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

A day in the life of a prospector

By DB

It’s still dark outside, you still feel a bit weary but you check your watch to see whether it’s worthwhile trying to get back to sleep. It’s 4.30am. If you get up and start wandering around outside it’ll be another hour before you’ll no longer need the torch. You try to go back to sleep but already there’s too much to think about. Will I go back to where I found those few small pieces yesterday, or try that place I worked the day before. Then that area down by the quartz blow looks promising. They’ve all been thrashed by hundreds of others before I arrived but yeah, nobody gets all the gold.

Bloody hell though, I wish I could find a virgin patch; be the first one on new ground. At last it’s 6am! I must have dozed off. Boy it seems to have grown colder in the last hour – perhaps I’ll curl up for a few more minutes. 6.15am. C’mon you lazy bastard, the sun has been up for ages; throw back the rugs, swing your legs over the edge of the bed. Jeez that lino floor is cold. On with the shorts and working shirt; it’s starting to smell a bit – how many days is that? Four? Better change it tomorrow or even the flies won’t want to know me. Then again… Breakfast – the same every day. One Weetbix (crushed), topped up with homemade muesli and enough long-life milk to cover it. Glad it’s winter time – the fridge is working well this time out. Fill the kettle with enough water for 1½ cups. Two slices of bread, under the griller on the two-burner stove, kettle on top. Toast buttered, kettle boiled – hot coffee at last.

Breakfast finished, rinse the dishes using as little water as possible. Clean your teeth, on with your work boots. Socks need a change too. Maybe tomorrow. Mother Nature calls, grab the toilet roll, portable toilet seat and the pick, and it’s a short stroll to your favourite resting place. Crikey that seat is cold, but the sun is up, the birds are singing, there’re a couple of ‘roos in the distance and it’s still too cold for the flies, so nice and peaceful. And not another person within shouting distance. The way we were meant to start the day. Well, that job done, and I’ve decided where I’ll detect today. Grab the freshly filled water bottles, into the car and away. Drive slowly over the broken quartz and ironstone. One day I’ll get a four-wheel drive. The old Ford sedan is great for the highway but it’s not built for this type of work. The two back tyres are bald and I’m sure that’s a new rattle coming from the front end somewhere. Ah well, as long as she keeps going till I get home in a couple of weeks.

There’s the turn off. Onto the highway for a few clicks today, not another vehicle in sight, just cruise along, save fuel! Back on the dirt again, just over this hill, across the creek, quickly remember just how low the car is. No problem. Just down that track a while and there it is, the same as when I left it yesterday. I was feeling good then, five pieces of that yellow stuff in my pocket, about 10 grams I reckon. Another day like that would be nice.

Park in the same spot, for luck. Out of the car at 7.30am and shit it’s cold! And that damned wind has come up. That’ll play hell with hearing through the headphones. Never mind; I’m not gonna get any gold standing here thinking about it.

Gold found by the author around Cue and Nannine

Cap and Headphones

Backpack on, cap on, mosquito net over the cap, headphones over the top of that; army belt with knife and water bottle; bum bag on containing ‘gold’ canisters. Hook up the detector to the backpack battery, plug in the earphones, turn it on, ground balance it. Sounds good, let’s go!

Another lovely day, should be about 28°, fine and sunny – shame about the wind. Bugger! I’ve forgotten the chain. Trudge back to the car, curse the chain for hiding on the back floor where I couldn’t see it, clip it onto the back of the army belt. That feels better; knew there was something missing.

Think I’ll take the pick with me because that pile of dirt I got those two pieces from yesterday might have some more in it. If I flatten it out, I should get a few small pieces.

Walk down the hill to where I finished working yesterday – heaps of dirt mounds, mine shafts, fallen trees and plenty of quartz boulders.

Well, what to do first – detect or hook in with the pick? I think the pick while it’s cool and if I get a couple of pieces from there it will make the rest of the day easy.

And so much for that idea. Not a speck. Never mind, I did get a piece off that other bigger pile of topsoil on the end so while I’m in the mood I’ll flatten some of that and see what it’s hiding.

Two tonnes of shifted dirt later and not a glint of the yellow stuff. Something tells me it’s not going to be a good day. Well, nothing for it but to start swinging the detector and make up for the two hours lost knocking down sandcastles.

Is it Rubbish or Gold?

It’s 9.30am and it’s warming up. The flies are out and about and as I’m the only person for about 5km around, I wonder what they would do if I wasn’t here? Do they just fly around in circles all day or do they sit in the trees waiting for someone to come along and then descend on them?

10am and I get a faint noise. I check it again, and again, from two other directions to make sure. It’s very faint but it’s there. I very carefully scrape away the stones and top layer of dirt covering ‘it’, and check to make sure the noise is still there. If it’s gone it was only a hot rock or a small piece of rusty tin you couldn’t see on top of the red dirt.

No, ‘it’ is still there. Scrape away the top inch of dirt. If it’s rubbish it should be in that lot. I check to see if I can still hear it. Yes, but it’s louder now – too loud to be anything big. It’s close, which means it’s either rubbish or a small piece of gold. I scrape and dig the next two inches of dirt, drag the dirt out of the hole, and check the hole again and hope the noise is still in there. No luck – check the last lot of dirt. Keep halving the dirt until ‘it’ is located in a small pile. Now the time has come to find out what I’ve found. I take a handful of dirt from the pile and wave it over the detector. ‘It’ is in my hand and I slowly let the dirt trickle out onto the detector.

‘Ping!’ It’s gold – far from a fortune, in fact about the size of a large match head, but my first for the day. Now fill in the hole and let’s get moving. Another is waiting!

Three hours later and with not another piece to be had I decide it’s time for a change of tactics. I’ve been using the 11-inch coil (my favourite) but perhaps the big 18-inch (which is in the boot of the car) might be better on this ground. It penetrates a lot deeper and looking at the mine shafts, there seems to be about a metre of soil until bedrock. I doubt there would be gold in this area heavy enough to sink that deep, but I have to try something.

Take off the backpack, chain and detector, trudge the quarter mile back to the car, and change discs. Boy I hate this big 18-inch thing – it’s so noisy compared with the 11-inch. Ahh, stop bloody whingeing and get working. Two hours later, nothing!

I’ve had enough of the 18-inch and change back to the 11. Two hours later

and that’s enough for the day. It’s 5pm, the sun is low in the western sky, and I promised Allen I would call at his camp to see if he needed a lift into Meekatharra tomorrow for car parts.

The closest watering hole for the author was the historic Royal Mail Hotel in Meekatharra

Sunset and Battery Recharge

As I drive into camp the sun is disappearing fast. There’s just enough time to hook-up the detector battery to recharge overnight; grab the now empty water bottles from the car; get the pick out of the boot (for tomorrow morning); grab the soap and a towel, get out of my dirty clothes and head to my portable Sola shower hanging on a nearby tree. The water’s not real hot but it feels good as the red dirt washes away. It’s getting cold now, 6.15pm and the evening breeze is coming in. Back to the van and into some warm clothes.

Next major decision – what will I have for dinner? I’ve got enough casserole in the freezer for two more meals; baked beans (no, had them last night); canned steak & veg; canned spaghetti & meatballs; or some other canned concoction. No, I think I’ll have chicken chow mein, straight from the packet. While the water is boiling for that, I refill my water bottles, wash the ‘gold’ won today (hardly worth the effort), and decide to put a bit of polish on my work boots.

Dinner is ready – more noodles than chicken. Never mind, my feet are sore, I’m tired and hungry and I like pasta, and tonight is my night to have dessert – fruit cake and custard.

After that little lot it’s time to wash up using as little water as possible because it’s 30km to Meeka for more water.

At last, up on the bed to put my feet up. It feels so good to put them up and not have to walk around again until tomorrow! Time to write a short note about my day. It’s is now 9.35pm, Tuesday May 14 and I am going to make a cup of coffee and after downing that, turn off the radio and gas light and go to sleep to dream of where the next ‘nugget’ is coming from. I’ll probably go back to the same place as today. I’m sure there is gold there. Well, I hope there is.

NOTE: The author’s experience this day was while he was working the Mindoolah Goldfield which is located 70 kilometres north-west of Cue along the Beringarra- Cue Road. Access is a few kilometres north of where the road passes through the gap in the Weld Range, the gravel track heading west to the area. The Mindoolah gold area is a compact location of workings approximately 500 metres east-west and the same north-south. Small time modern gold mining has seen a small shallow pit, a couple of large trenches, and much mullock and disturbance. The field was active from 1906 to 1909 as a prospectors’ field, before interest waned. A very small amount of activity was also reported in the late 1930s. A prospector, J. Bertram, was the first to find gold here, and his Bertram’s Reward lease was the first on the field. In 1907, an option was taken over the lease by Mr Hartrick for £6,000, and the name of the mine changed to Mindoolah Deeps. One report in 1907 lists about a dozen leases with 85 people on the field. Most of the leases contained several shafts ranging down to the water level at 70 feet. Regular small tonnages from these leases were crushed over the three years, 1906-09, probably for not much more than tucker money. A. A. Spencer constructed a 10-head battery on the field to crush from his own lease, and for other prospectors. Often referred to as Spencer’s Battery, its official name was Main Reef Battery. A lack of water held the development of the field back. Little happened after 1909, and the field was abandoned. Mindoolah Mines Limited had a small crushing reported in 1941, and the year before, T. Della Bosca, also put through a small crushing while the mine was under exemption.

Frank Gardiner – horse thief, butcher, bushranger, innkeeper, and possibly card cheat

Around 1862, shanties began to appear along the road between Rockhampton, Clermont and Peak Downs. Part of this route was opened up by Oscar de Satge, a Frenchman instru­ mental in the establishment of Queensland in the early days.

De Satge was riding to Rockhampton one day when he spotted a new tent on the banks of Apis Creek. Timber was stacked beside what looked like the beginnings of a new shanty. A big friendly man appeared who greeted de Satge. His name, he said, was James Christie and he offered de Satge a cup of tea. This was accepted and de Satge met Christie’s wife. As he was leaving, his eye rested on the most wonderful brown stallion, which he immediately offered to buy. “I wouldn’t sell him for all the gold in Australia,” was Christie’s reply.

The Christies worked hard with their shanty. They sold liquor and later on added some accommodation as many travellers came and went along the road. In time everyone came to like the genial James Christie, who proved an obliging businessman. Often diggers would leave their gold with him for safe keeping on their way in to Rockhampton. Even the corrupt John Thomas Griffin, the Gold Commissioner who was later hung for murdering two troopers and stealing the money they were escorting, left a total of 470oz of gold with him for several days. Christie was also known to give rations to hard­up diggers and swaggies who called, knowing they were not likely to be able to repay him.

In March 1864 a party of three diggers made camp near the Christie’s hotel and got into conversation with Christie and his wife. Shortly afterwards, Lieutentant Brown with a party of native mounted police arrived from the Yaamba Barracks on what appeared to be a routine patrol, just as they often did along what was the gold trail to Peak Downs. However, the three diggers turned out to be detectives and one of them had recognised Christie’s fine brown stallion. He knew immediately that the genial host of the Apis Creek Shanty was none other than Frank Gardiner (born Francis Christie in Scotland in 1830) and that his “wife” was actually his mistress, Kate Brown. There was a reward of £1,000 on Frank Gardiner’s head and after a struggle, an arrest was made and he was taken away in irons on the coastal steamer Queensland to stand trial in Sydney. One of the people who identified Frank Gardiner as the shanty keeper at Apis Creek was Oscar de Satge.

Frank Gardiner was at the forefront of bushranging during the golden age in Australia. He was regardedby many as the ‘Prince of High Tobymen’. ‘Darky’ Gardiner was born at Boro Creek, near Goulburn in 1830, the son of a free Scottish migrant and a half­Irish, half­Aboriginal girl called Clarke. The surname Gardiner was taken from an employer.

The epithet ‘Darky’ was given him on account of his sallow complexion. He was still a teenager when he had his first brush with the law – he and two friends crossed into Victoria and stole 32 horses. The best of these were entered in “races” against the police but the owner of the horses caught up with them before they sold them and Gardiner, for his part in the business, was sentenced to five years in Pentridge Gaol, although he escaped within a few weeks. Returning to Goulburn in 1854, he stole more horses and this time found himself at Cockatoo Island prison in Sydney Harbour.

Upon his release he became a butcher at Lambing Flat but butchering didn’t bring in as much as bushranging and he became the people’s nightmare who dwelt between Lambing Flat – now Young – Yass and Gundagai.

John Piesley, who was later hanged, often rode with him and it was claimed that it was Piesley who rescued him when Gardiner was arrested after shooting Sergeant John Middleton in the jaw, and Trooper Hosie in the arm. Piesley later claimed he had paid £50 to Trooper Hosie to release Gardiner. After Piesley, Gardiner moved on to the Weddin Mountains, south of Forbes where he formed a gang which included Johnny Gilbert, a Canadian gunman.

It was in 1862 that Gardiner pulled the robbery which was to make him famous in Australian history. He knew that each week a coach, guarded by police, left Forbes from Sydney. Its cargo was gold from the diggings, also banknotes. Sometimes the amount exceeded £30,000. Calling on his friends, Gilbert, Dan Charters, Alex Fordyce, Johnny O’Meally, Johnny Bow of Penrith, Harry Mans, and a cattleman who was embittered with the authorities, Ben Hall, he made his plans. They were to lie in wait at Eugowra Rocks for the coach on the 15th of June, 1862, and when it appeared they would bail it up and steal its contents.

As it appeared, Gardiner and his gang with their faces blackened, dashed out and fired upon the coach with muskets and pistols. Sergeant Condell was felled with a musket ball in his ribs and Constable Moran was wounded in the groin. The driver, John Fegan, had the uncomfortable feeling of a bullet passing through his hat while Constable Rafferty wisely dropped his rifle. Meanwhile, in the chaos, the horses had bolted with the coach which hit a boulder and turned over. Following them, Gardiner loaded the first two horses with gold and banknotes and took them to his hideout at Wheogo. The plunder was then divided evenly amongst his accomplices using a set of butcher’s scales to weigh it. The banknotes were also shared out.

All would have gone well had not the Inspector of Police, Sir Frederick Pottinger, begun to track them. Pottinger was a British baronet, the black sheep of an aristocratic English family who gambled away his family’s fortune at the racecourse, and most of the time he was regarded scornfully by members of the force, but on this particular occasion his luck was in. He was just heading back to his headquarters with two constables when he met Johnny Gilbert in company with his brother Charley and Harry Mans, who was leading a packhorse. Gilbert took off, riding the 70 miles in 11 hours on his stolen thoroughbred, to inform the rest of the gang who were at O’Meally’s shanty in the Weddin Mountains. The gang rode back, and holding up Pottinger and his men, rescued Charley Gilbert and Harry Mans. Pottinger ran away – an act which many called cowardly. He then brought in so many suspects that people sneered at him that he’d arrested everyone except Frank Gardiner! He actually did almost arrest Gardiner when he learned that Gardiner visited Kate Brown, his mistress, every night at her cottage near Wheogo. Pottinger lay in wait with eight troopers and when Gardiner appeared, they opened fire at a range of little more than five yards. Remarkably, they missed, and the next day Gardiner was gone.

It wasn’t until Gardner was spotted at Apis Creek in Queensland that he was heard of again. In the meantime, Sir Frederick Pottinger, on the 5th of March, 1865, at Wascoe’s Inn in the Blue Mountains on his way to Sydney, accidentally shot himself in the upper abdomen while boarding a moving coach. He recovered enough to be moved to the Victoria Club in Sydney where he died four days later at the age of 34.

Frank Gardner and Kate might have lived on contentedly at Apis Creek had not Kate written to her sister Bridget, who had eloped with a farmer called Taylor. Taylor got drunk and talked, hinting at something interesting to be discovered at Apis Creek.

In 1864 Gardiner was tried for wounding Sergeant Middleton with intent to kill, but was acquitted by the jury. At a second trial in July he was found guilty on two non­capital charges, one of which was armed robbery, and Chief Justice Sir Alfred Stephen gave him a cumulative sentence of 32 years hard labour to be served in irons for the first two. In 1872 ,William Bede Dalley, who had defended Gardiner, organized petitions to the governor to use his prerogative of mercy. Sir Hercules Robinson decided that Gardiner had been harshly sentenced and in 1874 released him subject to his exile.

On the 27th of July, 1874, Gardiner embarked for Hong Kong and by February 1875 was in San Francisco where he ran the Twilight Star Saloon. The press continued to note his activities, including his supposed death in Colorado about 1903 allegedly as a result of gun duel following a poker game. But just how and when Gardiner died is open to conjecture.

While Gardiner had been incarcerated, Kate Brown, his mistress, had gone to New Zealand to get away from “the ridicule of respectable citizens” and it is believed she eventually committed suicide there.

In search of Thunderbolt’s caves

By TP

My interest in Captain Thunderbolt (Frederick Ward) started back in 1973 when I was looking for an area where I could combine some fishing, exploring, fossicking and swimming. I’d been told of the Pretty Gully Goldfield, in northern NSW, by my late fossicking mate, Mark Davidson. The area had been a regular haunt of Thunderbolt in the late 1860s. The area can be reached from Brisbane by either going through Woodenbong, Toolom or Tabulam. The property owner of the area kindly allowed me to camp at the junction of the Cataract and Clarence Rivers, which was an ideal spot nestled in undulating hills, and typical bushranging country. It was only a 15-minute drive from the campsite to the Pretty Gully Goldfield. Mark Davidson had told me of an old hermit/prospector who lived on the goldfield so I decided to pay the chap a courtesy visit. The track down to Vic McGlashan’s shack passed very close to the tombstones in the small cemetery that had nearly been taken over by the bush. It was a rather dull afternoon and the trees grew very close to the track. Up ahead lay Vic’s old tin abode with smoke lazily rising into the sky. A pile of empty beer and wine bottles lay at the right-hand corner of the old dwelling. An open, rusty 44-gallon drum was located at the left-hand side of the door.

VIC LETS HIS GUARD DOWN

The rainwater was fed into the drum by guttering secured at various intervals by pieces of fencing wire. As I approached, two cats raced out of the only door and headed for the nearby scrub. The table was cluttered up with books, magazines, items of various foods, and a kerosene hurricane lantern. Vic’s ancient metal and wire bed was on the other side of the table. The old wood stove was to the right as you walked through the door, and there was a sort of attic accessed by a rickety ladder made from saplings. This was where Vic stored his other meagre possessions. Vic was in his late 60s and was rather reticent at first, but when I told him I was a friend of Mark Davidson, he let his guard down. He offered me a cup of tea and then walked outside with a large old blackened kettle to the 44-gallon drum and filled the kettle by using an empty jam tin nailed to a stick. Vic then put the kettle on the stove, stuck some kindling on the fire and blew like mad for a short time to get the fire going again. All of Vic’s enamel cups were chipped and, as he gave them a quick wipe, I couldn’t help but wonder what else he wiped with the cloth. Vic first came to the area during the 1930s, the Depression years, and had prospected and explored the surrounding district until he was too weak to climb and prospect the hills and gullies. He was content to just walk the 30 metres from his shack to the nearest gully after heavy rains and pan a dish or two. On a later visit to the Pretty Gully area, I met a ‘tickie’ who was employed by the government to ride horseback in the district and check the fences that prevented tick cattle from entering tick-free areas.

HE FOUND THE BUSHRANGER’S CAVE

Vic described to me an area where he had discovered one of Thunderbolt’s caves at the dead-end head of a steep-sided gully. The cave still had the remains of a saddle, a frying pan and some empty food tins. It was about 10 years earlier that Vic had found the cave and had left everything as it was, which I thought was great. A couple of days later I decided to search for Thunderbolt’s cave and made my way up the steep-sided gully Vic had mentioned but halfway up, the thick lantana growth prevented me getting any further. I had to make a detour climb up along the edge of the gully but access down to the cave’s entrance was then only by rope, something I didn’t have, and I left disappointed.

A SKULL WITH A BULLET HOLE

The following year, old Vic told me some very interesting news which might have involved Thunderbolt. When he and I were enjoying a few glasses of wine and feeling a bit mellow, I mentioned that I’d been searching for one of Thunderbolt’s caves. Vic asked me where I’d been looking and when I told him he replied, “Good, it’s not the one I found fifteen years ago when I was taking a short cut to another gold area. I was checking out some porphyry rock and then went for a splash and when I happened to look up, I saw the narrow entrance to a cave above me. There was a good-sized sapling growing up past the entrance so I climbed up and squeezed through the small opening. What I saw with my little torch really scared the crap out of me. “I found a skeleton with a neat bullet hole in the forehead of the skull. “I almost panicked but when I saw all the ‘boodle’ I got over my initial shock. The skeleton was that of a small person, a man most likely as what was left of the clothes belonged to a man.” I told Vic that I’d love to see the cave sometime but he said, “No way! You might pinch the boodle!” I didn’t even know what boodle was, so he explained that it meant a hoard of stolen loot. Vic went on to say that there were a couple of gold watches, sovereigns, a wad of old banknotes from the last century, rings, bangles, brooches and some very rich gold-bearing quartz. There was another entrance to the cave but Vic didn’t elaborate.

WAS IT A LONELY MAN’S DAYDREAM

He then said to me, “You can’t find the cave as you haven’t any idea of how far to go or what direction it is from here. I didn’t tell the police about the skeleton in the cave. I was afraid I might become involved in some murder ‘cause I didn’t find a gun in the cave. Anyway, the cops would probably keep the boodle for themselves. I thought about going back to the cave many times but now I get the pension and it’s plenty for what I need.” I wondered if his story was true, and thought it might have been just another daydream story that had become real in the mind of an old man who had spent most of his life alone, searching for a fortune in gold that forever eluded him. My wife reckoned old Vic told me about the treasure in the cave to keep me interested in coming back as I always brought him some food supplies and a plug of dark tobacco on my visits to the area. I told Vic I knew of a bushranger named Wilson who was shot in the nearby ranges, so the north of NSW had its fair share of bushrangers. A couple of years later on another visit to Vic, while yarning and drinking wine together, I casually mentioned his secret cave once more. He said he might take me one day but, as it was a fair walk and with his heart not the best, it might not be possible. Instead, he pointed in the direction of the cave and explained how long it would take to walk there.

SEARCH FOR THE CAVES

I have since wondered about his story and find it odd that the guy in the cave was murdered yet all the loot remained in the cave. I have heard from another source that a coach in the area during the late 1800s was bailed up by a bushranger. The chap sitting next to the driver of the coach got a shot off first. The bushranger slumped forward in his saddle, turned his horse and rode off. Even so, one would imagine anyone being hit in the forehead would have certainly died before getting back to the cave hideout. Was the chap in the cave murdered by another bushranger who might have intended to come back later but never did. As I said earlier this was all told to me in the 1970s and old Vic passed away in March, 1989, taking the secret location of the skeleton in the cave with him. Some years later a mate and I went searching for Vic’s cave with the aid of topographical maps and a compass. We spent two whole days tramping and climbing the hills, exploring gullies and small creeks, but failed to find any cave.

Vic outside his old tin shed

PROSPECTOR’S SHACK VANDALISED

We called in to have a look at old Vic’s shack and found a note on the door requesting visitors to leave the shack in its original state as a monument and reminder of an interesting old hermit/prospector. It was rather disappointing to see that this notice had been ignored. Some people had been digging inside looking for any coins that they thought Vic might have hidden. Quite a few items had been removed from inside and the shack was starting to fall into disrepair. It was sad for me when I checked out the area where I used to camp and swim at the junction of the Cataract and Clarence Rivers. The area was full of houses. If you want to have a stab at finding Vic’s boodle cave, be warned that the ranges and valleys in the area are very rugged. Whoever discovers the cave will certainly have earned whatever reward lies within. But perhaps the cave only ever existed in the mind of a lonely old prospector in need of something interesting to tell a stranger. As for Frederick Ward, aka Captain Thunderbolt, his success as a bushranger can be largely attributed to his horsemanship and splendid mounts, to popular sympathy inspired by his agreeable appearance and conversation, and to his gentlemanly behaviour and avoidance of violence; he also showed prudence in not robbing armed coaches, or towns where a policeman was stationed. The last of the professional bushrangers in New South Wales, Ward was the most successful. However, on the 25th of May, 1870, he was surprised while testing an inferior horse and was chased and shot dead by Constable Alexander Binney Walker at Kentucky Creek near Uralla. He was 35 years old.

Prospecting for gold at Ararat

Jim Foster tells you where to go (in a nice way) and what to expect when you get there.

MCDONALD PARK

This is one of the easiest spots to find and is right on the edge of town. Thousands of nuggets have been found in the park over the years. The biggest nugget I know of that came from the park was 10oz while the biggest nugget I have actually seen weighed 4oz from just outside the park boundary on the lower slopes of Bridal Hill. My biggest was 24 grams but there were a lot of smaller bits in my bag as well.

To find McDonald Park take the Adelaide Road out of Ararat for about 3.5 to 4km from the post office and you will see a track going into the bush on your left. There is a large parking bay/rest area on your right so you can’t miss it. I don’t need to direct you to any particular spot here as the entire park has gold scattered around. The main gullies have old diggings but it is the unturned ground that is the best prospect these days. Map co-ordinates are 37. 15. 02. S. 142. 54. 39. E.

BRIDAL HILL

Camping is not allowed in MacDonald Park but there is a good camping area at Bridal Hill. A few hundred metres before you get to the McDonald Park turnoff there is another track leading up to Bridal Hill. It is the first turnoff past the last house on the left before McDonald Park.

The Quarry at the top has been revegetated but like McDonald Park, this entire hill is good prospecting ground. Map co-ordinates are 37. 15. 16. S. 142. 54. 35.

OTHER LOCATIONS

McDonald Park is part of the Ararat Regional Hills Park. The entire park has gold on it to a greater or lesser degree. McDonald Park and Bridal Hill were probably the richest but there are many other good areas in the Regional Park as well.

On the northern boundary of McDonald Park there is a gravel road, Majors Road. Take this road just past the northern boundary of McDonald Park and you will see a small white hill on your left. Many nuggets have been detected on this hill and surrounding ground and a new model detector/coil combination is almost certain to turn up more gold. Running right alongside the road on the side opposite McDonald Park is a gold-bearing gully with diggings along it. This gully has a good deal of rubbish in it but some good gold has been found there by the handful of people patient enough to put up with the trash.

Back near the highway across from McDonald Park, a track can be seen turning into the bush just above the power lines. This track will lead you into numerous diggings and gullies where you are likely to find gold. Following the track right through may be impossible during the winter unless you have a 4x4 as the one big gully you have to cross gets very slippery when wet. If you do follow it through, it brings you out at Petticoat Gully. If you aren’t driving a 4x4, drive further up the gravel road until you find a road going off to the right. This road is a bit narrow and winding but you won’t get stuck on it.

In 1857, a party of Chinese miners en route to the Central Victorian gold fields, struck gold at the Canton Lead. This marked the beginning of a settlement that took its name from Mount Ararat, 10 kilometres south-west of the town. Ararat is the only city in Australia to be founded by Chinese people and it boomed until the start of the 19th century, after which its population dwindled. Today it is home to some12,000 people in the town and surrounding areas

PETTICOAT GULLY

This spot can be found at map co-ordinates 37.13.52. S. 142. 53. 17. E. The other option is to drive along the highway for about 3km past McDonald Park until you see the sign posted turnoff on your left at map co-ordinates 37. 13. 39. S. 142. 53. 34. E.

The slope above the gully is your best prospect as many small, and some larger, nuggets have been detected here. Across the road is a hill with some tempting diggings running down the face but do not enter here without permission as the owner can get a bit snarly if you do. Most of the gold I have found here was on the new ground, not the diggings.

ARMSTRONG

This is another large area but a fair bit of it is privately owned. Despite this, it is always worth asking for permission. A way I always made myself welcome was to give the landowner a bit of the gold off his land, assuming you find some. Most are thrilled to get a bit of gold and I always carried a few little display pods to put the gold in for them.

EAGLEHAWK GULLY

To find this gully continue on past the Petticoat Gully turnoff for about 1.5km to the Eaglehawk road. Follow this until you come to the end. The country along the creek is public land. You can walk up the creek and up the hill to Murphy’s Hill or take the other track in from Armstrong Road. Back toward the highway you will see a house next to the road. If you ask at the house and gain permission to enter, you will find a good many diggings over the rise on private land. I found a fair few nuggets on these working with VLF machines but have never been back with a pulse induction (PI) detector. And by walking up the creek you can enter the public land section of Hospital Hill where good gold can also be found.

Hospital hill can also be entered from the highway by asking at the nearest house opposite where Thomas Road enters the highway. I did well on Hospital Hill many years ago with VLF machines but haven’t been back with a PI.

MURPHY’S HILL DIGGINGS

Continue only a little way past Eaglehawk Road and take the next left into Garden Gully/Armstrong Road. Continue over the bridge and take the next left, Westgate Road. Immediately turn left onto the track that crosses the creek. The creek up along Westgate Road has diggings for a fair way and the slopes have also produced a great many nuggets for detector operators over the years, and will continue to do so.

Taking the left-hand track once you’re over the creek will take you up to some good areas where you have an excellent chance of finding gold. Taking the right-hand track brings you to the Hard Hill workings after passing through more good areas.

Back on Westgate Road drive a short way up the hill and take the first road on your right. This track leads into the public land area next to Hard Hill. There are many diggings here in the main gully to keep you busy and you can also camp here. Hard Hill itself is on private land and you must ask permission to enter. Do not sneak over the back fence! Map co-ordinates are 37. 12. 43. S. 142. 52. 09. E.

HARD HILL

Hard Hill was a particularly rich hill with nearly every face producing gold. The biggest nugget I know of from around this hill was a 10-ouncer from low down the eastern slope just above the road.

If you’re lucky enough to get permission to detect you will see some marvellous examples of Chinese diggings. These are perfectly round shafts that still look as if they were dug only a few years ago. There are also some nice examples of how the old- timers tunnelled in under the conglomerate capping near the fence on the southern side of the hill. Under no circumstances try entering these drives and shafts.

As you leave Westgate Road and negotiate the track into Crown Land, you will notice the track splits to the right as well as continuing straight ahead. If you go straight ahead over the gully you will see another track cutting off to your right below a fence line.

The entire slope below this fence is well worth detecting until you come to a small surface patch, and then the fence-line where the track ends. A patch of nuggets amounting to about 14oz was once found just below the beginning of this fence-line. Map co-ordinates 37. 11. 36. S. 142. 51. 52. E.

Ararat’s main goldfields have produced a great deal of gold to detector operators and will continue to do so for many years. Using maps of the area around Ararat makes it easy to find all the spots mentioned here but the areas suggested are merely starting points to enable you to find more of the many good prospecting areas around Ararat.

I suggest maps: Vicmap 1:250,000 Topographical Stawell South. This map covers Ararat’s McDonald Park north to Great Western and west to Moyston but not far enough north west to cover Londonderry. For coverage of Londonderry (Jallukar) you will need Vicmap 1:250,000 Topo map Bellellen.

Using Google Earth in conjunction with the above maps will further enhance your ability to find gold around Ararat. A good camping spot is Greenhill Lake a few kilometres out of town on the Ballarat Road. A small fee is payable but it is worth it to have running water and flushing toilets.

The mystery behind every cache of valuables

Gold Gem & Treasure was recently contacted by a long-time detectorist in Victoria who has persisted with his efforts to uncover treasure from a rubbishy area adjacent to a busy road. Up until a couple of months ago, he had been reasonably successful despite the opinion of others that he was wasting his time detecting in the area. Too much rubbish they reckoned. Far too many targets that were worthless scraps of metal. And then he found a rusty old tin with nine 1820 gold sovereigns in it! He did the right thing and took the sovereigns to the local police but they weren’t very interested in doing the paperwork. They told him he could keep the sovereigns as no-one would be lodging a claim for coins that were more than 200 years old. The fact that the coins could have been part of a modern-day collection that had been lost or stolen didn’t cross their minds. We’re hoping the finder of the sovereigns will elaborate further on his experience so that we can share it with you, but it reminded us of a story we published some time ago about another cache found by one of our readers. Back then he told his story writing under the pseudonym Argonaut. “It was 1986 when I joined a safari, organised by John Dyer, to wave metal detectors over the alluvial goldfields of Western Australia.

The party of about 30 were to be guided to various locations and instructed on metal detectors and their operation by David de Havelland, a well-known prospecting authority and the author of the Gold and Ghosts series of books. Starting from Leonora, the group searched several areas of known alluvial ground with very modest success. The caravan wended its way over many unproductive areas, however, that period of the excursion was rated successful by a handful of detectorists in the group who had found several ounces in nuggets. The caravan eventually set up camp near the old workings of the ‘Famous Blue’, near Laverton. To that point in the expedition my Garrett ADS detector had only located rusty tins, .22 bullets and shells and a silver 1885 English sixpence.

That night we had a lecture on where there were possible targets on the old workings. “Dig any signal, it could possibly be of value,” was the advice. Next morning the message was “Stay on the far (west) side of the lode as we (David de Havelland and his mate) have cleaned out whatever was on this (east) side.” I walked up the east slope noting that the bulldozing there had left a virgin strip of ground where, after swinging wide to avoid a grove of trees, the operator had failed to doze a long strip of diminishing width which had served as a road into the camp site. By the time I reached the west slope, after checking the old shaft and dumps on the rise, the whole area had been claimed. The area was thronged with fellow enthusiasts who, in my absence, had each marked out an area of the slope as their claim, leaving very little vacant ground for my attention. I did find a spot down on the edge of the scrub that gave a response from my detector but on further exploration it proved to be the location of the old blacksmith’s shop, so I didn’t dally. Some of the “claims” were proving productive. Bill Sears was successful in locating a patch of small pieces and recovered quite a few. Our guide had shot off on his motor bike to parts unknown, then I sighted John Dyer going over the line of lode to disappear out of sight onto the east slope. Not having an area available to me on the west slope, I moved around the edge of the scrub to look up the length of the east slope. There, on that proclaimed worked out area, was our safari leader detecting over the windrows left by the recent bulldozing.

Fair enough! Obviously, he begged to differ with de Havelland’s claim that the area had been cleaned out. No-one gets all the gold, right. So, I started detecting from the extreme end of the eastern slope, on a line which would take me down the centre of the strip of the track leading up to the grove of trees. There were no signals right up to the edge of the trees, so, still swinging my detector, I decided to skirt them. Ahead of my path numerous tufts of paper protruded from the ground, indicating that the recent occupants of the campsite in the trees had, during their stay, buried the kind of waste you really don’t want to find. I consequently changed course to follow a line just clear of the lower edge of the grove of trees. Wham! The signal at the base of a tree rocked me. Surely in that location it must be a tin can the campers had buried, but, well aware of the instructions given to us, namely ‘dig every metallic signal’, I drove my pick into the centre of the target. That was unfortunate as the blow shattered a rusty biscuit box but, when I pulled the blade of the pick towards me, it brought into sight a lump of quartz freely laced with gold. The size of a billiard ball, it was the first of many. I can now admit I momentarily lost control. “John, I’ve struck the lost lode,” I shouted. This brought the whole party over to “the lode” to marvel at the specimen pieces I unearthed with every stroke of the pick. These soon filled my hat and a linen specimen bag, a relic of my service in the mining industry. It was evident that the plant had been contained in a tin because when we sieved the dirt that came from the hole, numerous fragments of rusty tin were found. On wetting a trial panful of the soil with the limited water available from a nearby gamma hole, it was evident it was float gold. Upon stirring the dish, the water was soon covered with a sheen of fine gold particles. I didn’t persevere with panning but rather bagged all the soil to bring it home as ballast and recover its values at leisure. David de Havelland was generous in his praise. “You’ve made history this day; the first known cache found in Australia.” I had no further finds on that trip but it was really a quite rewarding safari for me as it financed a world trip for my wife and myself.” David de Havelland might have been right if he was describing Argonaut’s find as the first cache of its kind ever unearthed in Australia, but it was certainly not the first cache ever found. There were numerous valuable finds pre-dating Argonaut’s, though not of specimen gold.

Apparently Hall’s last words were, “I am wounded; shoot me dead.” He died a few seconds later having already been shot at least 30 times by eight police. It was the 5th of May, 1865, four days short of Hall’s 28th birthday

For example, in June 1941, five schoolchildren found 24 sovereigns and five half sovereigns, worth £64 18 shillings, in a paddock at Gulgong, NSW, but did not know what they were. The children were crossing the paddock on their way to school and found the sovereigns in a tin near an old shack which had been vacant for years. The children showed the sovereigns to their school teacher, who took them to the police. The sovereigns were never claimed and the children got to keep them. In July 1950, two small boys found 83 sovereigns in a corroded insecticide tin. The boys were playing outside a 70-yearold mud-brick house in Kilmore when one of them noticed a loose brick and pulled it out. He put his hand inside and found the tin. The boys thought the coins were only Chinese half-pennies so they put a few in their pockets and dropped the rest on the ground. At home that evening the father of one of the boys examined the coins and then probably broke the existing world record for the 100-yard sprint in order to get back to the old house and recover the remainder of the coins. The coins were later legally claimed as treasure trove by the families of the two boys. And then there is the story of what might be the biggest cache of gold ever discovered in Australia. As reported in the Gundagai Independent newspaper of the 19th of July, 1954, some time in the early part of the century, the Weddin Mountains, specifically a place called ‘Trig Hill’, was visited by three Americans who were searching for some secret object. But before we elaborate, a little bit of background information is required. On the Sandy Creek Road, Piney Range, on the old Whelogo Station, on a property owned by Mr Jack Butler at the time the article appeared, stood six or seven posts of an old building which was the homestead of the famous bushranger Ben Hall. Just over the rise were the remains of the old stockyard, where most of the fine horses owned by Hall perished for want of food and water when he was arrested and taken to Forbes to await trial on a charge of armed robbery. When he was acquitted after a key witness changed his testimony, Hall returned and found most of his horses dead in the yard. This was possibly the catalyst for him cementing his association with Frank Gardiner and embarking on a full-time, though short-lived, career as a bushranger. After the Gardiner-Hall gang robbed the gold escort at Eugowra on the 15th of June, 1862, it was often surmised that most of the 2,700 ounces of gold stolen was still hidden in the Weddin Mountains. On the hill about 5km south of Ben Hall’s old homestead there is a standing rock about 14 metres high which was given the name Trig Hill. Now, back to the three Americans and here we will quote the story that ran in the Gundagai Independent: “Three mysterious strangers arrived by train at Grenfell. They spoke with an American accent and asked the direction of Ben’s old homestead. They said they were prospecting for some minerals that were not gold. When they found the homestead they were not long in locating the trig rock right on top of the hill which could be plainly seen from the starting point. They trenched round the rock on the eastern side for some twenty feet or so and if a visitor called on them to ascertain what success they were meeting with, they always ceased work and would not continue until his departure. One morning, however, they called on a neighbour and gave him their tools, hiring him to drive them to a railway siding on the Forbes-Stockinbingal line where they disappeared as mysteriously as they had come. After a time the old hands put two and two together and came to the conclusion that the three strangers were friends of the notorious Frank Gardiner, who was leader of the gang when the Eugowra escort hold-up took place, and was afterwards arrested, sentenced and then deported to America.” There’s a good chance the three Americans didn’t leave empty handed. It’s a long way from the United States to the Weddin Mountains in NSW. Not the sort of journey one person, let alone three, would have undertaken more than 100 years ago based on a hunch or a rumour. The finding of any cache of valuables, be it gold nuggets, gold coins, or gemstones, begs a number of questions, not the least of which are who hid the valuables and why were they hidden, but most intriguing of all, why did that person never return to collect them.

Organic “gemstones” are still popular

Organic gemstones have been used for ornaments, decorations and jewellery since prehistoric times. Their use is universal and varies only according to the materials available to different cultures. Many of the organics have historical significance and quite a few find application in jewellery and art forms today.

SHELLS

Shells, often shiny, brilliantly coloured and durable, are among the oldest and most universal of organic gems used decoratively by humans. Their obvious use is evident in their general adornment of garments and in the form of string beads or necklaces and belts. They are a by-product of a good food source; have been used as tools and utensils; have been employed as a currency of exchange; and have often been transformed into toys and musical instruments. Shells are still used for jewellery with pearl shell, abalone and coral being the most popular today. The most renowned is the Mother of Pearl shell which was discovered in almost inexhaustible quantities along the Ninety Mile beach of Western Australia. Around the turn of the last century, Broome, with several hundred luggers operating, was the pearling centre of the world and was rivalled only by the traditional historic Persian Gulf industry. Operations extended from Shark Bay round the north-west coast as far east as Thursday Island, Cape York and the Coral Sea. The pearl shell is the home of an oyster which belongs to a group of molluscs or bi-valves that produce a shell with a pearly or nacreous lining. Should a piece of grit or grain of sand get between the outer shell and the softer inner mantle, the irritation caused is eased by the secreting of nacre which is cemented to the shell. The deposition of this pearly substance around the irritant is arranged in layers of minute aragonite crystals, giving the pearl a concentric-like structure. It is this smooth bulge or blister that is removed and used in jewellery.

Mother of Pearl earrings with some diamonds and emeralds thrown in for good measure

In the hey-day of the industry, all pearls were natural, but by the middle of the last century the effect of the long, intensive operations and the advent of plastics which wiped out the demand for natural pearl buttons, threatened the demise of Broome and the industry. However, instead of natural pearls, a new industry in the form of cultured pearls, gave the town a new lease of life. Rather than letting nature take its course to create one pearl among thousands of oysters, man simulates what happens by performing a surgical operation, during which a nucleus is inserted into the oyster. Natural pearls can take about 10 years to mature while the cultured variety matures in less than a quarter of the time. The popularity of beads for adornment has led to their imitation on a large scale, worldwide. Glass and plastics are the main materials, the beads created being coated with a “pearly essence” in the form of “string dipping”. Among the shells used for ornamental materials are the conch, helmet, mussel, trochus and the abalone of Paua. The hardness of shell, which is a calcium carbonate, is about 2.5 on Mohs scale. It comes in almost every colour, with the shining iridescent variety being of particular interest to lapidaries, as well as the layered coloured shells for cameos. The Paua shell of New Zealand, with its brightly coloured blue and green nacre, continues to be used extensively for a wide range of jewellery items.

An example of the art of scrimshaw on a whale’s tooth

CORAL

Coral, which is really the home of the coral polyp, a minute primitive sea creature, can be aptly expressed as the scaffolding upon the surface of which the boneless animals live as a colony. The chemical composition of coral is a calcium carbonate and it has a hardness of about 3.5 on Mohs scale. The coral polyp is very sensitive to changes in temperature, preferring waters between 13 and 16 degrees Centigrade, which are still and clear. The Mediterranean region, Malay Archipelago, Japanese waters and the Gulf of Mexico in America are the most renowned areas. Most of the processing of the extensive Mediterranean Sea region is an Italian industry, fashioning beads, small carved objects and cameos. With continual changes in the level of the water these coral forms or calcified skeletons continue to build up within the cavities of reefs or atolls. As a result, good-sized pieces with relatively large diameters are obtained. Multi-coloured polished specimens from Tampa, Florida, are highly prized.

IVORY

Another historical and valuable item among the organics is ivory. More than 20,000 years ago, in what is now France, a prehistoric artist carved a piece of ivory from the tusk of a woolly mammoth into the stylized figure of a woman. The tombs of the great Pharaohs of Egypt have revealed beautiful objects and the Bible makes frequent references to this material. Ivory found general use in the fashioning of charms, amulets, tools, weapons and decoration for clothing and personal adornments. The Middle Ages saw the prominence of Chinese artisans who at first produced pieces of domestic or utilitarian significance, but later placed importance on ornamental nature. This craft finally reached supreme elaboration in work which showed two or three distinct layers of carvings cut one behind the other in the thickness of the ivory. In more recent times, the Japanese, using legends and stories, have produced in fine sculpture, scenes from folklore, birds, flowers, animals and children, along with mythological creatures of wild imagination. Much of the ivory used in the prehistoric era came from tusks of the extinct mammoth or mastodon, whose bones or tusks are well preserved in the refrigerated climate of Alaska and Siberia. Today, the ivory trade is the commercial, largely illegal, trade in the ivory tusks of the hippopotamus, walrus, narwhal, mammoth, and most commonly, African and Asian elephants. In this writer’s opinion, ivory as a jewellery item or piece of craftwork belongs to a less enlightened age and its use today for any purpose, should be totally banned. What would you rather see, a bit of jewellery carved from an African elephant tusk, knowing that in order to get the tusk the animal was slaughtered, or a live African elephant? A material often labelled as vegetable ivory is provided by the hard seeds or nuts of certain palm trees which can be used for small carvings, rings, beads and pendants. The best known of these ivory substitutes is the Tagua nut of Columbia, resembling a Brazil nut, the size of an egg with the potential for a brilliant off-white polish. Associated with ivory is the craft of scrimshaw, an art form that developed in the golden age of whaling, when sailors, often away from land for months or even years, spent a part of their leisure time scratching pictures on polished whales’ teeth. A smooth, glassy polish is obtained before a very fine steel pen is used to etch outlines which appear when excess black ink is wiped off, leaving the dark lines standing against the polished white ivory.

The tragedy that is the illegal trade in African elephant tusks continues but governments are finally making the game just as deadly for the poachers

JET

Jet, a beautiful lustrous material of a deep rich black, is a type of inferior coal, best known for its association with the seaport of Whitby in England, where a remarkable craft industry has existed since the Roman occupation. Lapidary and jewellery activities reached their peak in the middle of the 19th century and continue to this day. Traditionally, the material was pre-eminent for certain types of jewellery, particularly those for ecclesiastical purposes and mourning rituals. Beads, pendants and charms have been found in early burial mounds in widely scattered parts of the British Isles. It is thought that in Jurassic times, water-worn fragments of a monkey-puzzle tree drifted into the sea and ultimately became water-bogged and sank. In stagnant seas, the wood was preserved in a compressed form and metamorphosed under the influences of heat and pressure, with considerable distortion of the original wood structure. Most of the jet carved into brooches was derived from debris picked up on the beaches or by tunnelling into the sea cliffs. As a gem for jewellery, it is easily worked with simple tools, has a hardness of 2-3 on Mohs scale and its dense structure produces a lustrous mirror-like polish.

AMBER

Amber, a complex mixture of several resins mainly from the Baltic Sea region, is the result of slow fossilization of the sap of a pine-tree species which bled more than 20 million years ago – probably in the Oligocene Period before the great Ice Age. Amber is transparent to translucent, with a greasy lustre and yellow or brown in colour. It is often clouded, sometimes fluorescent, with a hardness of more than two on Mohs scale, and it takes a potentially high polish which makes it suitable for carving, cabochons, pendants and beads. A characteristic of Baltic amber is the frequent inclusion of leaves, pieces of moss, lichens and pine needles, also flies and other insects within the fossilized resin. The kauri gum or copal resin of New Zealand, in jewellery is indistinguishable from amber, but is more recently formed, not having undergone metamorphosis that renders amber the more resistant of the two. A string of amber beads, now hard to obtain unless money is no object, is a prized item of jewellery. From the ancient world of myths and superstition to the high-tech world of contemporary artists, organic gemstones have been, and still are, a source of inspiration in the decorative arts.

Earrings made from Baltic amber

Rubies are really a girl’s best friend

According to folklore, fine rubies serve to preserve and restore the health and spirit of the owner. Some Myanmar people still believe that to benefit from the full power of the gem, it should be worn inside the flesh to integrate with the body. Apparently, to wear a ruby in such a fashion is sufficient to protect the person from attack by spears and swords. Bullets don’t get a mention. So, what exactly is a ruby, where do they get their colour from, and are they more “powerful” than diamonds? Rubies and sapphires are basically the same mineral, corundum, which is a chemical composition of aluminium and oxygen. Pure corundum has no colour, but such gems are very rare. The characteristic colours of red for rubies and blue for sapphires, are caused by impurities of a metallic oxide called chromium. Other common colours for corundum include brown, yellow, green and violet. Probably the rarest gemstone, after clear corundum, is one tinged with orange. In modern times, diamonds are generally believed to be the most esteemed and valuable of all gemstones. This in no small part is due to very intense and clever marketing strategies by corporations such as De Beers, which has a hand in everything from diamond mining and diamond retailing to diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing. There’s a saying that the greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world that he didn’t exist. Well perhaps the greatest trick ever played in the diamond game is convincing people that they are rare.

Just like the Black Prince’s Ruby, the Timur Ruby is actually a spinel. The name of the stone comes from Timur (Tamerlane 1336-1405), the founder and namesake of the Timurid Empire in central Asia. The irregularly-shaped cabochon spinel weighs an impressive 361 carats. The stone is etched with the names of five of the men who owned it: Jahangir (1569-1627), the 4th Mughal Emperor; Shah Jahan (1592-1666), the 5th Mughal Emperor; Farrukhsiyar (1685-1719), the 10th Mughal Emperor; Nader Shah (1688-1747), Shah of Iran; and Ahmad Shah Durrani (1722-1772), King of Afghanistan. Jahangir also had the name of his father, Akbar the Great, engraved on the spinel.

For hundreds of years the famous “Black Prince’s Ruby” set in Britain’s Imperial State Crown, was regarded as the world’s largest ruby at 170 carats, however it is really a spinel. The ‘Timur Ruby’, of 361 carats, is the centrepiece of a necklace that is also in the crown jewels and it too has been classified as a spinel. Spinels are valuable gemstones but carat for carat they are not in the same league as rubies of the same size. They were only recognised as an individual mineral some 180 years ago. Spinels may occur in colours of red, pink, violet, yellow, orange, blue, dark green or black and are mined in some of the same places as rubies. The chemical composition is different from that of rubies, consisting of magnesium and aluminium oxide. The world’s major ruby mines are in Myanmar, (formerly Burma), Sri Lanka, (formerly Ceylon) and Thailand (formerly Siam). Gemstones from the different regions may have a characteristic colour although this is not a very precise way of tracking down the origin. Thai rubies are a violet shade of red, called ‘Thai red’, while gems from Sri Lanka, or Singhalese rubies, are slightly pinker in colour. These are described as “rose red” or “Ceylon red” by knowledgeable traders. The most prolific and valuable ruby deposits are in Myanmar, to the north of Thailand. The finest Myanmar rubies are called “pigeon’s blood” with the red in the middle of the red spectrum. If you see a blackish or bluish tinge to the stone, you could be looking at top quality. Rubies with a pink tinge may look pretty but are considered of lesser quality. The most famous ruby fields in the world are near a town called Mogok, which is situated in a deep valley in northern Myanmar. To get there, first fly to the capital of Yangon (Rangoon). Next, it’s a plane or train journey to the ancient capital of Mandalay. The train trip is an adventure in itself. About 200 kilometres northeast of Mandalay is your final destination, the town of Mogok, which is sometimes accessible by road but otherwise, it’s a helicopter trip.

Nobody knows when the Mogok ruby mines were first discovered, although it is known that the mines date back several hundred years. It seems possible that these mines were worked more than a thousand years ago, since this region of Asia was settled first. Many fine rubies mined in Mogok grace the golden spires of the countless pagodas throughout Myanmar, icons of the Buddhist faith, which attracts some 80 per cent of the Myanmar people. Early rubies were cut as cabochons because of the difficult cutting techniques required to facet such a hard stone.

This 8.62 carat ruby was bought at auction in 2014 by London luxury jeweller, Laurence Graff. He paid US$8.6 million at the time. Regarded by many as the finest ruby in the world and named the Graff Ruby, it comes from Mogok in Myanmar. At the same auction a 27.54-carat Kashmir sapphire sold for a record $US6.78 million

The entire country of Upper Burma was annexed by the British in 1886 and part of the British plan was to prevent the ruby mines from falling under French control. Before long, a company calling itself British Ruby Mines Limited, was floated. This new enterprise leased the mines around Mogok from the British administration for an annual fee plus a share of the profits. Initially, mining was done by primitive native methods consisting of driving narrow shafts down through the soggy earth until the ‘byon’ was reached (‘byon’ is the alluvial gravel where rubies are found). These vertical shafts were between six and ten metres deep. The mining company sought to increase profits for the shareholders by introducing advanced, alluvial mining techniques as mechanical extraction tended to crush the precious crystals. One major problem was that much of the ruby-bearing ore was underneath the town of Mogok. The buildings had to be purchased, demolished and rebuilt away from the ore body. Perhaps the biggest problem faced by the new miners was the very nature of the territory. Although only 200 kilometres from the then capital of Mandalay, the dense jungle was the source of tropical fever and home to dangerous wildlife such as tigers and snakes. The mule track from Mandalay to Mogok valley also had to cross a mountain range more than 1,300 metres high. Heavy pieces of mining equipment could only be hauled during the dry season, and the difficult journey sometimes took weeks.

Despite all these setbacks the stoical British, willingly supported by their Burmese subjects, constructed a power station, drainage tunnels and washing mills for separating the precious stones from the soggy dirt. The company prospered until early last century when the technique for synthesising rubies was discovered. Rubies became hard to sell and the price fell accordingly. Before long, the American ruby market collapsed as a result of the Great Depression. The Burma Ruby Company struggled on for years before finally handing back its mining lease to the British administration in 1931. Native miners continued to mine gems until the Mogok ruby fields turned into a battlefield for the invading Japanese army and the 14th British Army. Since World War II, Burma has been caught up in some bizarre political and social events. Governments come and go. Leaders are drawn from the military regime as was the case last year when the democratically elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, was ousted in a military coup led by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing. However, one thing is certain, while it’s a no-go zone at the moment, Myanmar will one day again entice affluent travellers from around the world. And rubies, the world’s most sought-after gemstones, are still mined at Mogok.

But why are they so expensive, you ask? Ruby-bearing earth is very difficult to detect geologically. They generally occur in areas of contact metamorphism and few deposits have been discovered in the last thousand years or so.