A VISIT TO THE NORTHERN GOLD FIELDS.
FROM OUR SPECIAL REPORTER.
No. 20.
CONCLUDING our hasty survey of the formation of the country drained by the Uralla, we find ourselves
again in the roadside village to which it has given a name; its five or six cottages nestling in
a mass of vegetation; its solitary store, its mill, and its two quiet inns seem to be sleeping in
the heart of a mighty forest. The stillness is oppressive. The first question that suggests itself
to the wayfarer is, where are the inhabitants and the second is, how do they live? -- as, beyond the
limits of their little enclosures, north, south, east, or west, nothing meets the eye but those
interminable gum trees spreading over the green plains, and climbing up the distant slopes.
The neighbouring gold-field, which, three years since, rivalled Kiandra in its attractions, has
been despoiled of its wealth, and the spoilers have departed as they could find no resting-place.
Thus the golden opportunity has been neglected. Had any desire been manifested to people this
district, and farm portions been offered for sale at the proper moment, while the successful digger
was still on the spot, and had not yet squandered his wealth, how many families that are steeped to
the lips in poverty and wearing out a miserable existence in the wretched hovels of Sydney, a prey
to every vice, would have been now dwelling in peace, surrounded by that rude abundance which depends
solely upon their own industry. How many smiling homesteads would have arisen where the silence of
the wilderness is now only broken by the shrieks of the oppossum or the noisy revels of the laughing
jackass, rejoicing at that folly or selfishness which still leaves him in undisturbed possession
of his wide domains.
I warn the people of this country, as I have done before, that the character of our gold-fields is such
that they will, under an overwhelming, rush, speedily lose their attractions, and only yield a moderate
return for the labour employed upon thom. Every now and then new ground will be discovered along the
slopes of the main range, and it will for a time be the resort of a multitude who will desert it in its
turn for more promising localities.
If there is any real desire to fix a population in the neighbourhood of a gold-field, as soon as it
has been proclaimed, or even, as there is a reasonable suspicion of its existence, irrespective of
local usurpations, the lands in the vicinity suitable for settlement should be surveyed and offered
for sale, contriving to keep as many lots as possible that have passed the hammer always open for
selection. The occupation of a digger is precarious; he who has toiled for months in neglect and
poverty by a sudden turn of fortune may become possessed of some wealth, seldom exceeding a few
hundred pounds sterling. His thoughts are of his family and his first impulse is to acquire a fixed
home. If he can do so without delay it is possible that he may resist the temptations by which he
is surrounded; but if he cannot — if his desire to gather his family beneath a rooftree of his own,
and to become truly a colonist of New South Wales, is only met by official insolence and
procrastination — the probability is that before long he will be again penniless; he has lost his
chance, and Fortune may never again favour him. Few know the temptations that beset a fortunate digger,
or the harpies which follow in his wake; nothing will check their rapacity. The instances of the
most cruel and heartless acts that have come to my knowledge are innumerable. Let one suffice.
A Cornishman, unfortunately addicted to intemperance, had been about three years on our gold-fields,
during which he experienced the usual chequered fortune of a digger, when he received a letter informing
him that his wife and four children, whom he had left in England, were then in the work-house of his
native parish. Struck with remorse, he vowed never to enter a public-house or taste spirits
until he was able to send for them; his abstinence was remarked by his mates and companions, but when
he avowed its object even the most reckless amongst them ceased their importunities, and scrupulously
avoided placing him in a position that would endanger his resolution. When it came to his turn to
in his stead that he might not fall in the way of temptation. For months he toiled like a very slave;
fortune seemed to desert him, but at last shilling by shilling he became master of the required sum,
and he resolved, being an illiterate man, to call upon the Commissioner and request his assistance in
effecting his object; on his way it was necessary to pass a public house, which he used in former times
to frequent, and was observed by the landlady — a fiend in petticoats she ran to the door and invited
him in; he pleaded his vow and the Object of his journey, which she knew before, as he had been
too good a customer not to be missed from her bar on Saturday nights, and she has been somewhat particular
in her enquiries respecting him. Her reply, was, "Never mind Jack; come in and take a glass of port
wine. You know that is not spirits, and it will help you up the hill. Was he going to insult her
by passing her door, she who had always thought so much of him?" The tempter prevailed. A second
glass followed the first, and he was hocussed. When he came to his senses he was penniless, and
informed that he was some three or four pounds in debt. From that hour he has been a confirmed
drunkard, and his family are still in the work-house for all he knows to the contrary. The last
time I saw him he was crawling about amongst a parcel of Chinese trying to raise the price of a
nobbler by the sale of a tin dish; and the woman? Yes, I recollect that the last time I had the
honour of a nod from her she was sitting in an English gig, behind a splendid horse with
silver-mounted harness, driving into one of our large inland towns, and might have been
mistaken for a lady by those who had not the pleasure of her acquaintance.
In the meantime we have again sauntered from the village, and find ourselves on a track which,
following the banks of the river, winds round the extremity of Mount Mutton, where you reach
Champion's Flat, where a small creek, formerly described, struggles amidst granite boulders
to unite itself with the same stream. As you proceed, the Uralla diggings, with their low
ranges stretching from table lands, and their varied undulations and open valleys, unfold
themselves to view MacTaggart rush, then the broad hollow at the base of Mount Jones and
Mount Shicer. At its head is the locality of Sawpit Gulley, while at the other extremity
intermediate hills, which have been denuded of their trappean summits, appear like the
heaving swell, of the ocean culminating at Mount Welsh, which lifts its dark basaltic crest,
dotted with piles of snow-white drift, high above the surrounding ridges. Huts are clustered
on the slopes and in the vicinity of permanent pools, and here and there enclosures may be
observed, with maize and other greenery waving within their rude and shapeless fences. A few goats
now and then catch the eye, clambering amongst the boulders, and an occasional old sow, with her
numerous family fossicking round the huts, may divert your attention for a moment from the
unlimited number of half-starved mangy, yelping curs that everywhere herald your approach.
Hens, ducks, and geese are no rare sight; and as it is drawing towards sunset neat and blooming
girls, with the roses of old England in their cheeks, are tripping homeward over the velvet sward
from a neighbouring store, where they had been to provide some luxury, lacking for the evening meal.
A country lass never appears to so much advantage as when, to use the language of the Macgregor,
her foot is upon the native heath. And there is an elderly dame peeping over a high close fence,
it is easy to tell by the smile that lights up her weather-beaten features that she claims a
mother's part in one of the fair girls that first attracted our attention. And now men and
boys are to be seen rising over the ridges slowly making their way along the paths that lead
to their respective homes, and healthy little urchins toddle out to meet daddy, and the yelping
curs cease to bark at th stranger and run frisking along the track on the same errand.
These things seem simple enough, but they serve to indicate a gold-field that has survived
the hey-day of its youth and extravagance, and a population that is in some degree settled
and wedded to the locality.
At Champion's Flat the monotonous din of the cradle rises above the noisy jabber of a crowd of
Chinese who are here encamped, and may be seen like a stream of pismires trotting to and from
the waterholes laden with buckets of fine drift. This ceaseless industry meets with but a poor
return, as the ground has been worked and reworked, both by Europeans and their own countrymen.
However, to a certain extent, it seems to be inexhaustible, as they all contrive to earn the
wherewithal to purchase their meagre rations. The lower slopes have also been pierced in every
direction, but the result has not been profitable, although gold is everywhere present.
Pushing onward, we pass two public-houses rather seedy in their aspect, and a fine store that
has outlived the decayed fortunes of this particular npot, and reach the margin of the broad
shallow gully at the foot of Mount Jones. Here a number of huts, somewhat the worse for time
and weather, with their little enclosures, are grouped round two or three large barn-looking
erections that are now tenantless and fast hastening to decay these latter were licensed houses.
On enquiring from an old digger what was going on in that part of the hill, his reply was,
"Look at those houses, and let them answer you." The detritus in the watercourse here, from thirty
to forty feet deep, has been prospected in several places, but never yielded gold in payable quantities;
in fact, I doubt whether the bottom has been ever reached. This is the more singular, as surfacing
has been followed from the margin of the channel up the gentle acclivity of the hill, increasing
in richness with the ascent, until it was traced into the drift under the trappean summit.
Here, after the original claim—holders had abandoned their shafts on the crown, seven companies
commenced tunnelling operations, in the hope that the headings would prove remunerative. All
these works are now in ruins, and abandoned, with the exception of two. One, the property of
Moore and Company, which has been driven about 300 feet into the hill.
The other, and most important, that of the Hamburg Company. None of these operations have paid their
expenses, chiefly on account of the insufficient supply as water, as the stuff does not contain
gold enough to admit of cartage for any long distance, the yield ranging from 7s. 6d. to 10s. per load.
Notwithstanding that this was the richest part of the hill, and that the drift resting upon the bed
rock from two to four inches in thickness, produced twenty, thirty, and even forty ounces to the load,
it has been, so thoroughly exhausted by the original claim-holders that nothing but the headings
remain, varying from two to ten feet in depth.
It is probable that one of the permanent streams rising in the neighbourhood of Ben Lomond could be
brought to the summit of this range, at an expense not exceeding £100 per mile. There can be no doubt
of the value of the drift or of its inexhaustible supply, which has been fully proved by previous
operations.
Such an undertaking, to yield a profitable result, must be carried put by a company, under an economical
and improved system, -- when labour becomes, more under the control of capital. English coal, obtained
with much greater difficulty, and brought to grass from a depth of many hundred feet, is found to be
remunerative at from 5s. 6d. to 7s. Od. per ton at the pit's mouth.
The Hamburgh Tunnel is, perhaps, the most extensive operation that has been undertaken on any gold-field
in New South Wales. The entrance is on the southern slope, and its extent is about 1100 feet in a
direct line, passing under a portion of Sydney Flat. The first 80 feet is through the soft granite
wall that forms the rim of the basin, and at 300 feet a gradual decline commences, which is continued
as far as the workings have yet reached. Here and there enormous coroded masses of granite of a
coarser crystalisation rest upon the fine-grained hornblendic granite which constitutes the bed rock,
and felspathic accumulations and fragments of decomposed slate, with water-worn quartz pebbles,
are mingled with the lower strata. In many places the drift sand appears to be stratified,
and seems to have been derived from pure white quartz, here and there coloured and streaked
by the metallic oxides that have filtered through them. Resting upon these quartzose deposits
are strata of pipeclay of the finest quality, still, retaining traces of an undisturbed stratification,
either pure white or streaked with a variety of colours. A stratum of a black substance, soft and
unctuous to the touch, about nine inches thick, passes through the pipe-clay, evidently a talcose
and felspathic compound. In situ it resembles cannel coal, but when, exposed to the atmosphere
for a time it looses its intensely black colour, and something of its unctuous character,
becoming schistose and splitting into layers.
Porcelain clay of the best quality (the kaolin of the Chinese) also abounds here, and may perhaps form
the basis of a new branch of industry, when we have conquered the difficulties now attending internal
communication.
Through the kindness of one of the contractors working in the tunnel, I was enabled to examine it
for a distance of 960 feet, the whole of which is carefully timbered. A horse tramway extends to
the furthest point where operations are being carried on, by means of which the drift is transported
to the mouth of the tunnel, where it is piled up to await the advent of rain, when water sufficient
for a few hours washing is all that the miners are at present able to secure.
The old shafts and drives have rendered operations here both difficult and dangerous; in fact,
I noticed that many of the cross-beams and uprights had given way under the tremendous pressure
where excavations passed through unsound ground, or old works had been loosely filled in.
About SOO feet from the entrance a remarkable fungus makes its appearance in large masses, hanging
in festoons from the timbers, and resembling flakes of white cotton; it melts into a thick viscous
fluid immediately on being touched.
If the Hamburgh Company had commenced their operations upon virgin ground, the yield would have
been enormous. As it is, I regret to say that their enterprise has hitherto been attended with
no profitable results, chiefly in consequence of ah insufficient supply of water. These works,
entering the hill about seventy feet below the surface of the trap, which is here in large nodular
masses, are about 180 feet below the grass, at their furthest extremity, beneath Sydney Flat.
We have little more to say of Mount Jones. The flat summit seems to have been non-auriferous, and
it is probable that here the granites rise through the drifts, and are in immediate contact with
the traps. The line of operations follow» the margin of the southern slope, and the most productive
ground was within the granite wall that ran along the face of the hill beneath the trappean crust.
At the south-western extremity a break in this wall had been effected in the process of degradation.
When the gold deposited in the ancient channel was scattered over the slopes beneath, which
have yielded some rich surfacing and profitable alluvial sinking, the proximity of the shafts
to each other, forming a perfect honey-comb, attest both the wealth of the ground and the
enormous waste of labour under our present system of small claims. Where two or three shafts
would have been all that were necessary to work the ground there are fifty. If this system
was resorted to in order to make the expenditure of the mining population equal the return
for their labour, under the most favourable circumstances, it has been most admirably devised.
It is nearly as clever as a prohibitory tax on ploughs would be to promote the sale of hoes and
subject for the end of a letter. I will conclude by describing one of these shafts, with the cost
of sinking, which will be describing all. From the grass to the bed rock, 108 feet, of which
70 feet is through basaltic trap or iron-stone, which, at 70s. per foot, is £245; 38 feet through
pipe clays, shales, porcelain clay, and drift, with timbering, £38: total, £283 -- say £300.
So that every unnecessary shaft sunk to a similar depth is a waste of labour to the value of £300.
So much of present for the system of small claims.