ALLUVIAL GOLD MINING

Before the discovery of gold, where Bendigo now stands was part of the Mt. Alexander North Run. The squatters and the homestead were at Ravenswood. Gold had already been found on the neighbouring Mt. Alexander No. 1 Run by workers there, who claimed to have found it on 20 July 1851. The discovery was at first kept quiet, and was finally made public in September. The rush to the Mt. Alexander Goldfield immediately followed. This field later was called Castlemaine.

There were shepherds from Ravenswood by the Bendigo Creek. The Colony of Victoria was gripped with gold fever as each new find was made public knowledge. Not surprisingly, some employees' wives came from Ravenswood to the Bendigo Creek to see if they could find gold. Margaret Kennedy and Mrs Farrell had the express purpose of finding gold and by the end of October 1851 they were successful. Others who passed by the Bendigo Creek at that time kept their eyes open for gold, including a journalist, Henry Frencham.

Frencham guessed what the women were up to and soon he too was finding gold. Frencham reported in the Argus newspaper of Melbourne on 13 December 1851 that gold had been found on the Bendigo Creek. Towards the end of December over six hundred people were seeking Bendigo's alluvial or surface gold.

Portable hand operated equipment was used to win the gold from soil, clay and gravel. Shovels, picks, gold pans, and cradles which had been introduced to the Australian Colonies by those who had Californian gold rush experience. With the use of water, the dirt could be broken up and washed and thus if there was any gold, being quite heavy, it went to the bottom as the dirt was washed away. When the dirt was very hard and dry, it would be soaked with water in a wooden tub.

A level teaspoon will hold about 28 grams or one ounce of gold, at that time worth $3.75. Those digging for gold needed a gold licence, which cost $3.00 per month. Ordinary daily needs were very expensive for the diggers, as transport over very rough tracks was extremely slow. The licence money was hard to find if the digger was down on his luck.

By 1852 there were about 20,000 diggers working the creeks, flats and gullies of Bendigo. With so much competition looking for gold, it was not surprising that many took off for any new rush that sprang up. By 1853 a quicker method of recovering alluvial gold was already beginning to be used - puddling. The cost of constructing a puddling machine and supplying a horse could be as high as $400; a lot of money to find for one person at that time. Groups of diggers banded together in small co-operative parties in order to erect puddling machines and purchase a horse.

Towards the end of 1853 there were 1200 puddling machines operating in Bendigo. In 1855 there were more than 3,000 in operation. Gold production rose dramatically during the peak of the puddling period. Most puddling machines employed three to four men and quite a number had more than one horse. By 1860 the number of machines in use had dropped back to 1,592.

A major problem which thousands of puddling machines caused was vast quantities of creamy sludge. As the sludge made its way down the gullies and creeks it settled in low areas. Central Sandhurst, as Bendigo was then still called, suffered from being choked by the advancing tide of sludge. After a Royal Commission into the problem in 1858, a special sludge channel was cut to carry it far down stream.

Steam power to operate puddling machines was introduced towards the end of the 1850s in Bendigo and Eaglehawk. Some of the steam puddling companies from all accounts had limited success, with shareholders losing money. Ground of a more gravelly nature was worked by steam powered revolving cylinders.

One reason for the rapid decline in the number of alluvial miners puddling was the gradual opening up of quartz reefs. An increasing number of men turned their attention to underground mining. A sludge tax also had an effect of reducing puddling operations; this tax commenced in August 1861. A lesser amount of alluvial dirt being available added to the decline of puddling.

Water availability governed the ability to conduct alluvial gold mining. The Bendigo area had only a minor system of creeks, which were dependent on regular rainfall to keep them running. Because of the limited availability of water it was not possible to do hydraulic sluicing, using water cannons. It was not until 1877, when water was diverted from the Coliban River at Malmsbury by an ingenious system of channels that sluicing could be carried out.

Sluicing was conducted with success in many areas around Bendigo. Bendigo's White Hills saw major sluicing operations in 1879. In the subsequent period a diminishing number of miners were employed in alluvial mining. This situation did not change until the turn of the century, when another deep lead system was discovered at Wilson's Hill at Marong.

Early in 1900, dredging accumulated puddled dirt which had filled the low lying areas of the Bendigo valley was being undertaken by George Lansell. By 1909, The Bendigo Dredging Company was formed and worked a large stretch of the Bendigo Creek in White Hills. Gold returns from dredging operations encouraged the Company to install a second dredge. According to the Bendigo Advertiser there was sufficient dirt to keep two dredges active for about eight years. Very little other alluvial gold mining took place apart from limited activity on the outskirts of the Bendigo field.

Later, during the 1930s depression when the gold price rose, many unemployed used puddling and other methods from seventy or more years before in order to eke out a living. Hydraulic sluicing during this period came into its own, and gave employment to about 1,500 men. Sluicing operations were undertaken in Dead Dog Gully, Kangaroo Flat, Crusoe Gully, Golden Gully, Sparrowhawk Gully, Long Gully, White Horse Gully, Maiden Gully and New Zealand Gully.

Another form of alluvial gold is found in deep leads, which are ancient buried water courses. Some of these were opened up in the Epsom, Huntly area late in the 1850s. These deep leads, when water inflow could be controlled, gave various individuals and companies good returns of gold. A gravelly type of rock known as conglomerate was brought up the shafts from these ancient river systems. This conglomerate was treated in crushing batteries to release the gold. In the Huntly and Bagshot area, deep leads continued to be worked during the 1870s with varying success. With the advent of World War 2 alluvial mining ceased, and since has only been done on a minor scale.

It was not till until the popularity of metal detectors that alluvial gold was again been sought, on a social rather than commercial basis from the 1970s onwards.

FURTHER READING:

*   ADCOCK, W.E., Gold Rushes of the Fifties, Cole Melb. 1912 - Poppet Head Press, Melbourne, 1982
*   ANNUAL REPORTS SECRETARY OF MINES - Government Printer Melbourne
*   CUSACK, F., Bendigo A History, Heineman, Melbourne 1973
*   KELLY, W., Life in Victoria 1853, Victoria in 1858 - London 1859 - Lowden 1977
*   LERK, J.A., Bendigo's Mining History 1851 - 1954, Bendigo 1991
*   MACKAY, G., History of Bendigo, Melbourne 1891
*   McKENZIE CLARK, F., Early Days on Bendigo, Cusack, F. (ed.) Melbourne 1979
*   PATTERSON, J.A., Goldfields of Victoria, Melbourne 1862
*   ROYAL COMMISSION into Removing the Sludge from the Goldfields, Government Printer Melbourne 1859
*   SMYTH BROUGH, R., Goldfields and Mineral Districts of Victoria, Melbourne 1869

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ALLUVIAL GOLD MINING

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