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The following article is from the Australian Town and Country Journal, 5th March 1870, p. 12:
“A gentleman who has recently paid a visit to the Carcoar district has favoured us with the following account of the operations going on at the Belubula : -
“Carcoar, 19th January.
“It rained all night and in the morning; did not start till late to the Belubula; got to the engines by 3 o’clock; met Mr. Meyers there; good engines, ten head of stampers, put up with economy; had been at work three weeks, , brought from Spring Creek, bought with the Wattle Flat one from Vickery; was crushing most extraordinary stuff from the Forest [reefs] and from the Junction Hill, also from the Burnt Yards. Gold in all of it, although hid by very old quartz, with a great deal of iron, giving it the appearance of burnt quartz. Below this engine, on the river, is another machine, with five boxes of stampers containing two each and driven by a portable engine, doing its work well and saving the gold on the tables. This belongs to a company of working men, who crush their own stuff from one of their claims on the Burnt Yards. This stuff is in large quantities, being lighter in colour than the Forest or Junction Hill. They have been crushing for the last twelve months; they have paid for their machinery out of profits, and the average is 10 dwts. to the ton; they cart it three miles to machine. Saw some decided improvements on Ripple Table, which we must adopt on ours. Returned to Mr. Meyer’s place at Sydenham, seven miles from engines, and seven from Carcoar, where he has a fine house, farm, and orchards. Oidium among the grapes -
“20th January, 1870.
“After breakfast started for Junction Hill, accompanied by Mr. Stimpson, the late member for Carcoar, who has an equal interest with Mr. Meyers in these mining operations. The road is very rough round the windings of the Belubula. The water has cut down a channel in the trap, making a waterfall about one hundred feet high. On the opposite or southern bank is the old hill, called the Junction from the fact that the Five-mile Creek and the Two-mile Creek join the Belubula there. It is very steep, rising two feet in one; and at abouth 400 feet in height, on a blow of iron-stone and quartz, very much decayed, on the crown of the hill, is this curious gold-bearing stuff. A shaft is sunk on the top, and it is found to be run in layers, witgh a white-looking slate lying nearly horizontal, but dipping a little to the northward, or towards the creek. The shaft is sunk to one hundred feet, and at the bottom the slate becomes blue; the gold ore containing the same in character as at the top. This shaft for proving the strata was scarcely required, for the hill side to the river being so precipitous you can measure the different layers from the top to the river. In one instance the ore is twenty-two feet in thickness between the slate. In every part on crushing it gives a good prospect of gold; old time has made it easy to crush, and it can be obtained in thousands of tons at a very trifling cost. The western side of the hill is easy sloping ground to the river, where machines could be put up within four hundred yards of the ore.
“you do not see any gold until you use water. I tried four dishes of the stuff from different positions - First, from under the grass on the crown of the hill; second, the drilling dirt from a hole the men were sinking on the top side of the hill; third, from soil taken from the same hole; fourth, from a dish of soil picked up on the top of the hill. In each dish there was a very good prospect - it put me much in remembrance of the Wentworth gold of seventeen years ago, but I think the gold is richer in quality. The first one hundred tons of surface crushed at Mr. Meyer’s engine gave eight pennyweights to the ton before the tables were in good order. I expect a better result with the next lot. Returned at night to Sydenham very weary with hill climbing.
“Friday, 21st January.
“Started from Mr. Meyer’s before breakfast for the Burnt Yards and the Forest; reached the latter after a long drive by Mr. Lawson’s property at Fryer’s Creek, and ascending a hill three miles long - so the Forest ground must be high. Several shafts were being worked over a large area extending from the prospector’s claim to Osborne paddock, two miles distant. Seventy-five tons from the prospector’s claim was sent ten miles to one of Mr. Meyer’s engines for crushing. This was from a reef cut through eighty feet below the surface, of fourteen inch thickness; this stone is also black looking quartz and iron, but harder and more compact than the Junction Hill. Gold is rarely seen in it, but Mint returns of samples have been good; should it give half an ounce only the profits would be large. Returned to Carcoar with seven residents of that town in buggies by a much better time than we went.”
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