the robert emmett cross course, page-3

Cheers Bob - interesting info. Those old newspaper archives are a great find - I didn't realise they existed.

Here's a snippet from another article on Hill End:


The Sydney Mail, Saturday, September 20, 1879


The Rose of England Co did fairly; and, among others, Mr Rawsthorne, the present Mayor of Hill End, ahd a claim. It paid only fairly for a time, but when, in 1869, a crushing of 20 tonnes went 63 oz to the tone, the Hill was rushed. The history of this rush, too, is known, and to attempt to enumerate half the successful claims and refer their working, wold befit only an exhaustive (and exhausting) work on the district.

It sounds like a fairy tale, even now to hear of the cake of 24,000 oz of gold, which was shown at the exhibition of 1871 as the result of one crushing by Kohmann's Company. To hear that 30 tons of stone yielded about 3500 oz, and that the result of three months work was 5673 oz, to known of the mass of golden quartz raised by Holtermann, and that Beyers and Holtermann's Company cleared 15,000 oz for three months work, getting this from a little over 100 tons of stuff; to hear that Carrol and Beard's Company got 600 oz from 2 tons of stuff; and that 5534oz were obtained by them from 41.5 tons. Large returns were also obtained by ?Hurley and Moore, Rawsthorne, Brown, Cock and Attwood, Crichton and Bear, Star of Peace Company and Fisher and Bear &c.

The gross return of gold from Hawkins Hill from 1870 to 1873 was phenomenal. Still these separate claims were not more than 45 feet to 153 feet along the line, by 200 feet east and west, and this rich stone was not got at a lower level thatn about from 260 feet to 300 feet in the south and about 410 fee on the north, when it died out.

In 1875 mining began to decline, returns fell off, and something had to be done. Hawkins Hill, a bold spur, runs north and south, and as usual, except at Barrington where they go east and west, the reefs also run in this direction. They underlie to the east and from the surface to a depth of 100 feet, within which space much gold was taken out the ground is broken. On these reefs are to be found occasionally formations, here called "blows" which answer to the "Bonanzas" of California. A cross course of slate, clay &c, 3 feet or 4 feet wide, raceable on the surface of the Hill and well defined down to 514 feet, cuts the quartz reef almost at right angles, carrying with it on one side a shoot of quartz generally very rich in gold down to 410 feet. On the other side of the cross course the reef is invariably poor for an uncertain distance, until gold "makes" again.