days the three engine drivers from the mine ran the engines at more than 10 times their normal speed, in an attempt to lower the water and save the trapped men. When the rescue came on Thursday morning, unfortunately it was too late for 22 of the miners (one body was still warm) and only five men came out alive from the foul smelling mine shaft. Their funeral took place the next afternoon and it was, not surprisingly, the biggest ever held in Creswick. About 4,000 people marched in the procession, including 2,000 members of the Miners’ Association, with 15,000 onlookers. Nineteen of the men are buried in Creswick Cemetery. An appeal was started for the widows and orphans and some £20,000 was collected from towns and villages all over Victoria. Within two years Parliament had changed the fund to “The Mining Accident Relief Fund Act, 1884” for the benefit of all victims of mining accidents. The Fund was finally wound up in 1949 long after the last widow had died.

Australia’s history of settlement could have been vastly different

...if only Cook had realised he’d struck gold on Possession Island

by Island Life

The gold, they say is plain to see,

I can’t imagine ever,

How Captain Cook could overlook

The gold at the Endeavour.

So wondered an anonymous rhymer at the port of Cooktown in the early 1870s when that flood of gold-fevered diggers rushed to the Palmer River.

But there was really very little to wonder at. Even as the crow flies, the mouth of the Endeavour River where Lieutenant James Cook beached his ship in June 1770, and the golden reaches of the river that William Hann would, in 1872, name the Palmer, were at least 100 kilometres apart.

That ‘Cook could overlook the gold at the Endeavour’ is not even open to discussion as the Endeavour River wasn’t then, and isn’t today, worth exploring for gold.

But questioning Cook’s lack of observation isn’t quite as wide of the mark as it appears.

On the 22nd of August, 1770, the Endeavour weighed anchor off a small island a little south-west of the top of Cape York. The island was known to the natives as Tuidin but was named Possession Island by Cook.

From a small landing craft, a party including Joseph Banks, Daniel Solander and James Cook stepped ashore.

The first task was to excavate a posthole in order to secure the flagstaff from which would flutter the old English bunting, the mark of possession of the entire eastern coast of New Holland, as Australia was then known, in the name of King George III.

Replica of the barque HMS Endeavour

UNIQUE IN THE ANNALS OF POSTHOLE DIGGING

The thing about this particular posthole excavation, possibly unique in the annals of posthole digging if there is such an animal, was that they dug into a reef of visible gold!

Cook was looking for a passage to the Indian Ocean when he came across Possession Island and decided to conduct the little flag-raising ceremony on the island before sailing off into the setting sun.

But what really concerns us is whether James Cook and party, in their haste to climb the hill, plant the flag, regain the Endeavour and set sail, missed seeing the gold that was there in the ground they dug. My own view, and it is only that, is that they did see the gold but failed to recognize it for what it was. Others disagree, claiming Cook’s party did not see any gold. I have always found this a strange view but I’ll discuss that later.

There is no doubt that Cook was in a hurry. “The gentlemen immediately climbed the highest hill”, recorded Cook’s biographer the Rev. Dr Andrew Kippis. The words ‘immediately’ and ‘highest’ were all important. “These circumstances afforded him peculiar satisfaction” Kippis further wrote. Cook’s hilltop lookout showed him clear water to the west and the passage to the Indian Ocean. There was also no longer any doubt that New Holland and New Guinea were separate entities.

In the name of King George III, he had possessed the whole of the east coast of New Holland “from latitude 38 degrees to latitude 10 degrees and one half south” and now he wanted to go home. All was haste and, in his haste, it is very much on the cards that Lieutenant James Cook altered the direction of Australia’s evolution as a nation.

The original bronze plaque commemorating Cook’s taking possession of the east coast of Australia in the name of King George III, was stolen by vandals some time during the early 1970s and allegedly used as a barbecue plate. In 1988 The Torres Strait Historical Society erected a monument with the same wording, that had less appeal to those desperate for a sausage sizzle. Also below:

DR ROBERT LOGAN JACK’S FAMOUS BOOK

In Dr Robert Logan Jack’s famous book ‘Northmost Australia: Three Centuries of Exploration, Discovery, and Adventure in and Around Cape York Peninsula, Queensland’ published posthumously in two volumes in 1921 and 1922, the author wrote the following passage:

“In 1895, in the course of a trigonometrical survey designed to connect Thursday Island with the mainland, Mr Embley landed on Possession Island, where he observed a quartz reef, containing visible gold, standing out boldly from the coral. He traced the reef to the highest point of the island, the point on which Captain (sic) Cook had set up his flagstaff when he formally took possession of ‘New South Wales’ for Britain in 1770. Mr Embley and others worked the reef for some years. The first shaft was sunk where Captain Cook’s flagstaff had been planted....From 1897 to 1901, inclusive, Mr. C. V Jackson gives the crushing returns from Possession Island as 3,365 tons for 2,480oz of gold. Had Captain (sic) Cook caught sight of the gold which lay beneath his feet when he landed on Possession Island, could the boldest flight of fancy have ventured to predict the future history of Australia? If, instead of convicts in the southern part of the continent the first settlers had been gold- miners pushing their relentless way from the extreme north and making stepping stones of one fresh goldfield after another, along what lines would the occupation of the island-continent have developed?”

And there you have it. If Cook had reported gold at Possession Island there is every chance that, at a time when nations were in often deadly quest of the yellow metal, Australia would have been developed from the north, gold mines being opened in a southerly direction including Packers Creek, Iron Range, Claudie River, Bairdsville, Buthen Buthen, Blue Mountain, Rocky River, Coen, Ebagoolah, Lukin River, the Starcke fields, Potallah, Alice River, Palmer River, Hodgkinson, Etheridge, Ravenswood, Charters Towers, Gympie, Elbow Valley and a swathe of fields between. As it was, the Far North’s and Queensland’s gold in general sat idle for many years and development came from the south.

There must have been some 150 goldfields located between the tip of Cape York and Brisbane over the years to come – perhaps more.

CAUSE HIM TO MISS THE OBVIOUS

But did Cook’s hurried climb to the top of Flagstaff Hill and equally hasty departure from the island cause him to miss the obvious? Perhaps, but I don’t think so. And if not, why not? Certainly, gold was not reported as being found on Possession Island in August 1770 but Cook, Banks and Solander were observant men. It was paramount in their professions. Gold lay at their feet and I am sure they saw it, but in their desire to quickly do what had to be done and depart, they failed to observe it closely enough. That’s a strange statement, I admit, but the whole thing was strange to me for many years until one day, on the other side of the world, the penny dropped. The pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

While visiting the UK in 1988 and walking the moorlands, cliffs and beaches about Whitby, Yorkshire, the same paths James Cook himself had walked as boy and young man, I found gold and plenty of it – plenty of Fool’s Gold that is, pyrites. It was there in abundance. I found it as coatings on other rocks and in concretions.

I found it in old jet mines and even in that gem material itself. I found it in coal imbedded in the cliffs. I even found fossil ammonites that had been replaced with it. I discovered that in Cook’s country, pyrites was very, very common.

(Note: Jet or lignite is not a mineral in the true sense of the word but is derived from decaying wood under extreme pressure, thus it is organic in origin. Just like coal. The name ‘jet’ derives from the French ‘jaiet’. Jet is black or dark brown and may contain pyrite inclusions.)

Those paths Cook had trod had showed him pyrites aplenty. He had seen it since his days as a young farmer’s son and I am convinced that in his haste, the genuine gold at his feet on that far off day of 22nd of August, 1770, was seen by the great navigator as pyrites, Fool’s Gold, and that is the reason why the course of Australia’s history likely took the direction it did.

A monument was erected on Possession Island but was vandalized with the original plaque being stolen. A new monument was erected in 1988.

The ‘seam’ rocks in the cliff (centre) are concretions. Many of these are found in the Whitby region and many contain vast quantities of pyrites or Fool’s Gold

The story of the failed Kangaroo Office ‘mint’

The Kangaroo Office was the brainchild of noted London engraver, medallist and diesinker, William Joseph Taylor, and two entrepreneur colleagues Dr Thomas Hodgkin and Peter Tindall (Jnr.). It is widely assumed that their ambition was to establish a ‘private mint’ in Melbourne and strike gold coins or ‘tokens’ of a quarter-ounce, half-ounce, one ounce and two ounces. They were to resemble money as closely as legally possible. The three men’s alleged inspiration was the booming price of gold. The standard narrative is that the venture’s prime objective was to profiteer on the difference in gold prices between the goldfields of Victoria and the market in London. They would buy the gold from the miners, then upgrade and produce gold tokens which would enable them to realise the full value of the gold in currency form, making a handsome profit.

Their ‘mint’ was situated near Flagstaff Gardens, in the present Franklin Street West. A mind-boggling £13,000 was invested in the enterprise, involving the charter of a fully-rigged 600-ton vessel, the Kangaroo, the delivery of machinery and dies, and the employment of manpower for the operation. But that narrative is just part of the false numismatic story as the gold price in Australia was stable, long before the Kangaroo set sail from England, mainly as a consequence of the Bullion Act 1852 in Adelaide. The venture is alleged to have been considered in November 1852. By this point in time, gold was around 71 shilling per ounce in the colonies, and had been for a while. The Kangaroo did not leave for a further seven months. Additionally, Dr Thomas Hodgkin is remembered as a philanthropist so being the lead party, or even just a party, in a profit-driven venture was not in his character. The store, the Kangaroo Office, failed as a venture due to a number of factors, lack of customers, lack of copper blanks, lack of diggers selling gold in Melbourne. All this can be found correspondence from Reginald Scaife, the store manager. The store closed in 1857. The Kangaroo duly arrived at Hobsons Bay of the 23rd of October, 1853, and the vast coining press was deposited on the wharf. Unfortunately, it was so heavy that no means existed to transport it to the store. The dockside cranes were not large enough to handle tonnage of this size and because of the goldfield rushes, there was an acute shortage of manual labour. There was nothing for it but to dismantle the whole thing and move it, piece by piece, to The Kangaroo Office, where it was reassembled and put into working order. The whole process took almost eight months.

The Kangaroo Office opened in May of 1854 but by the time everything was operational there was a glut of English sovereigns in circulation, gold had risen in price and the diggers were now getting £4 4s per ounce (with only one penny per ounce difference between the English sovereign and their sale price). It was then hoped that the facility would be chosen to produce official gold coins but it was not to be. The Kangaroo Office did strike issues of two ounces (£8 value), one ounce (£4), half-ounce (£2) and quarter-ounce (£1) but all these issues are extremely rare.

It has been argued that W. J. Taylor came to Melbourne and established the Kangaroo Office, because his signature is to be found on the tokens minted there. However, there is no evidence that he came to Australia. Taylor’s name is on tokens and medals attributed to the Kangaroo Office because either they were struck in his mint in London, or Scaife was using dies that Taylor had made for him.

The press was exhibited at the 1854 Melbourne Exhibition in an attempt to attract a new trade striking tokens and medals. When this failed the dispirited promoters in London issued instructions to the Kangaroo Office managers to close down the operation and sell up. The manager of the store, Reginald Scaife, left strict instructions on departing from Melbourne that ‘the dies should be taken out into the bay and sunk.’

This last instruction was not carried out however. Some of the dies were shipped back to London while the dies for the quarterounce and one-ounce coins were later found by Thomas Stokes, who bought the press in 1857.

Stokes continued to operate the press until 1914. It had produced some 82 penny and halfpenny tokens and was responsible for some early Army badges and buttons by the time it was decommissioned. The press was sold as scrap and dismantled in 1936.

The Kangaroo Office pieces (bullion rounds) rose to fame after the Coin and Token section of the British Museum purchased a set of the pieces in 1862/3 from William Morgan Brown, formerly of the Kangaroo Office. Head of the Keeper of Coins and Medals section at the time was W. S. W. Vaux. In a piece in the 1864 The Numismatic Chronicle and Journal of the Numismatic Society, published by the Royal Numismatic Society, Vaux made all sorts of unsubstantiated and false claims when he ‘introduced’ the weights to the numismatic world.

The coin in the photograph was once part of Egyptian King Farouk’s collection but is now owned by William Youngerman Inc in the United States. While it is not clear in the photograph, the numeral ‘4’ in the date 1854 has been engraved over the numeral ‘3’, making the date 1854/3. It is Youngerman’s opinion that the date was re-engraved on the original die to 1854 due to the late opening of the Kangaroo Office in 1854. All research tends to suggest that this may be the only surviving example outside of a museum. As such it ranks as one of the most significant rare gold coins in the world.

Just shy of 14 tonnes of gold

In October 1862 when a former convict named Ned Stringer first found alluvial gold in a creek later named after him, it sparked an enormous rush to a remote corner of Victoria. The settlement that emerged was originally called Stringer’s Creek but the biggest gold mine and therefore the biggest employer in the area was the Walhalla, and poor old Ned Stringer had died of tuberculosis within a year of his discovery, so no-one really objected to the town changing its name to Walhalla. At its peak it was home to more than 5,000 people, but when the gold ran out, it was almost a case of ‘now you see it, now you don’t’ and Walhalla virtually disappeared. The name Walhalla is derived from the Scandinavian word ‘Valhalla’ – ‘hall of the slain’ and the final resting place of selected Viking warriors slain in battle. Situated roughly 200km from Melbourne, and a short distance from the town of Moe, Walhalla has a fine scenic road that winds around tortuous corners and over creeks, as well as down steep mountain sides.

The writer Anthony Trollope, who visited Walhalla in 1872, later wrote, “The mountains were so steep it was often impossible to sit on horseback.” On the northern side the valley leads to highlands that include Mt Baw Baw, which rises to 5,062 feet, and beyond that are Mt Hotham, Mt Feathertop and Mt Bogong. Nearer is Mt Erica which is often snow- capped in winter. Today the journey is as peaceful and beautiful with the roadside ferns, sassafras and musk, as it would have been before the first invasion of gold miners in the 1860s.

Walhalla was one of the first 24 claims, each of 80 yards, pegged out by miners. Others bore evocative names as Just In Time and the Jeweller’s Shop, and major companies such as the North Gippsland and the Golden Fleece employed many luckless miners who had come to the area seeking their fortune.

The Long Tunnel Extended Gold Mining Company, formed in 1865, was destined to become famous for the amount of gold it produced. It evolved out of a number of adjacent leases that were bought up by various individuals to form one company and the chairman of the company, William Pearson, held the largest number of shares (900) of the original 2,500 £5 shares. At one stage his monthly dividend was an astronomical £2,400. Pearson, who was already a wealthy pastoralist before acquiring the gold mine, built the mansion called ‘Craigellachie’ at East St Kilda, was a prolific racehorse breeder, a prodigious gambler and briefly a Member of the Legislative Assembly for North Gippsland. He died in 1893 at the age of 75.

With the continued reports of gold, people began flooding into the area and soon Walhalla had various ‘suburbs’ – Maidentown, Mormontown and Happy- go-Lucky, the latter possibly named after a mine. Although it is hard to believe now when you look at the town, there were once several hotels, around 40 shops, two banks, four churches, a post office, a police station, a brewery and a school boasting some 500 students. The population at this time numbered around 4,000 with people arriving all the time,

At its peak Walhalla was home to some 5,000 people

including the wives and children of miners. Due to the steep sides of the valley and surrounding hillsides, the houses had to be built overlooking each other, and one famous old picture of the town shows nine tiers of houses rising one above the other. One couldn’t help but look down on one’s neighbours!

As there was little in the way of entertainment, one enterprising publican cut away a quantity of soft reef to create a skittle alley where many of the townspeople could spend their time, and, their money.

In 1865, when work began in earnest at the Long Tunnel Extended, the mine’s name proved no exaggeration with a tunnel driven straight in 800 feet from the side of the mountain. A large chamber was cut out at the end of the tunnel and a shaft was sunk to a depth of 100 feet, and with the knowledge that there was a good gold-bearing reef, shares in the newly formed company began to rise. The small number of shares and the high market price meant few shares changed hands and in 1889 the holder of a single £7 share would have received more than £235 in dividends. At one stage the shares were quoted at £250 each.

Today only 20 people call Walhalla home but it manages to attract a healthy number of tourists each year

Cohens Reef, as the reef was called, was to prove richer than anyone had imagined and between 1885 and 1908 the mine was to be one of Australia’s main reef gold producers, and the top Victorian producer during six of those years. In all the mine produced 13.7 tonnes of gold which, at present day prices, equals something in excess of $1.4 billion.

The best years were 1896 and 1897 but the mine continued to produce right up until 1913. When operations ceased in 1914, the depth of the mine had reached 3,675 feet. At Walhalla’s Bank of Victoria building a notice appeared claiming that during its years of business, the vaults had stored some £10,000,000 – quite an astonishing amount.

The townspeople of Walhalla were known to be friendly and pleasant; a close community. There were two major events of note in the town, the first in 1887 when a big fire broke out around 8pm on a Saturday night. By 5am the following morning much of the business area of the town had been destroyed, a loss estimated at £40,000. Fortunately, no lives were lost. The great flood of 1891 was not so forgiving, four people drowning when Stringer’s Creek rose suddenly. The water flowed into the mouth of a mine tunnel but by quick action the lives of the men working below were saved. Four thousand pounds was later granted by the government of the day to engineer the straightening of the creek and improve its course. The Walhalla Fire Brigade was also the direct result of the 1887 fire with its unique building straddling the creek. The building was opened in 1901 and is one of the few to survive. The doors are opened daily for visitors to view the restored fire- fighting equipment.

Noted author Anthony Trollope visited Walhalla in 1872 and was more impressed with the steepness of the terrain than the gold that was being won.

Unfortunately, Walhalla was largely dependent on one industry and with the collapse of mining, the whole population suffered with many being forced to leave and make their homes elsewhere. By 1920 the once thriving township had dwindled to a population of less than 250. The railway with its locomotives (the same as those used on the Puffing Billy line in the Dandenongs) closed in 1944 but by this time many of Walhalla’s buildings had been transported by rail to other prospering towns. And gone were the Chinese market gardeners who supplied the township with their fresh vegetables grown on the creek flats.

Today with a population of around 20 permanent residents, Walhalla’s main industry is tourism. The dramatic scenery and the historic buildings and sites attract many visitors keen to see the ‘ghost’ town. And there is much to see. The Mechanics Institute once housed Walhalla’s historic records but was destroyed in a fire in 1945. It was rebuilt and opened in 1988. There is also the famous band rotunda, once a focal point of the town where the Mountain Brass Band played on Saturday nights and special occasions. The old cemetery contains 1,100 graves, and many of the headstones speak of the hardships of the mining era.

There are daily tours of the Long Tunnel Extended Mine

During the 1980s the reformed Walhalla Mining Company reopened the Long Tunnel Extended Mine and also started exploratory drilling into Cohens Reef. The results were unsatisfactory but the mine reopened as a tourist attraction under the Walhalla Board of Management on behalf of the people of Victoria. Underground tours are conducted daily. The mine’s 8.5 kilometres of underground workings extended to a depth of 923 metres below the machinery chamber, which in turn is some 150 metres below the natural surface. The tour takes visitors 300 metres into the huge underground machinery chamber hewn from solid rock more than a century ago. Old mining methods are discussed and a large outcrop of the famous Cohens Line of Reef is exposed in the mine.

The current railway station is an exact replica built to the Victorian Railways plans of the original station building (now located in the Melbourne suburb of Hartwell), although the interior is different from the original configuration. It is on the opposite side of the station yard from its original location because the main road into Walhalla was realigned over the culvert across Stringer’s Creek in the 1960s. Train rides are operated by the Walhalla Goldfields Railway over the restored section between Walhalla and the Thomson.

The Walhalla Corner Stores were purchased by the Walhalla Heritage & Development League (WHDL) in the early 1970s and were restored to their original design. The Corner Store now operates as a Post Office agency, shop and Tourist Information Centre with the adjoining shop housing a museum.

So, although the lively days of Walhalla are long gone, the old town is not as deserted as it was when the mines closed down. In fact, it’s one of the most interesting places to visit in all of Victoria... and you can still find traces of gold in Stringer’s Creek!

Long Tunnel Extended Mine