Books We Love Insider Blog: Ballarat mining history

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My current work in progress is set in the town of Ballarat, north of Melbourne, around 1860. My main

characters are not miners, but store owners, lodging house owners and traders—just as essential in a miner’s day to day life, for he spent endless hours in the search for riches. The gold rush to Ballarat began around 1851, and the greatest yield for one year was in 1856, when almost 95,000 kilograms of gold was extracted from the diggings. Until researching I had no idea how many methods were used in the search for gold. Most gold in the Ballarat district came from deep lead mining.

Some of the methods used:

Deep Lead Mining—Sometimes, gold deposited in creek beds was covered by lava from nearby volcanoes. This lava hardened into basalt and deep lead mining involved digging through these layers of basalt to reach the gold buried in old creek beds.

Surface Alluvial Mining—Over time, weathering breaks quartz rocks down into sand and gravel, freeing any trapped gold. This gold, which is called alluvial gold, remains close to the surface where it may be washed down and deposited in nearby streams. As gold is six times heavier than most gravel and stones, it rapidly sinks to the bottom of any stream.

Reef (Quartz) Mining—This involved digging to find the gold bearing quartz reefs, which had been formed long ago in the cracks and crevices caused by earth movements. The methods of alluvial and deep lead mining created the gold rushes. Any man in good health could take his chance at finding a fortune. All he needed was a pick, a shovel, a gold panning dish, a tent, some bedding and a few cooking utensils. This method relied upon the fact that gold was heavier than the sand, gravel and clay and so sank to the bottom of the creeks. A miner would separate the gold from the wash dirt using a pan, cradle or sluice box. In the early days, before creeks were “panned out”, the miners would simply proceed up a creek, washing shovelfuls of clay and gravel taken directly from the banks or bed of the creek. Although this gravel contained some gold, the really rich washdirt was to be found in the old creek beds that had been covered by basalt from volcanoes. To reach these, the miners often had to sink shafts through the overburden using a windlass, or in the case of deeper mines, a whim or a horse-drawn whip. Cradling panning was slow, back-breaking work, so the next development was the cradle. The cradle consisted of a box, fitted on rockers, so that the operator rocked it to and fro. Inside the cradle were two sloping shelves with thin strips of wood fastened across them. These were called riffles. On the top of the box part of the cradle was a sieve made of metal plate with holes punched in it. The gold-bearing gravel passing through the sieve was washed down through the shelves and any gold present was caught in the riffles, while the gravel was carried through a chute back into the creek.

The windlass—these were used in shallow shafts to lift dirt to the surface. They required very little skill

to build, were made from simple materials and could be easily moved. In the beginning, the windlass frame would be flat on the ground. Waste material brought up to the surface in the bucket, would be tipped in a pile around the shaft. As the pile grew higher around the shaft the windlass moved upwards. Thus, the windlass was soon on a hill created by mining. The windlass was only effective to a depth of approximately 40 metres. Successful miners who had sunk shafts on good, paying washdirt were able to spend some time making their working conditions a little more comfortable by building a shelter over their shaft. This meant that the man operating the windlass, and the miner down in the shaft, filling the buckets for the other to wind up, were not as exposed to the weather.

The Whip—Only a miner, or group of miners who were wealthier than most, could afford to use a whip because of the cost of the horse. Horses were both expensive to buy and feed. A whip meant that a mine could be 80 metres or more in depth. The horse was walked out along a straight walkway. When the bucket reached the surface, the rope was unhooked from the harness, the horse turned around, rope hooked onto the front harness, and the horse walked back down the whip path. For still deeper shafts, the Whim was used. These were expensive. A whim consisted of a large drum with a few turns of cable wound on it. Both ends of the cable were left free to run over pulleys down the shaft. A bucket (kibble) was attached to each end of the cable. As the horse walked around, the drum revolved and one bucket would be lowered down the shaft as the other was raised.

The Chinese men who came to the district played a large part in the mining industry. Around 1860 their population was well over 7,000. These young Chinese who came to Ballarat were sponsored by a businessman from their village back home. When successful, the gold was sent back to this sponsor. The Victorian Government soon realised that so many Chinese were having success at mining, it was decided to set a levy of ten pounds for every Chinese miner. These incomers had purchased their travel ticket for ten pounds. They came ashore in South Australia and then had to walk to Ballarat. By the 1860s there were three Chinese villages in Ballarat, each with a main street named Canton Street, where their shops, businesses, and gambling houses could be found.