Very interesting post
Loaded for sure ....Totally unexplored to modern techniques....lots of exploration during the copper porphory boom but they didn't specifically drill for gold as uneconomical at the time
Probably around Late 1920s??
They found it where Koranga Creek and Edie Creek come into Bulolo – gold that was to give them each a fortune; and when they had taken all they wanted, there was enough left for the six-million-dollar company, Bulolo Gold Dredging Ltd, to win, in the 30 years following, 56 tonnes of gold, then worth 28 million pounds.
This was October 1922 and according to new issue Australian mining ordinances no claims could be worked until 1st April 1923.
April came and soon the richest parts of the Bulolo River were locked up in leases granted to the first-comers, including Morobe District Officer Cecil J. Levien. J. Levien.
April 1923 came, and soon the richest parts of the Bulolo River were locked up in leases granted to the first-comers, including Levien.
Late arrivals had to look elsewhere.
This is what Bill (W.G.) Royal and Dick (R.M.) Glasson were doing in 1926, trying to find the source of the Bulolo’s gold, when they came into Edie Creek and decided to go to the head of it.
What showed in the dishes they panned in these streams was gold in unbelievable concentration – if it was gold.
At first glance – according to Bill Money, who was in partnership with Royal, Glasson, F. Chisholm and Joe Sloane – it looked too dark.
The Edie gold, alloyed with silver, was heavily stained with manganese but rubbed shiny and was the real stuff of Eldorado.
Joe Sloane said to his mate who was running his sluice box at 11.30am: “Y’d better clean up Bill. The bloody gold’s running outa the box.”
That day they got 272 ounces.
Where the Bulolo was rich big-scale dredging, this was incredibly smaller-scale sluicing.
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