THE ONLINE HISTORY OF GULGONG AND SURROUNDING DISTRICTS: QUARTZ CRUSHING

1872 - Mining. Gold, and How it is Got. No. VIII.

Until very recently quartz mining was carried on in New South 'Wales by individual miners in small parties, without any assistance from capitalists, properly so-called. Our mining regulations prohibited the taking up of ground by any larger number of men than six, so that the formation of a co-operative com pany was prevented. This, however, was allowed —that the party being limited to six, only three of that number need work the reef until a crushing was obtained, when the full number had to be employed. The idea was that whilst the three men worked the reef their three mates might be able to forage out a living for the party by working in the alluvial; but the real sequence was that the party of six was made to consist of three working miners, and three "backers", as they are called. These backers took their share in the claim, paying the working miners half-wages until a crushing was obtained, when they would of course have to put on a wages man.

This mode of working continuing for so long a time had a most disastrous effect upon the colony, and was the main cause of our reefs lying so long undeveloped. The backers, in most instances storekeepers resident on the spot, soon became discouraged, the miners from the want of capital were unable to carry

out the work, reefs were skimmed rather than fairly tested, and owners of crushing batteries, after trying reef after reef, found nothing but less, owing to the precarious supply of stone.

It is now a well ascertained fact that nearly all the clearly defined reefs run in belts of varying richness, and that, at particular depths, heavy belts of stone are met with that will not pay for all the expense which the individual miner has to go to in raising, breaking, carting to the machine, and crushing, however well they may have remunerated a company, with all the best appliances at hand to save expense, and with its own batteries on the spot. As soon then as one of these belts was reached the miner, having no capital at his back, became discouraged, declared the gold had run out, and left the reef as worthless. There are hundreds of such deserted reefs in the colony, which have given handsome returns to those who worked them, but which were left solely from the inability of the miners to bear the cost of piercing through the poorer stone.

The same thing occurred in Victoria in the olden time, though there was not the same difficulty of regulations to cope with there that our miners had to contend with here. Mr. Brough Smyth's remarks upon this subject are so apt, that we may be excused for quoting them. He says:—

"When the attention of the miner was first directed to the auriferous veins, he quarried the stone on the surface, and was well satisfied with the small pieces which he was able to extract by using a hammer. So little was known generally, in the early days of the gold-fields, of the modes of occurrence of gold, that pieces of quartz, containing only small particles of gold, and worth perhaps a few shillings, were readily sold for £10 or £16. They were eagerly purchased and set as rings and pins. When finally the miners saw reefs rich in gold, huge fragments of quartz— moss covered and weather stained — everywhere intersected by veins of iron pyrites and gold, they set to work in earnest; and by such implements as they were possessed of — often only a hammer and a mortar — they were able to earn as
much as £6 and £10 per week.
On some of the older gold-fields one can still see veins but imperfectly opened. The quartz was taken out; a feeble attempt, was made to prevent the sides from falling in by placing timbers across from wall to wall; but, as soon as difficulties occurred, as soon as the water became troublesome, and the labour of hauling up the quartz in small tubs, from a depth of twenty or thirty feet considerable, the work was abandoned; and fresh proofs were given that mining in quartz lodes at any depths exceeding thirty feet
was unprofitable. Thus matters might have remained until the day, and thus might the theories of some geologists have been apparently established, had not enterprising miners, possessed of ability and capital, and not deterred by previous failures, got to work to penetrate the veins by shafts and adits in such a manner as to prove their value.
The quartz quarried on the surface was not, at first, sent to mills to be crashed. Only such pieces as showed gold were broken, and consequently the yield per ton was represented as something extraordinary. And even after the mills were erected, it did not pay the miner to crush any but the richest quartz, because the cost of treating it was very great. Now, quite poor quartz, giving less than half a pennyweight to the ton, is often sent to the mills, together with other richer parcels. In conducting a mine at the present time, the manager is often obliged to crush all the quartz. Whether it be rich or poor he cannot tell until it is crushed, because the gold is often distributed through the vein, in fine particles, quite invisible to the naked eye.
Now that the crushing and treatment of quartz is inexpensive, it is worth while to send much of the included slate and mulloch to the mills. It is cheaper to do this than to pick the quartz; but in consequence of these practices, the apparent average yield of gold from quartz is much raised."

Fig 30

Some idea of the gradual improvement which has been made in the mode of treating quartz may be gathered from the history of Latham and Watson's quartz mine, on Hostler's Reef, Sandhurst. This mine has been constantly worked by these gentlemen from the earliest days of quartz mining up to the present time; and their proceedings have been thus traced by Mr. Brough Smyth: —

"In 1853, the quartz was crushed by a *dolley. (See fig. 30.) But immediately after their first purchase, Messrs. Latham and Watson constructed a stamping machine with a grating, the gold being obtained by cradling. This was the first stamping-machine constructed in the colony, and a model of it was shown at the Bendigo Exhibition in 1864. To this machine horse-power was soon added, and subsequently a steam engine was made to do the work of the horses. The wooden stampers were shod with iron, and were made to fall on a solid iron bed. A stream of water carried the crushed quartz through wire gauze and over quicksilver wells, in formation and distribution of which the owners, guided by experience, effected many improvements.
The wooden stamps were replaced by wrought iron shanks, with square cast iron heads cast on; and these again have been replaced by revolving stamps, with turned loose heads and shoes, each falling on a false or loose bottom in the cast iron stamper bed, and having perforated iron grating for the pulverised quartz to pass through. Copper plates, blankets, and barrels have been added, and numerous contrivances for saving gold have been from time to time tried and cast aside."

In opposition to the ' dolley ' — next to the hammer and mortar, the earliest quartz crusher in the colony

— we this week place before our readers a sketch of the fine crushing machine made for Messrs. Pullen and Rawsthome, of Hill End, by Messrs. P. N. Russell and Co., who kindly favoured us with a photograph of the crushing mill for the purpose of illustration.

Fig 31

Nothing could better tell the tale of improvement which a few years have made than the sight of the rude implement of 1853 placed side by side with the finished piece of machinery of 1871. (Fig. 32, showing sectional view.)