As we approached the famous Peak Hill, which is a nice little mining town, endowed with wonders of which you will presently hear, we passed several dry-blowers working. These men fossick (look) over the old workings, and by aid of a tin dish, in which they place any earth they think contains gold, and a coarse riddle with which to sift it, afterwards blowing away the fine dirt, they frequently find gold at the bottom of the dish. The ground is remarkably rich in gold, and I find it impossible to describe the magnitude of this golden country, which, like other fields, seems only to have been tested in a few places, those places being so rich that one wonders what the country will be when the hundreds of miles of good ground that I have passed have been opened out by miners. We were now far, far away from Perth, and the country looked different from any I had seen before in Western Australia. Peak Hill lies very high, 2000 feet above the sea-level. The ascent is steep and very rocky, four miles of it going through the Robinson Ranges. An interesting sight is found at the top, which has the appearance of a wide plain, with shafts and dumps of the thrown-up earth all over it. The manager of the principal mine here has a very comfortable residence, and the miners’ camps give the place the usual prosperous appearance. There are over 600 men on this field. The whole of the leases of Peak Hill have been taken over by a syndicate, which has formed a company in London. The finds have been marvellously rich. I went down one shaft, and saw some very interesting specimens being dug out. The gold is in a kaolin formation, and in some parts the kaolin is of all kinds of colours, and with the gold shining through looks really lovely. In other parts of the mine the kaolin is quite white, and the deposit easy to dig out. The results from the Peak Hill reef have been as high as 2621 ounces 15 dwts. of gold from 331 tons of this ore. Some of the mines have given as much as 21 ounces of gold to the ton, which is a wonderful record. The Christmas Gift is a rich mine, and many others have had such phenomenal crushings that the Peak Hill district is unsurpassed in wealth of gold. When Sir Gerard Smith, late Governor of Western Australia, visited Peak Hill, the mine-owners had a solid gold plate and a cup, to use at dinner, cast for him.
DRY-BLOWING IN THE GOLDEN STEW
There are some really fine public buildings, and the hotels, especially the Peak, are very comfortable. A nice Miners’ Institute, for meetings, entertainments, &c., has recently been finished. Land for building sites realises splendid prices, nearly £1000 having been paid for different allotments. The private houses seem very comfortable habitations. Many of the people have made fortunes, and everything seems prosperous about the place.
A very original character, called “Tom the Rager,” sold his interest in one of the leases some time ago for £15,000. This man, an old Irishman, made a memorable journey from Kimberley, in the North-West, across the greater part of Western Australia, accompanied only by his faithful dog “Paddy,” and subsequently got an interest in some of the richest claims at Peak Hill, as the sale mentioned may testify. The Golden Patch, as it is called, in which all the rich mines are, covers about a square mile of ground of quite a different nature from that in other parts. This mile of ground is formed by a mass of rich veins of quartz, and the wealth contained there is unsurpassed in any part of Western Australia. Were Peak Hill not such a tremendous distance away from the capital, its growth would, no doubt, be as quick as that of Kalgoorlie, which it so much resembles. Some of the wonderful crushings from a few of the golden mines may interest you. The Peak Hill Reef, from 331 tons of stone crushed 2621 ounces of gold; Daisy Bell, 82 tons, gave 1245 ounces; Golden Chimes, 195 tons, gave 1402 ounces. The Horseshoe and the Golden Patch are supposed to be the two richest spots in the colony. Some of the specimens taken from the Patch are not only rich but vastly interesting in other ways, some of the pieces being not gold held together by quartz, but vice versâ; the small pieces of quartz, if tapped by a hard substance, vibrate like a tuning-fork. The gold is very brilliant, and positively sparkles in the light.
I drove out to the Horseshoe Mines, a distance of about 20 miles. There were over 50 men working there, and getting a great deal of gold; some of them gave me some pretty pieces. I have now got enough nuggets to make any other collectors envious. While there I met a young man who knew me in Melbourne when he was quite a boy. I did not recognise him, as he had grown up and had a moustache; but he came to me almost with tears in his eyes, so pleased was he to see me so far away from home. For the moment I could hardly realise that I was nearly 800 miles in the interior of Western Australia, and felt inclined to cry with sympathy. He gave me a very pretty little nugget, which cheered me considerably. Alluvial gold often takes most singular forms; it is usually found on the surface, or not far below, while reef-gold is got in a quartz lode, or vein, at some depth underground. Some magnificent nuggets have been found in this part; one weighing 132 ounces, worth over £500, was found in one of the gullies which we passed when driving to this spot. The name of Horseshoe is taken from the long range of hills shaped almost like a horseshoe, and the gullies between them have made many of the miners wealthy. There are two very rich reefs here, which have been proved for six or seven miles. The specimens are very massive, gold predominating to a large extent in the quartz, and the ironstone fairly glistening with richness. I was now getting so much accustomed to looking at and handling gold that I began to fear I should look coldly on the common articles of everyday life. The miners, with the usual hospitality of their class, would boil the billy and give me tea, and all the best that their “back-block” larder afforded. Times are much changed now, since the early days of the fields, and the miners can live very comfortably. I said good-bye to them all with regret, wishing I could stay longer in this grand part of the country, the scenic beauty of which is also great. I enjoyed the drive back very much, and could not help thinking what store of wealth must lie beneath the ground we were driving over. The great bulk of this part of the country must contain untold gold.
Revelstone is another rich mining camp a few miles from Peak Hill, where a public crushing plant has been erected, at which the miners of the neighbourhood can have their ore crushed as soon as they raise it.
Farther on still is that wonderful Nor’-West country, to which I hope some day to go. The biggest nuggets the colony has produced have been found there. “The Bobby Dazzler,” which I was fortunate enough to see, and tried to lift, before I left Perth, and which is to be shown at the Glasgow Exhibition, came from Marble Bar, Nor’-West. It weighs over 400 ounces of gold, and is worth over £1600. Another large nugget was found in that district a few years ago, which weighed 334 ounces; so that people wishing to pick up the precious metal in large lumps had better try their luck in the far North.