Got me thinking

[Next1m8]

So I had a bit of brain spaz while explaining the little I knew about how gold gets to where it is, but in my little brain fart moment I realised how it would have been back then, to find true blue Virgin territory, imagine it. Walking to a shallow lead stubbing your toe on a rock then trying to move it only to struggle with the shear weight of it and seeing a mass of gold show through. Then immediately getting excited and run off to sell it at the low price gold was, but that's what has me thinking is there trully a virgin lead anymore because in the course of geographical time I beleive it would have taken 10's of thousands of years for gold to get where it laid until it was dug, so that one guy stubbing his toe would have screamed eureka then sold it, people would ask where he found it and went to that exact location just to find more, that's when the haste to get as much as they could and it would have been everywhere literaly, now days yeah there's float gold and flood gold but not many large nuggets.. I'd just love to go back to those days just to see how the terrain looked then, soo how they did it, if the ground west of Western Australia or South of Victoria ever became dry I'd know how gold happened to be and id find the largest points and work all the gullies and work out where the natural riffles would be, all the run offs of water then Trace it back to the source, some places I've been look like once upon a long time ago it would have been under water and maybe at one stage all of Australia was under water and our highest peaks/mountains would be areas where the sea floor was.. Idk just one of those thoughts I had.

 

[Next1m8]

Gold would have litteraly been laying on the ground, and that's new free gold geographically speaking, and then the gold that was still in the mother load it would have been a harsh and amaIng time, small towns of 200 unaware people becoming a city of thousands in no time, then the agricultural boom to feed all these new mouths. I guess that's how civilisation got started in mass populous regions

 

[DrDuck]

Often thought of this myself. Gold would have accumulated in creeks and gullies over hundreds and thousands or even millions of years. While not all diggers did well, there are some amazing accounts from the early days. Ounces per dish and so on. One report I saw for the first rush at Tuena was of a party recovering 20 ounces of alluvial for the day. That probably would have been with cradle and dish. Staggering by today's standards.

 

[SCROUNGER]

Hey next1, sorry for jacking your thread but I thought you were heading out detecting with another PA member on the weekend. Did you go and how'd you get on?

 

[Next1m8]

I sure did mate, and yeah I kinda wanna keep this thread for early gold rushes and peoples thoughts on what it would have been like. Didn't do too well mate

 

[Next1m8]

Often thought of this myself. Gold would have accumulated in creeks and gullies over hundreds and thousands or even millions of years. While not all diggers did well, there are some amazing accounts from the early days. Ounces per dish and so on. One report I saw for the first rush at Tuena was of a party recovering 20 ounces of alluvial for the day. That probably would have been with cradle and dish. Staggering by today's standards.

It would have been a whole different kettle of fish back then Doc, would have been almost ripping over gold. That's how I think they would have found the mother lodes

 

[jamie]

i watched a doco on early rushes in australia and it spoke about bathurst (think it was) and how they were just picking surface nuggets of nice size when first stumbled across, i really do believe i was born 150 years too late

 

[Wally69]

Let's test the theory

I found this last week, it has free gold coming out of the Quartz but I didn't have the tools to break it off so I only managed to take 43oz of sun baking nuggets off the slope before I ran out of rations and had to return to the pub.

Signed
Lassiter

I recon the pub would empty very quickly

 

[Jaros]

It just doesn't look like central Australia--does it?? :lol: :lol:

 

[SCROUNGER]

Maybe that's why nobody can find it there Jaros? :lol: :lol:

 

[Next1m8]

Often thought of this myself. Gold would have accumulated in creeks and gullies over hundreds and thousands or even millions of years. While not all diggers did well, there are some amazing accounts from the early days. Ounces per dish and so on. One report I saw for the first rush at Tuena was of a party recovering 20 ounces of alluvial for the day. That probably would have been with cradle and dish. Staggering by today's standards.

It would have been a whole different kettle of fish back then Doc, would have been almost tripping* over gold. That's how I think they would have found the mother lodes

Edit*

 

[Next1m8]

Where was that again Wally

 

[Wally69]

Two days ride from here NNW, the features are unmistakable :lol:

and I forgot, the story starts with.......The pub was full to the brim, I had to fight my way to the bar just to get a drink and all the ladies were taken.......

 

[Next1m8]

Ha ha well said mate

 

[dwt]

There is a book called 'Early Days on Bendigo', Rippa read, they speak of filling tins in a matter of minutes with gold, just walking along picking it up, the easy finds like that are what led to the 'Rushes'!!!!!
Why would you stop and dig if you could pick up off the ground what was right in front of you.
Now if I could only remember where they did that and spend a bit of time digging a little deeper!

 

[Tathradj]

Bendigo Creek mate.
As I have said before, My Uncle a few years back picked up a nugget in front of the P.O while they were repairing the foot path.
It also happened about 10 years previous in the same area.
.
I remember as a kid at my Grandmothers house there was a hole dug in the bank opposite the bridge. And it was quite deep.
The council filled it with dirt and concrete.
.
The house was where the Motel is now across from the Fire station. There are two bloody huge mine shafts under it capped and sealed.
.

 

[Hunting the yellow]

hummm that sounds interesting 2 big mine shafts you say capped you say time to get jack and hammer to open them up

 

[noncents]

Let's test the theory

I found this last week, it has free gold coming out of the Quartz but I didn't have the tools to break it off so I only managed to take 43oz of sun baking nuggets off the slope before I ran out of rations and had to return to the pub.

https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/1916/1433910483_image.jpg

Signed
Lassiter

I recon the pub would empty very quickly

I think I have come across that same reef. And I also found a sun baker but it was only 42oz I couldn't carry the 43oz one so I left it there. Thanks Wally69 for getting it for me

I'm pretty sure the old timers would have seen this reef and checked it out. It would have been hard yakka to get there back than, you got to hand it to them trekking around the bush following a dream of striking it rich. Wonder if they found any sun bakers, don't remember if there was any diggings around it. I was there in 2011

 

[Billy]

Two days ride from here NNW, the features are unmistakable :lol:

and I forgot, the story starts with.......The pub was full to the brim, I had to fight my way to the bar just to get a drink and all the ladies were taken.......

Looks good!!

Maybe in the same hunting grounds but who knows where wally is?

No pub unfortunately and the "ladies" were quite a ride away!

Cheers,
Billy.

 

[Wally69]

Sometimes I struggle to find myself Billy :lol: :lol: Maybe upstream of the dam about 20 clicks.

I see you didn't muck around Noncents and started the rush well before I downed my first beer. I wonder how many people have stopped and taken a photo of that one and spent the next hour thinking how tuff the old timers were and what a sight it would be to stumble across one with free gold poking out.

White reefs of Quartz are scattered everywhere in NSW if you take the time to look, unfortunately the ones with the gold are now deep trenches in the earth surrounded by lead shot. I suspect the small ugly looking stringers that are less obvious are the ones we need to run the SDC or GPZ over these days.