What To Look For On The Goldfields (New To Prospecting)

[G0lddigg@]

I dont doubt what you are saying mate its just what I was told. I agree they are always around diggings

 

[loamer]

The Myth That All Round Holes Were Dug By Chinese By Stephen Barnham

Introduction:
A new folklore is gaining factual status throughout the Victorian population in the 20th and 21st centuries concerning shallow alluvial gold diggings. It is a very popular belief that simply says: it is a round hole and therefore dug by Chinese. This is not universally true. The fact is early diggers did not have the experience to decide how a hole should be dug other than the obvious of going down. The width of the hole was often determined by the depth required, the number and the energy of the diggers involved.

The reality out in the goldfields:
European shafts during the gold rushes tended to be round or at least not square or rectangular. We will get to squared off holes in due course.
Should anyone want to argue this on the basis of commonly accepted fact, all they need do is get out into the goldfields and study the numerous holes in numerous locations. Alluvial holes in shallow as well as being in stable ground are round or roundish. There are many thousands of them. If the round hole equals dug by a Chinese digger always holds true then Europeans on the goldfields were a small minority. Those people who do not have the time or means to check for themselves can study early goldfields photographs or the pictures made by S. T. Gill. Guess what, most holes are round holes and rarely is a Chinese person in sight.
Still not happy? Would you argue that the majority of holes have collapsed and the squared shape is now deformed to appear round? A fair argument. If the thrown out earth were on either side likeyou would expect with a grave then that is a fair call. That does not work too well with a windlass when the dumped earth, by the nature of the windlass, can only be dumped on one side or the other meaning the two opposing heaps could be at a round hole.
Exploring those thousands of holes will show the dumps around each shaft are exactly that, around each shaft. This circumstance becomes quite evident to any observant prospector who has worked around shallow diggings.
Examination will frequently show that the hole centre and the spoil heap crest has a fairly even radius. If it really comes down to proving a point, then randomly dig out some shafts in shallow ground (three or four metres at the most) and you will find that as you remove the accumulated soil you will be standing in a cylinder. Depending on the depth, if the shaft showed prospects, you will find the bottom has been opened out in a bell shape to get at the greatest wash area or it has been driven along the run of gold.

Some speculations:
This paragraph is purely some opinions and to promote some thought and research. Round holes dug by Europeans were probably dug because of preceding experience. The round shape of shafts or holes might come from people doing what they know; so what would that be? A typical hole of this type was commonly dug for use as a well. People tend to work as they know and only modify their approach as needed. People tended to dig round or roundish holes. If you have ever sunk a shaft you will know by experience that having flat squared off sides is not as easy at it seems.

The problem of deeper and unstable ground:
As the shallow ground of Ballarats Golden Point and Gravel Pits was followed deeper into wet and unstable ground, problems arose that needed solutions. One problem was how to shore up the typical diggers hole, which is round, in unstable ground.
On the surface these shafts usually snake across the country following the deepest ground which marks where an old stream once ran. That stream has collected and concentrated the gold along its course, usually on or very near the bottom. Overall this is called a lead with the deeper channel called the gutter. The bottomed shaft would have the lower most layer checked for gold; if any good, tunnels would be driven to follow the gold that was revealed. This process works safely only if the ground is solid; if the ground was loose or wet, chances are you would end up dead under a collapse of earth.
In the deeper ground and wetter conditions, in the early experience of Ballarat, round unsupported holes proved dangerous. Professor Weston Bate, in his book Lucky City, tells briefly how the innovative digger John Wood-Beilby went to the trouble of squaring off his workings so that saplings cut to length could be used to line and brace the sides against collapse. This might not be the first time it was done but it's certainly an early account of tackling the problem. Various and quite sophisticated methods were developed to defeat the inflows and support the shaft walls. Beyond this engineering and safety necessity, shallow holes tended to remain round and that is the vast bulk of them.

The Chinese are said to have dug round holes for the superstitious reasons of avoiding corners. There might be some truth in this, but they are also a very practical people with centuries of experience behind them. The Chinese were technically innovative with windlasses and pumps and for the most part worked together in well organised work groups using systematic mining rather than hit or miss guess work. Fortunately the Chinese are increasingly given the public credit they deserve for their organisation, ingenuity and cultural contributions via displays at Bendigo, Ararat and a museum in Melbourne. An area of research that could be done would be to look into the extent that Chinese market gardens staved off dietary related diseases in the European diggers. The Chinese successfully set up market gardens in many environments that we would regard as hostile for farming and they did this without any experience in a country where the seasons are back the front and many trees drop their bark instead of their leaves.

 

[dwt]

The Myth That All Round Holes Were Dug By Chinese By Stephen Barnham

Introduction:
A new folklore is gaining factual status throughout the Victorian population in the 20th and 21st centuries concerning shallow alluvial gold diggings. It is a very popular belief that simply says: it is a round hole and therefore dug by Chinese. This is not universally true. The fact is early diggers did not have the experience to decide how a hole should be dug other than the obvious of going down. The width of the hole was often determined by the depth required, the number and the energy of the diggers involved.

The reality out in the goldfields:
European shafts during the gold rushes tended to be round or at least not square or rectangular. We will get to squared off holes in due course.
Should anyone want to argue this on the basis of commonly accepted fact, all they need do is get out into the goldfields and study the numerous holes in numerous locations. Alluvial holes in shallow as well as being in stable ground are round or roundish. There are many thousands of them. If the round hole equals dug by a Chinese digger always holds true then Europeans on the goldfields were a small minority. Those people who do not have the time or means to check for themselves can study early goldfields photographs or the pictures made by S. T. Gill. Guess what, most holes are round holes and rarely is a Chinese person in sight.
Still not happy? Would you argue that the majority of holes have collapsed and the squared shape is now deformed to appear round? A fair argument. If the thrown out earth were on either side likeyou would expect with a grave then that is a fair call. That does not work too well with a windlass when the dumped earth, by the nature of the windlass, can only be dumped on one side or the other meaning the two opposing heaps could be at a round hole.
Exploring those thousands of holes will show the dumps around each shaft are exactly that, around each shaft. This circumstance becomes quite evident to any observant prospector who has worked around shallow diggings.
Examination will frequently show that the hole centre and the spoil heap crest has a fairly even radius. If it really comes down to proving a point, then randomly dig out some shafts in shallow ground (three or four metres at the most) and you will find that as you remove the accumulated soil you will be standing in a cylinder. Depending on the depth, if the shaft showed prospects, you will find the bottom has been opened out in a bell shape to get at the greatest wash area or it has been driven along the run of gold.

Some speculations:
This paragraph is purely some opinions and to promote some thought and research. Round holes dug by Europeans were probably dug because of preceding experience. The round shape of shafts or holes might come from people doing what they know; so what would that be? A typical hole of this type was commonly dug for use as a well. People tend to work as they know and only modify their approach as needed. People tended to dig round or roundish holes. If you have ever sunk a shaft you will know by experience that having flat squared off sides is not as easy at it seems.

The problem of deeper and unstable ground:
As the shallow ground of Ballarats Golden Point and Gravel Pits was followed deeper into wet and unstable ground, problems arose that needed solutions. One problem was how to shore up the typical diggers hole, which is round, in unstable ground.
On the surface these shafts usually snake across the country following the deepest ground which marks where an old stream once ran. That stream has collected and concentrated the gold along its course, usually on or very near the bottom. Overall this is called a lead with the deeper channel called the gutter. The bottomed shaft would have the lower most layer checked for gold; if any good, tunnels would be driven to follow the gold that was revealed. This process works safely only if the ground is solid; if the ground was loose or wet, chances are you would end up dead under a collapse of earth.
In the deeper ground and wetter conditions, in the early experience of Ballarat, round unsupported holes proved dangerous. Professor Weston Bate, in his book Lucky City, tells briefly how the innovative digger John Wood-Beilby went to the trouble of squaring off his workings so that saplings cut to length could be used to line and brace the sides against collapse. This might not be the first time it was done but it's certainly an early account of tackling the problem. Various and quite sophisticated methods were developed to defeat the inflows and support the shaft walls. Beyond this engineering and safety necessity, shallow holes tended to remain round and that is the vast bulk of them.

The Chinese are said to have dug round holes for the superstitious reasons of avoiding corners. There might be some truth in this, but they are also a very practical people with centuries of experience behind them. The Chinese were technically innovative with windlasses and pumps and for the most part worked together in well organised work groups using systematic mining rather than hit or miss guess work. Fortunately the Chinese are increasingly given the public credit they deserve for their organisation, ingenuity and cultural contributions via displays at Bendigo, Ararat and a museum in Melbourne. An area of research that could be done would be to look into the extent that Chinese market gardens staved off dietary related diseases in the European diggers. The Chinese successfully set up market gardens in many environments that we would regard as hostile for farming and they did this without any experience in a country where the seasons are back the front and many trees drop their bark instead of their leaves.

....i think Mr Stephen Barnham has left me more confused than i was before, iam left wondering who dug these holes from viewing the pic of the shaft it can be seen that there is very little top soil in comparrison to a shallow workings hole as stated in S Barnham's first lines of the above script, i am not disagreeing with his statement but i have seen both round shafts and rectangular,upon researching those areas more often than not the round holes had mostly chineese workers and the rectangular was more common around where the europeans were.........but at the same time they did work within close vicinity of each other,eg The Lyal District.

 

[Diggerdom]

My memory of puddlers is a little vague now days but if memory serves me I am pretty sure cyanide was used in the process to break up the clay. If this was the case then it stands to reason that cyanide may still be present at some level in close proximity to the old puddlers. If there is an imminent threat to a prospectors health and well being then I would also say stay well clear of working the ground around and down hill from any puddler. I also believe in protecting the heritage of these areas and dont want to give anyone a reason to exclude us from these areas, because of the act of digging around them. If someone could elaborate on the facts of the operation of puddlers I would like to hear from you. Thanks

I can clarify a couple of things about the use of cyanide for you. It was usually used in specially constructed concrete vats, mainly for treating crushed quartz from reef mining. I have not heard of it being used in puddlers, which are used for liberating alluvial gold from clay. Cyanide in aqueous solution (I.e. dissolved in water) is unstable unless the solution is alkaline and decomposes quite rapidly into hydrogen cyanide (cyanide gas) in neutral or acidic solutions. In modern applications of cyanide in gold mining, lime or sodium hydroxide are added to the slurry to maintain an alkaline environment and slow the degradation of the cyanide. It is therefore unlikely that you will be exposed to cyanide poisoning from old plants as it has most likely broken down.

Having said that, your are correct to use caution as there are definitely some hazards associated with poking around old tailings dams. As well as the likelyhood of mercury being present, various minerals were present in gold reefs, including arsenic and antimony. For example, Eaglehawk in Bendigo has a lot of arsenopyrite in the quartz along with the gold. The arsenopyrite interferes with cyanidation, so the quartz was roasted first to reduce the pyrite. When the roasted quartz was then cyanided, the iron from the reduced pyrite reacted with the cyanide, creating ferro-cyanate, which is quite distinctly purple. If you drive around Eaglehawk you can still see piles of purple sand - this is the tailings and they are quite high in arsenic.

 

[dwt]

My memory of puddlers is a little vague now days but if memory serves me I am pretty sure cyanide was used in the process to break up the clay. If this was the case then it stands to reason that cyanide may still be present at some level in close proximity to the old puddlers. If there is an imminent threat to a prospectors health and well being then I would also say stay well clear of working the ground around and down hill from any puddler. I also believe in protecting the heritage of these areas and dont want to give anyone a reason to exclude us from these areas, because of the act of digging around them. If someone could elaborate on the facts of the operation of puddlers I would like to hear from you. Thanks

I can clarify a couple of things about the use of cyanide for you. It was usually used in specially constructed concrete vats, mainly for treating crushed quartz from reef mining. I have not heard of it being used in puddlers, which are used for liberating alluvial gold from clay. Cyanide in aqueous solution (I.e. dissolved in water) is unstable unless the solution is alkaline and decomposes quite rapidly into hydrogen cyanide (cyanide gas) in neutral or acidic solutions. In modern applications of cyanide in gold mining, lime or sodium hydroxide are added to the slurry to maintain an alkaline environment and slow the degradation of the cyanide. It is therefore unlikely that you will be exposed to cyanide poisoning from old plants as it has most likely broken down.

Having said that, your are correct to use caution as there are definitely some hazards associated with poking around old tailings dams. As well as the likelyhood of mercury being present, various minerals were present in gold reefs, including arsenic and antimony. For example, Eaglehawk in Bendigo has a lot of arsenopyrite in the quartz along with the gold. The arsenopyrite interferes with cyanidation, so the quartz was roasted first to reduce the pyrite. When the roasted quartz was then cyanided, the iron from the reduced pyrite reacted with the cyanide, creating ferro-cyanate, which is quite distinctly purple. If you drive around Eaglehawk you can still see piles of purple sand - this is the tailings and they are quite high in arsenic.

Very educational Diggerdom thanks mate,never stop learning on this forum.. 8)

 

[Goldtarget]

those trees are bloody everywhere around ballarat creswick. I was told they were origibalky some tyoe of medicine that tye chinese used

weird how they are normally around old workings,and that shaft in the pic sceams Europeans, the Chinese dug round holes so evil spirits didnt hide in the corners of a square shaft!!!!!! correct me if im wrong 8)

Native cherry or ballart cherry. Early diggers on the goldfeilds would chew the red berries. They are native to Australia and mostly will only be in bushland as the foliage is toxic to live stock, so mostly eradicated from grazing areas. The fact it grows in high mineralisation and shallow ground is why it thrives in gold bearing areas but occurs in at least three states. Alot of older prospectors called them money tees as the theory that is general accepted is gold can be found in good quantities nearby. This claim is prob for the most part unsubstantiated, however more often than not larger and older trees will be found near worked alluvial deposits and fields. This species is quite difficult to grow outside of is natural conditions despite its reputation for use in furniture and wooden items due to its varying colour of the timber it produces. Personally i tend to agree with the Olds timers, which when you think about it makes sense, as it is shallow rooted it needs a reasonable amount of water to grow and is often found in natural watercourses and depressions where we as prospectors like to find shallow gold. I would call it an excellent indicator of the soil type and topography when searching for gold. Hope this helps.

 

[dwt]

those trees are bloody everywhere around ballarat creswick. I was told they were origibalky some tyoe of medicine that tye chinese used

weird how they are normally around old workings,and that shaft in the pic sceams Europeans, the Chinese dug round holes so evil spirits didnt hide in the corners of a square shaft!!!!!! correct me if im wrong 8)

Native cherry or ballart cherry. Early diggers on the goldfeilds would chew the red berries. They are native to Australia and mostly will only be in bushland as the foliage is toxic to live stock, so mostly eradicated from grazing areas. The fact it grows in high mineralisation and shallow ground is why it thrives in gold bearing areas but occurs in at least three states. Alot of older prospectors called them money tees as the theory that is general accepted is gold can be found in good quantities nearby. This claim is prob for the most part unsubstantiated, however more often than not larger and older trees will be found near worked alluvial deposits and fields. This species is quite difficult to grow outside of is natural conditions despite its reputation for use in furniture and wooden items due to its varying colour of the timber it produces. Personally i tend to agree with the Olds timers, which when you think about it makes sense, as it is shallow rooted it needs a reasonable amount of water to grow and is often found in natural watercourses and depressions where we as prospectors like to find shallow gold. I would call it an excellent indicator of the soil type and topography when searching for gold. Hope this helps.

thanks Goldtarget good to know

 

[crazyk]

Wow just fell upon this thread. You are truly a wealth of knowledge loamer and the rest of you guys as we'll.

I'm super happy to see those pics of the quartz and other images because although I've not been typically going out with a detector looking for gold I've often walked over ground exactly like that not knowing why it is the way it is.

Keep them coming...very interesting thread

 

[Westaus]

Here is another thought if you had a square hole 1mx1m and another that is a 1m round hole, you would actually have to move less dirt for the round hole. So in a way a round hole would require less digging overall. Not knowing anything about wall strength and supports etc... But on the surface you could dig deeper and quicker with a round hole than a square one just from the size, just an uneducated idea ?

 

[Hotrocks]

What a great thread this is! I v'e been detecting since 1985 ( not always successfully) and I picked up a few tips from this. I would like to contribute a lazy mans pointer to finding gold.....Where she was is where is. Great posts guys, well done.

Hotrocks ( 81 this year and still swinging, sadly only with a detector)

 

[dwt]

What a great thread this is! I v'e been detecting since 1985 ( not always successfully) and I picked up a few tips from this. I would like to contribute a lazy mans pointer to finding gold.....Where she was is where is. Great posts guys, well done.

Hotrocks ( 81 this year and still swinging, sadly only with a detector)

HaHahaaa :lol:, YEAH BABY, hang in there buddy YOU never know what you could stumble accross in the bush .............. luck in the swing ole mate...(pun intended)

rock on Hotrocks!!

 

[jethro]

In regard to Wild Cherry Trees as an indicator for gold. I was told by a very successful operator that the wild cherry grows on gravelly soils rather than the heavier clay areas & therefore are a good indictor for shallow wash. I have managed to jag a couple of pieces from around a big stand of these trees. However I dont give to much regard for the odd wild cherry scattered through the bush, I tend to look for larger concentrations of these trees. They are also a fairly short lived tree as you tend to find nearly as many dead ones as live ones.
In regard to the chinese digging round holes. I have a little spot on a point on one of the creeks up here in the North east of Victoria that has definite evidence of being worked by chinese as we found quite a few artifacts after the big fires in 03. There appears to be 2 distinct phases of mining. The first involved sinking shafts from 5 to 15 feet deep to the wash level and then driving low roofed tunnels from the bottom of these shafts to extract the richer (by comparison) wash found in the crevises in the bedrock & under & behind the numerous boulders found lying on the bedrock. I am at a lose to explain how they would have sunk these shafts with conventional tools as the dimensions are about 3 feet long by about 2 wide & I cannot see how they had room to work unless they were no more than 4ft 10inches tall.
The second phase of mining involved ground sluicing with water obtained from a race further up the hill. They cut little ditches everywhere and just shovelled the barren overburden into them and ran it away to the creek. When they had got down about 4 feet to the poorer paywash they set boxes in the tail races to catch the gold and continued to shovel & work the wash into the boxes.
They must have been scared of the mouse spiders that inhabit that point too as at least one hut had a moat cut around it. I can think of no other reason to go to the trouble of putting a 2ft wide ditch right around you house. I dont like these mouse spiders much either especially when they decide to climb up on your pillow. But thats another story.

 

[G0lddigg@]

Hey jethro ive seen these moats as you call them the conclusion I came to was that they wanted to slow the flow somewhat otherwise they dont make sense. They seem to be in areas heavily pitted with a ground sluiced area in the gully. I can think of two at least in creswick.

 

[jethro]

I know this particular chinese fellow liked his opium as we found a little pipe & the spring clips off the opium tins were turned up by several people in afternoon of detecting. Perhaps the moat was to stop the possums pinching his opium. :lol:

 

[undertaker]

Excellent thread, Loamer. Thanks very much

 

[Becky69]

Interesting stuff thanks everyone

 

[turps123]

Thanks Loamer, great thread, I will use this info in my area. Many thanks

 

[VALLEYBOY]

Hey there loamer how can i private msg u? I just got a few questions to ask and your wisdom would be much appreciated

 

[Kingsolomon]

Valleyboy...You can post people message once you have ten posts up . Hope you understand this is a sharing forum , other people might have some information for you too. If you want to go undercover .... All good . Most common questions can be answered by google . Other than that ... Loamer is going to suggest you go loaming. Best of luck and enjoy...

 

[VALLEYBOY]

Nothing to hide m8 im new at detecting just wanted a few ideas i have a couple of photos of property i have got onto, and just wanted to get his opinion on where he thinks would be the best spot to start etc. i dont no how to upload photos etc