tinpan
Silver Member
Hi all. In recent days there been a controled- burn off on a local hill, as part of this summer's fire reduction plan. With the wetest year on record the whole area "is" ,No i mean "was" totally over grown. Yep no hope of swing a dead cat let alone a coil. Quite a dangerous place with many hazards Unseen open shafts, tiger and eastern brown snake, both deadly and common, Hit a piece of Quartz with a digging tool causes sparks, big fire in seconds. Most of the local scrub is thorny and some have razor sharp throngs and barbs. Poke an eye out or 2 LOL. How nice of the local govt to burn it all clean for me. 
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In this location high-banking and puddling clay for gold in the first rush up stream has cause a huge volume of clay to cover and choke the water ways . So the Alluvial stream deposits are covered with 15 feet of this run off.So i have to work the lower sides of the hill for left over Colluvial Deposits. In other words washed gold found on the hill side from a main source . In this case a saddle quartz Reef .The top of the hill is cover by later hard rock mines and the tailings were graded so little gold and far to much junk.
The site was mined numerous times by different type of poeple including Chiness and homeless of the Great depression in the 1930's .
The area on the hill i chose has clear signs for being a early digging and camp by what i can see. This includes an English black glass bottle and visable shards of mid to late 19th century pottery.There a shallow mud-puddler hole near by.
History
The gully was called the HIT and Miss and the Hill above the Poverity. Like most of the gold yeilding gullies in this area only 1 in 5 claims had any reasonable amount of gold. Gold was found in this area in 1852. The large hard rock mines were deep and deepest shaft is about 3500 feet deep.Between 1872-1877 some 1 million ozs was mined. A 5 year boom then bust. Small mines and claims were still worked on and off until 1950.
I have added an early painting of the area , which i have marked to give you an idea of what the site was like in the early years.
My day was cut short but i did managed a few small pieces of gold ,an english 3d [silver] almost looks hammered 1878 ,unused miners pistol ball , a lead penny weight few button and 1862 Vine tree token penny [common find] Now what you all like to see lots of pics.
tinpan
.In this location high-banking and puddling clay for gold in the first rush up stream has cause a huge volume of clay to cover and choke the water ways . So the Alluvial stream deposits are covered with 15 feet of this run off.So i have to work the lower sides of the hill for left over Colluvial Deposits. In other words washed gold found on the hill side from a main source . In this case a saddle quartz Reef .The top of the hill is cover by later hard rock mines and the tailings were graded so little gold and far to much junk.
The site was mined numerous times by different type of poeple including Chiness and homeless of the Great depression in the 1930's .
The area on the hill i chose has clear signs for being a early digging and camp by what i can see. This includes an English black glass bottle and visable shards of mid to late 19th century pottery.There a shallow mud-puddler hole near by.
History
The gully was called the HIT and Miss and the Hill above the Poverity. Like most of the gold yeilding gullies in this area only 1 in 5 claims had any reasonable amount of gold. Gold was found in this area in 1852. The large hard rock mines were deep and deepest shaft is about 3500 feet deep.Between 1872-1877 some 1 million ozs was mined. A 5 year boom then bust. Small mines and claims were still worked on and off until 1950.
I have added an early painting of the area , which i have marked to give you an idea of what the site was like in the early years.
My day was cut short but i did managed a few small pieces of gold ,an english 3d [silver] almost looks hammered 1878 ,unused miners pistol ball , a lead penny weight few button and 1862 Vine tree token penny [common find] Now what you all like to see lots of pics.
tinpan
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I'm going to an old ferry crossing tomorrow ( dates back to about 1870 ish) , I fear it will be a sinker / beer top fest as I will have to use use my PI in the salt, but after recent success downstream I am willing to have a crack.
