wanted 50 mtpa iron ore, page-14

In August 1851, John Dunlop and James Rogan found gold at Poverty Point, a few hundred yards from where Clayton Street crosses Main Road. As a result of this discovery the peaceful atmosphere of the district vanished. In a few weeks hundreds of men rushed from Melbourne and Geelong, all eager to make their fortunes.

They hunted for gold at Poverty Point, around the foot of Black Hill and on both sides of the Yarrowee. They came with picks, shovels and tin dishes, dug shallow holes anywhere, and hoped for the best. Some were lucky to strike gold in this haphazard method. James Esmond got 2,000 pounds worth in two days, Howe and Herring 1,800 in one afternoon and Cavanagh picked up in four hours small nuggets worth 2,100.

THE CORNISHMEN ARRIVE

Then

In fifty-one a tale was told
In many a town in Europe old,
Of a new found pasture shown with gold.
Ho! Ho! Have ye heard of Ballaarat?
Then bid farewell and sail away
Sail and sail for a hundred day,
Across the seas to Hobson's Bay,
To the golden fields of Ballaarat.

From all parts of the World young adventurous men hastened to make their fortunes in the new El Dorado in the southern continent where rumour said "Gold may be picked up like pebbles on the sea shore".

Among these, were men from Cornwall and Wales - men who had worked in the tin and copper mines of their native lands, and knew something about the technique of mining. They knew how and where to look for the previous metal. The first comers had dug holes ten or twenty feet deep, and if they got nothing they moved off and tried other spots.

But the Cornishmen made shafts - fifty and sixty feet down in search of the leads or underground gutters in which they thought the gold was hidden. They carefully washed the clay and gravel they brought up from their shafts and secured many thousands of pounds worth of gold.

THE PRIZES OF CANADIAN GULLY

The early part of 1853 was the climax of the wonders of the shallow digging period.

In February 1853, Bristow, Sully and Gough unearthed the "Canadian Nugget" weighing 1,017 ounces and a few days later got the "Wonder" of 1,011 ounces. In the same week, Evans and Green in the next claim secured the " Sarah Sands" of 1,619 ounces. Within forty feet of this find, a few days later Joyce and Welch got two nuggets of 368 and 371 ounces.

Shortly afterwards was found, not far away, the "Lady Hotham" of 1,117 ounces and a nest of nuggets weighing 2,640 ounces.

These treasures were all found in Canadian Gully, just opposite the Golden Mount Look-Out. A few chains further along Main Road the finds in the Prince Regent Gully were incredibly rich. The buckets of wash dirt brought up from the shaft were found to contain nearly as much gold as clay. No wonder this part of the goldfield was known as the 'Jeweller's shop", because the gold was a plentiful as the goods in the windows of the sellers of brooches and rings and chains.

THE DEEP LEADS

By 1855, the small parties of diggers with their prospecting knives, their picks and panning dishes, were giving way to co-operative groups of 24, 36 or 48 men, all working in shifts on their mine and sharing the expenses and profits between them. They had their puddlers, their horse drawn whims and whips and later on their stationary steam engines to supply power for the haulage

Until 1856, all the mining was going on in Ballaarat East or as it was them called "The Flat". but in 1856, some of these co-operative parties came up to the Plateau above Lydiard Street - blasted with gunpowder through three or found hundred feet of the dense heavy basalt and found the leads again underneath.

The first of these was Bath's freehold, at the corner of Sturt and Lydiard Streets, where Mark's Jewellery Shop is today. When this proved successful, dozens of mines were opened up in what are today the main streets of the City. From Albert Street to beyond Pleasant Street, the sides of Dana, Eyre, Urquhart and South Streets were lines of mines.

Drummond Street to the north and the south, around the Lake, and in most of the side streets of Sturt Street, had these co-operative parties digging their deep shafts and finding gold.

There must have been hundreds of them.

Did they get much gold?

Here are a few of the results:

COSMOPOLITAN, IN DANA STREET - 161,476
KOHINOOR, IN URQUHART STREET - 681,251
GREAT REDAN EXTENDED IN TALBOT STREET - 438,289
PRINCE OF WALES, SEBASTOPOL - 600,000
AND THE FAMOUS BAND OF HOPE - 1,258,506.

THE WELCOME NUGGET

on the evening of 9th June 1858, was found at the depth of 180 feet, at "Bakery Hill", the "Welcome Nugget" - at that time the largest lump of gold ever found. It weighed 2,217 ounces, or 1 1/2 cwt. of pure gold. It was sold for 10,050, taken to London and exhibited at the Crystal Palace for several months before it was resold to the London Mint and turned into sovereigns. On the site where it was, found the Ballaarat Historical Society in 1934, erected a granite obelisk suitably inscribed.

CHANGE IN METHOD OF MINING

About this time ended the period of the "Digger" the independent groups of co-operative parties working for themselves.

Expensive machinery was required for pumping the water from the shafts and hauling the dirt to the surface and for treating it in large quantities. Capital was needed and speculators were invited to buy shares. In place of the "Diggers" came the "Miners" who worked for wages in the deep drives of the mines.

Many fortunes were made by these speculators who invested their money in the shares of the companies but never saw the places where their dividends came from.

Between 1852 and 1860, from Ballaarat went to Melbourne under Police escort, 4,707,487 ounces of gold worth twenty million pounds.

And, of course, no-one knows how much gold was taken home to their native lands, by lucky diggers, in the gold belts, their bags and cases. It must have amounted to a very large sum.

THE QUARTZ MINES

In the fifties and the early sixties, all the gold was found embedded in the clay and gravel. All that had to be done was to dig up the wash dirt, treat it with water, and collect the gold. But in 1855, was found in a mine at the corner of Sturt and Raglan Streets, a quartz reef - that is a body of stone with fine gold in it.

This began the third era of gold seeking in Ballaarat.

The first was the shallow alluvial - where the gold was dug up with pick and shovel. The second was the Deep Level mines where the gold was found in the stone which had to be crushed and reduced to powder before the gold was obtained.

The two main areas of quartz were "Down South" - along Skipton Street to Sebastopol and in the East from the Prince Regent Gully in Main Road to Black Hill.

By 1869 there were about fifty quartz mines in Ballaarat with 350 stampers going night and day - employing thousands of miners and providing dividends to the share holders.

Down South, the "Star of the East" won more that a million pounds worth of gold, the "South Star" a quarter of a million pounds, and there were dozens of others more or less prosperous. In the East, among the chief producers were the "Victorian United" in Princess Street with 615,000, the new Normanby with over half a million, the North Woah Hawp with 576,388 and many others.

These quartz mines were expensive to run. Many of them had machinery costing many thousands of pounds. The "Star of the East" had one hundred head of battery stampers smashing up the stone, and with much noise were kept going day and night. These mines gave employment to thousands of miners, engine drivers, wood carters and others, to say nothing of the hundred sharebrokers who at the Mining Exchange sold and bought on Commission shares for the eager spectators.

Toward the end of the sixties there were 5,000 miners doing their arduous toll in the deep mines of Ballaarat. One shift began work at midnight, another at 8 a.m. and third at 4 p.m.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

The yields from the Mines fluctuated, and with this fluctuation the prosperity of Ballaarat went up and down. When the big "Slump" came in 1870 the population of Ballaarat fell from over 50,000 to about 38,000.

Fortunes were made and lost at the Mining Exchange.

So it went on till the 1914-18 War. Prices of all materials needed in the tines rose more than 200 per cent, while the price of gold remained fixed at 4.4.11. The Mining Companies could not carry on profitably. One by one they closed down, and all the expensive machinery was sold for iron. By 1919 all activities ended in Ballaarat of mining on a large scale.

No more was heard, day or night, the "Bang! Bang!" of the hundreds of stampers in the batteries; no more were seen the groups of clay stained miners making their way home from their arduous toil; no more was Skipton Street of the busiest streets with its dozens of shops and numerous hotels.

The mines had closed down, and the miners had to seek other occupations.

It must not be thought that the Ballaarat Goldfield is exhausted.

Under the streets of our City is probably as much gold as has been dug up. Certain areas, such as Little Bendigo, Cambrian Hill, lower Main Road, are waiting to yield up their treasures when enterprising speculators will find the capital to re-open the deserted mines.

In conclusion, I give a few striking figures concerning our goldfield:

TOTAL DISTRICT GOLD PRODUCTION - 20,606,600 ounces or about 630 tons.
VALUE AT PRESENT PRICE OF GOLD - $439,542,980.
RICHEST ALLUVIAL MINE - BAND & ALBION - 2,961,732.
RICHEST QUARTZ MINE - STAR OF THE EAST - 1,059,131.
RICHEST SHAFT - NO. 2 BAND OF HOPE 9 1/2 TONS OF GOLD.
DEEPEST SHAFT - SOUTH STAR, 3,112 FEET.
RICHEST STRIP OF TERRITORY - "JEWELLERS SHOP" 2,000 per feet.