SUCCESSFUL GOLD MINING IN AUSTRALIA.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3178, 5 September 1881, Page 4

SUCCESSFUL GOLD MINING IN AUSTRALIA.

In the early days of the Dunolly goldfields, two wo rking miners named Oates and Deeson, after experiencing many vicissitudes of fortune, Found thr-ms.lve. argot of their class, " dead broke." Their credit was exhausted at the neighboring store, and one of them was actually in want of bread. In sheer desperation they began digging for gold in a very unpromising locality. " It Beemed a very hopeless task, but the two * men worked on steadily, standing close to one another. Deeson plied his pick in somo hard bricklike clay, around the roots of an old tree, breaking up fresh earth and tearing away the grass from the surface of the ground.' He aimed a blow at the clear space between two branches of the root, and the pick, instead of sinking into the ground, rebounded, as if ifc had struck upon quartz or j granite. ' Confound it!' he exclaimed, | I've broken my pick. I wish I had broken it, if it had only been over some nugget.' A minute afterwards he called out to Oates, and told him ' to come and see what this was.' It was a mass of gold cropping several inches out of the ground, like a boulder on a hill. As each successive portion of the nugget was disclosed to view the men were lost in amazement at its enormous size. It was over a foot in length, and nearly the same in breadth. The wpiight was so great that it was difficult for the two men to move it. However, by dint of great exertion, they succeeded in carrying it down the hill to Deeson's cottage, where they commenced to inspect their wonderful treasure. It was completely covered with black earth, and so tarnished in color that an inexperienced person mipht have supposed it to be merely a mass of auriferous earth or stone. But its weight at once dispelled all doubt on that point, for it

was more than twice as heavy as a piece of iron of the same size. Great was the rejoicing among Deeson's family. The wife piled up a huge fire, and Deeson placed the nuscet on top, while the rest of the family stood around watching the operation of reducing the mass to the semblance of gold. All through the Friday night Deeson sat tip before the fire, burning the quartz which adhered to the nugget, and picking off all fche dirt; and debris. This was so rich that on being washed in the puddling machine it yielded ten pounds weight of gold. Meanwhile Oates had procured a dray to convey the nugget to town, and on the Saturday morning the two men set off for Dunolly." They earned their treasure to the London Chatered Bank, where ifc was weighed, and found to turn the scale afc 2,268 ounces, or nearly two hundredweight, and the sum of £10,000 was placed to their credit in that institution. Among the pioneers of the once celebrated Woods Point goldfield, situated high up among the mountain ranges, about a hundred miles due east of Melbourne, were two brothers, named Colin and Duncan M'Dougal, who applied themselves, with singularly primitive crushing appliances, to the work of quartz mining. With these they wore enabled to satisfy themselves that 'ome of the rich quartz of the district was capable of yielding as much as 44 ounces to the ton. *' The prospect of receiving £150 for every ton that they crushed filled their minds with ideas of immense wealth to come, and they were determined not to lose ifc for want of energy. One of the M'Dougals was despatched to Melbourne to order the necessary machinery, and to direct the making of it; for this crushing machine was to be unique of its kind. The battery was •o have ei.ht stumpers, and yet. for con-

•.-.<m'*-n''i*' of carry intr. no single piece was to •X" -e*l 200'fo in" weight. All the ironwork ,vas therefore cast in very small portions, and now patterns had to be made for each piece, eanwhile the other three men were workins* hard afc alluvial digging in order to gain enough of money to pay for tho machine as it was being constructed. They also cut a very long mill race along the mountain sides to supply the water wheel ; for the motive power was to be obtained entirely from the mountain streams, and steam engines were out of the question. When the machinery, in pieces, was brought to the town of Jaraieson, about twenty milo3 to the north ot Woods Point, an unexpected difficulty arose. No " packers" would undertake to convey ifc over the ranges. They said ifc would be absurd to exppct that horses, with a load of two hundredweight each, could keep their footing on the sides of these mountains. The four diggers were therefore obliged to procure horses and to convey the machinery themselves. This work alone occupied them over three months • ifc was fully a year, from the commencement, before they had the machine erected; and yefc the whole weight did not exceed three tons. Having thus surmounted every obstacle, they gave to their reef the name of the 'Morning Star.' And very soon it justified the name, for the brilliancy of its results for a year or two quite eclipsed all the other gold mines of the colony. The little clumsy machine, with, wooden shanks to the stampers, with a wooden fly-wheel, and driven by an old fashioned water engine, turned out more gold than the large steamIriven batteries of Ballarafc and Sandhurst. At first the M'Dougals kept these splendid results a great secret. A wild and lawless population had followed their footsteps up the mountains, and in such a place their could be no protection but in secrecy. The partners therefore concealed their good fortune from everyone, and hid all their gold in secluded places among the thick scrub. At night-time they stole out from the settlement, and, taking the gold with them, they made their way by moonlight over the ranges to a little hut, that was erected beyond tho roughest country. Here a horse was kept in readiness to convey one of them with the precious cargo on to Jamieson. dp to the end of 1866, the produce of the claim of M'Dougal and Company amounted to over £164,000; and several adjoining claims had also yielded extraordinary results." —A Glance afc Australia, by H. M. Franklyn.