Sydney Morning Herald 11 January 1859

A VISIT TO THE WESTERN GOLDFIELDS.

BY OUR SPECIAL REPORTER

No. 6.

A ROAD leads from Patterson's Point, over the neck of the peninsular, to the Little Wallabys and New Zealand Point; here multitudinous shafts and holes in every direction, stretching from the margin of the stream to the crest of the ridges, and following up every indentation of the land, tell a tale of former riches. John Chinaman musters strong at this spot: he has a large encampment, and, although working with great industry, invariably says he is doing no good, he appears to be pushing about with too much activity to be doing it all for nothing, and I suspect that if he was quite certain that you were not looking for a claim, his answer would be of a different complexion, he works well, feeds well, is choice in his liquors, giving a decided preference to pale brandy and champagne, and it is more than probable that he is paid well. When they can afford it, there are no men on the gold-fields more expensive in their living than the Chinese they will not hesitate to give 15s. for a pair of ducks, or 6s. for a fowl; as for a sucking pig or a goose, the price is just what the conscience of the vendor will permit him to ask. There is no gold digging at this moment that would be so profitable as breeding fowl for the Chinese market on the diggings. There are some pretty canvas houses embosomed in shrubbery and gardens, scattered up and down the river's bank, seven or eight families, and about fifty European miners, with a public-house and a store. The river claims have been very productive, the majority of which are not yet exhausted; as these bed claims are the main reliance of the diggers on this part of the stream, little has been done for the last four or five months; as a body, they are barely making their expenses, and are hanging on for a dry season. At the point where the waters have forced a passage through the ranges, the channel is wide, and the depth of the detritus unusually great, it is now believed to be one of the richest portions of the river, and the greater part has still to be worked; the Crudine increasing the volume of the stream, renders mining operations both difficult and expensive in these bed claims. Following the river for a mile, you pass Mushroom Flat, situated in a recess of the mountains, eighty feet above the stream, much worked, but exhausted and deserted, and furthur on Gwyn's Bar. Here the bed claims have been very rich, and Morgan's party, employing ten or twelve hands, are engaged in sluicing with some success. At a little distance are a party of Chinese, driving one of their singular-looking tread-mill pumps, which occupies four men, while five or six others throw up the washing stuff. They are squalling and screeching merrily, as they think, over the job: no doubt they call it singing, but such discordant noises -- a score of cats on a housetop would have been harmony compared to them. Below the songsters, and beyond the reach of their melodious screechings, a range from the southward turns the river towards the north for three miles, when it strikes a range of steep and abrupt hills running east and west, and, following them for a mile, meets the broken descents from the northern tableland of Tambaroora, when it once more, winding along their base in its deep chasm-like channel, forcing a passage through a series of clay slate ridges, takes a southerly course, and in its route passes very closely to the spot where our celestial friends were doing the melodious. At this point a tunnel through 200 yards of clay slate rock would divert the course of the stream, and dry about six miles of the bed of the river, which would then be workable for that distance. From Gwyn's Bar the south bank of the river is precipitous, presenting to the stream walls of schist rocks, occasionally traversed by heavy reefs of quartz, impregnated with chromate of iron; above these walls slopes of more or less acclivity ascend to the summit of mountains, varying in height from 800 to 1500 feet, the highest crested with masses of naked trap, large boulders of which may be seen lower down their sides, denuded by the action of the mountain streams; hills, of more gentle ascent, are clothed with rich verdure, spread like a carpet from base to summit, while the gum, the wattle, box, and mountain oak, lightly scattered over the whole, create a prospect of hill and dale, park and glen, in nature's own domain that art might imitate in vain. The banks on the north side are less steep and rocky, of a similar formation, but not likely to retain gold in quantity, although there may be surfacing on the slopes. The channel of the river is here wide, and where it has been worked in choice spots has repaid the miner for his labour; passing round the point you find yourself under the shade of oaks and wattles on a lovely green bank, below which the channel of the river is of an unusual width, and for a short space makes a straight course. Here John Chinaman is again encamped, and if you were to form an opinion from the number of vicious canine sentinels on duty, chained round the tents, you would say that they had half the treasures of the Turon under their charge. Giving the canines a wide berth, and regaining the track, you cross a shallow wide gully, and find yourself on the far famed Circus Point, standing close to a little clump of vegetation, in which an old digger has ensconced himself and his caboose; he is surrounded by half a dozen peach trees of his own raising, and now laden with fruit, and a medley of corn, onions, cabbages, potatoes, peas, etc., matted and interlaced with vines and pumpkins, the whole closed in with a wattled fence, devoid of geometrical proportions and looking very like a gigantic basket of green-stuff ready for the market. This is a digger's regulation garden, and in one corner he secretes a horse. It was at this point that the greatest crowd were gathered at the outbursts of the gold excitement, and here the proprietor of a circus pitched his tent, for the first time on the banks of the Turon, hence its name; the rising slope for half-a-mile back from the margin of the stream to a point where it attains an elevation of 200 feet, has been pierced and turned over in every direction, and plundered of its wealth, and now crowd, circus, gold, all are gone, with the exception of half a dozen tents and a few diggers who yet linger on the ground; on the upper part of the hill, three separate trenches, or ancient channels of the river, one rising above the other, have been discovered and worked out; some of the claims on these trenches have produced 20 ounces to the load, and others more; the gold was water-worn, and abraded, and the detritus 10 to 15 feet deep, consisting of the same water-worn boulders and gravel, as noticed elsewhere; the prospector will observe that this ancient bed of the river, rich in gold, has been found on the side of a hill, at a considerable distance and elevation from the present stream. A large party of Chinamen are now engaged in diverting the channel of the river for five hundred yards below the Point, and are doing it well; their race is a fine piece of work, and they have a fair, prospect of being rewarded for their labour -- they have carpenters' and blacksmiths' shops amongst them, and are passable mechanics, -- the blacksmith's bellows is a simple and unique contrivance -- a hollow log, three feet in length, is placed in a horizontal position near the furnace with which it is connected from the side by means of a portion of an old gun barrel, a piece of thin board is now fitted to the bore of the log, to which a rod or piston is attached, the ends of the log are then closed, and a small leather valve is placed in each of the stoppers, through the centre of one of these stoppers a small hole is bored, in which the piston works by hand, when a blast is produced equal to that from the smith's bellows in common use. Following the margin of the precipice overhanging the river, you arrive at a piece of rich surfacing, extending from the edge of the rocks 300 yards up the acclivity of the hill; this surfacing is of the same character as that at Circus Point, and was deposited under the same conditions; it is now exhausted and abandoned; the wash dirt was sent down from a stage by shoots 120 feet, to the stream below. Five or six whites and a few small parties of Chinese are at work on the bar, cradling drift, and realize from £2 to £3 a week. The main channel is said to contain a great quantity of gold here, but the water and. the great depth of the detritus prohibit mining operations to any extent. The auriferous drainage from the hills, and the immense mass of quartziferous schists, removed by the abrasion of consecutive floods, in forming the present deep channel, must have deposited large quantities of gold under the detritus in the river, which the labours of the engineer will one day bring to light. Descending now by a tortuous track amongst the rocks, you follow the margin of the stream. Here the channel is wide, and the bars frequent, with clumps of she oaks, in which drift wood and grass collected far above your head, tell a tale of flood and storm, and account for the fearful chasms and precipices by which you are surrounded. The river here expands like some placid lake in the bosom of the mountains, and there wanders from side to side, rippling along with a dull and monotonous sound over its shingly bed, on your left, walls of clay slate rise towering upwards, and exclude the fierce rays of the noonday sun; on the right steep banks descend to the margin of the waters, richly grassed and thickly timbered. Ever and anon some bold ridge pushes further into the stream than its neighbours, and narrow green flat benches are collected at its base. Here the digger has been at work, and left it an unsightly pile of stones and rubbish. Every portion of the north bank bears evidence of his researches, but he is also gone. The waters arc victorious, and Turon still retains his gold. Clambering along over masses of rock, amidst rank weeds and dense patches of luxuriant thistles, that, as they penetrate your unnameables, remind you of the old Scotch legend, Nemo me, &c. You at last stand at the foot of the Great Wallaby. This is a section of a conical mountain, 500 feet in height, one-half of which has been removed by aqueous action, and it offers a remarkable example of a stratification perpendicular to the horizon in the centre, and slightly inclining inwards at either extremity, the upheaving force must have been great here, and there is no doubt that by following the range of which it forms a portion a trappean outcrop will be discovereel at no great distance, and gold in the mountain streams and gullies descending from it; this section of a mountain presents in itself every variety of schistus, dense masses of clay slate, then a strata of fine blue, in hard thin laminę, alternating with soft green and dirty yellowish white, and broad belts of hard grey flagging ; these strata vary in hardness, and near the top two or three enormous sheets of rock may be seen projecting some 15 or 20 feet over the river, the softer strata on either side having been destroyed. The distribution of the quartz in this section is worth studying; isolated masses may be seen at various elevations, but chiefly near the base; these shapeless patches are impregnated with iron and other metals, in the form of oxides or chromates. In some places the quartz is full of holes and of a rusty colour, in others yellow, and other portions contain large hollows lined with transparent crystals. These patches at their base are broken into small fragments, held in their position by a ferruginous cement, the thin lamimę of schistus following the shape of the mass, and bearing evidence of powerful igneous action. It is possible that much gold is concealed in these masses of quartz buried in the schists. About the centre, at the base, a large mass of quartz occurs, from which a leader ascends the face of the rock to the apex; it has all the appearance of having been in a softened state at the period of upheaval, and of having settled down in the process of hardening or crystallization. As may be supposed, the river at the base of these rocks has been a favorite resort of the miner, from the earliest period gold has been found, both on the opposite bank and in the bed, when workable, and still exists in large quantities. The country, on either bank, presents the most favourable indications, and would well repay the prospector, who appears to have done little in the vicinity. Streams, flats, and gullies, under trappean outcrops, are to be found amongst the ranges, and sure it is that the descents from the table land that fall into the Turon on the south, and the Meroo on the north, will yet swarm with successful miners. And now to the rock. We must linger awhile under the shadow of the big Wallaby. It was here that the first gold washers learned the art that has revolutionised our country -- that removed the brand of felonry from our shores for ever -- that peopled a wilderness -- that added a triple value to the staple products of our land -- that gave us the inestimable blessing of self-government, and made us what we are -- the first colony of the greatest empire in the world. Here stands the rock, an enduring monument of the great event. -- Rush's party on Maitland Bar are amongst the lucky ones; they took £113 worth of gold from their claim on the 29th instant; amongst the gold was a nugget weighing eight ounces. This is the third or fourth time the same party have drawn a prize within the last twelve months. The diggers generally were doing well before the holidays, and are now doing Christmas with all the honours. -- We are to close the old year with a grand ball on the Louisa only guinea tickets -- and to commence the new one with a horse race. The festivities of the season have passed off happily; young and old determined to enjoy themselves, which they did, every man after his own humour, and

"all went merry as the marriage bell."

After the races we will rub the rust off our picks and shovels, and work will be the order of the day.