Those early battlers

Prospecting Australia

Help Support Prospecting Australia:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Oct 26, 2013
Messages
37
Reaction score
84
Seeing those clean cut grave like shafts in that amazing post by Tathradj (posted a couple of years ago but still a great read today)reminded me of the hand dug shafts at Lightning Ridge. Those early miners dug through sandstone to a depth of about 25 feet till they hist the opal dirt. If they saw no colour they came up and dug another shaft a few feet away and down they went again. On my claim there were four shafts straight and true next to each other. I scratched my head until it was pointed out that during the Depression the miners were paid by the Government so much a foot for dropping a shaft so by digging multiple shafts they kept food on the table. If they came across colour they got stuck into driving, often linking up the other shafts. My camp was built around one of these shafts - in fact it ended up in the dining room! Crazy? No way! I set up a 72cm fan at the bottom of the shaft and the cool air (19.5 degrees constant) would drop the temperature in the house from over 40 to about 23 in 15 minutes. I was one of the few camps in the area that was air conditioned. And free, because we were on solar.
By the way, those early battlers didn't use ladders: they dug foot holds in the walls of the shaft so as they could come and go easily.
Sorry about mentioning opal on a gold site but I greatly admire courage and tenacity of those early miners.

Harlequin
 
Do you have any photos of your underground house you can share Harlequin? Great read, thanks :)
 
Harlequin said:
Seeing those clean cut grave like shafts in that amazing post by Tathradj (posted a couple of years ago but still a great read today)reminded me of the hand dug shafts at Lightning Ridge. Those early miners dug through sandstone to a depth of about 25 feet till they hist the opal dirt. If they saw no colour they came up and dug another shaft a few feet away and down they went again. On my claim there were four shafts straight and true next to each other. I scratched my head until it was pointed out that during the Depression the miners were paid by the Government so much a foot for dropping a shaft so by digging multiple shafts they kept food on the table. If they came across colour they got stuck into driving, often linking up the other shafts. My camp was built around one of these shafts - in fact it ended up in the dining room! Crazy? No way! I set up a 72cm fan at the bottom of the shaft and the cool air (19.5 degrees constant) would drop the temperature in the house from over 40 to about 23 in 15 minutes. I was one of the few camps in the area that was air conditioned. And free, because we were on solar.
By the way, those early battlers didn't use ladders: they dug foot holds in the walls of the shaft so as they could come and go easily.
Sorry about mentioning opal on a gold site but I greatly admire courage and tenacity of those early miners.

Harlequin

but what everyone forgets is that they did have explosives back then but they wore mainly black powder pre 1850s and nitro gelly after 1860s and drilled with hammer an tap method by hand ;)
 

Latest posts

Top