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This article was taken from the Australian Town and Country Journal, 5th February 1870, p. 28:
“STARTING from Braidwood on the Queanbeyan Road, the Braidwood granite changes to micaceous sandstone as you near the Shoalhaven River - the timber becomes stunted, the soil sandy, and stones hard and weighty. Here M’Gregor and Co. have a ground sluicing claim, with a broad race six miles long, brought down the east bank of the river. They rent an acre of stones and gravel, of the Church and School ground, for which they pay the moderate sum of L12 per annum, besides miners’ rights 10s each, and a gold duty. Some of this Church and School ground is let at 2s 6d an acre; and some outside (Crown land) at one and a half farthing an acre. This party are well satisfied with their prospects. Their claim is called ‘Golden Ridge.’ Opposite to them, on the west bank of the river, is another party (on Crown lands) named the ‘Rock Race’ Company; from the unusual rocky and stony nature of the race they have constructed to sluice the auriferous low ranges which border the river on the west. This race is quite a heavy piece of engineering, extending upwards of two miles along the river bank, which is here rugged and rocky, and traversed by heavy hard bars of slate and sandstone; these have had to be cut through, and in many instances many yards have have had to be burnt through by laying timber on the rock and burning by night, then pouring on water and gadding and removing it by day. Thus some bars have been fired ten times over, while in other places the race has had to be built up and carried by stone walls as much as 14 feet high, and puddled where required. It is a race 3 feet broad, and calculated to carry 25 sluice loads of water. The race has what are termed gates, five in number, and named Bishopgate, Aldgate, Ludgate, Ramsgate, and Cripplegate, (the reader may have heard of them before.) These gates serve to draw back the water in case of flood, and throw it on a by wash or overflow which is always made on the hard bars of rock, which will allow of the superfluous water passing away without passing away itself.
“There are five shareholders, and each is allotted his district to superintend along the race. As the ground becomes opened up and the the main reef will be subdivided and wages-men put on. There is an almost unlimited quantity of ground for sluicing, and seven miles is the distance they propose to extend the race, viz. to the Colombo crossing. It has already taken fifteen months to construct two miles, at an outlay (labour included) of several hundreds of pounds - but Messrs. Haggett and Co. are well satisfied with their prospects; may they be as golden as they expect and deserve. While examining this work there occurred a tremendous fall or explosion of something, no one could divine what, at a distance of about two miles; whether it was powder or falling rocks, or what it was, we could not ascertain - but it was heard for many mines round.
“In the bed of the river and facing this race is a natural curiosity in the shape of a chair wrought by the eddies and current of the Shoalhaven River. It stands on a pedestal of rock, , round which at present the water flows - it has seat and footstool, back and elbows all complete, and is a very superior article to that called ‘Lady Macquaries.’ The seat is easy and affords a capital view of the river and the race, with the quaint water worn rocks around - some may think it additionally curious that the back of the chair is against the stream or up the river.
“A mile and a half further on is ‘Little Bombay,’ the residence of Mr. Joseph Taylor. This is an exceedingly picturesque spot, a fine painting of it having been exhibited in Sydney some years ago. The soil of this estate is very good, but has been carried away in places by floods, which have formed a new and pefect creek, with waterholes and eels in them, since Mr. Taylor came, twenty-five years ago.
“Mr. Taylor’s wheat is rusty, and chiefly where mostly weedy. He thinks sea fogs bring blight and rust. The house here is not very ambitious, but the outbuildings are excellent; stables, shops, stores, and piggeries of stone, large, commodious, and clean; with an unusually large assortment of fruit trees in the garden, consisting of sixteen varieties of fine plums, six of cherries, eight of apples, and seven of peaches, and some of the finest laurels in the country. Clark’s gang stuck up this house, robbed it of L150 worth of property, and loaded five horses with stores.
“On leaving Little Bombay the road soon becomes uppish. We are crossing the coast or barrier ranges. To the first great apex it is sandstone. The fall of the same on the Queanbeyan side is slate, both of great thickness; then comes a small belt of beautiful varieties of granite, then slate bars, then granite again, then a wide extent of slate to the final apex, where at last appear small fragments of quartz, having come nearly nine miles without seeing any. These slates and sandstone look more like the Gipp’s Land formation than any i have yet seen in New South Wales. Cole’s is nine miles from Little Bombay, on the west side of Mooloon Creek, a mountain stream. These ranges meet the sea at Twofold Bay. Galena has been found here in small quantities, and there is a very large blow of quartz S.S.E. 1 1/2 miles from the road, and exposed on the surface a long way; another crosses the road 4 1/2 miles further on. Some of the mountain tops here are lofty - from the top of Mount Jillerong, Goulburn can be seen. There are about fifty free selectors in this neighbourhood, and they are going to build a church of stone 25 x 18 feet, to cost L15o. The road now improves, indeed, it has not been very bad, for the sidelings are well cut, the bridges well made, and the distance short, it being only 36 1/2 miles this way from Braidwood to Queanbeyan; and a few more hundreds laid out on it by the Government should make it a highway for traffic between Hobb’s Creek, Blackheath, Molongolo, and Braidwood. The good inhabitants here are agitating for a post-office more convenient to them than that at Carwoola.
“Beyond Cole’s we skirt the Black Range and pass through some very rough country. Here the granite appears to have been dismissed without any ceremony. ‘Stand not on the order of going, but go,’ and it has carried out the command very literally. Gigantic blocks stands alone or in groups under the trees; confused masses stand along the ridges or have rolled down the gullies, or lie half-way between. It must have been lively work for spectators (if any) when this was adoing; and passing this portion of the road we upon a very mineral-looking country, with abundance of good clear quartz. Just before coming to Mr. Daniel’s, a hill occurs on the right, containing granite, a ledge of micaceous sandstone, a quartz reef, and another metallic-looking reef full of metal. Now come several free selectors on Blackheath, who, I am told, are doing pretty well, and are very likely to improve in circumstances as they proceed. Leaving them we come to the Molongolo Plain, surrounded by mountains of various heights, chief of which tower those we have crossed. This limestone plain ends on the Molongolo River, and is about four miles across. Going over the Little River, and turning to the left, we enter Mr. T. Rutledge’s estate of Carwoola, and two miles more brings us to the house. I stayed here four days with the hospitable proprietor, and availed myself of the opportunity to post up arrears and look about.
“This is a very extensive and very valuable property, comprising seven estates and some smaller properties, in all 55,000 acres of purchased land and 110 sections of leased land. The estates are named Carwoola, Foxlow, Primrose Valley, Gidleigh, Janefield, and Bungendore Plains. There is a great deal of limestone and first-class soil, open timber and good grass land, and the whole is well watered by the Molonglo and Queanbeyan rivers, the Turella and Primrose Valley creeks, and several of smaller dimensions. Formation : Limestone, basalt, trap, schist, and quartz. Gold has been found in Foxlow by the Chinese and others, but in no great quantity. There are traces of Galena at Primrose Valley. There is also something like a marble quarry not far from the house. This was the station originally held by the celebrated Governor of Jamaica, vastly altered since he saw it last, no doubt. The employees and their houses clustered in the rear of the homestead, would make a small township; and the machinery for carrying on the work of a sheep station mark the efficiency which secures success. The woolshed is 140 feet by 64 feet, and will house 1500 sheep in case of a day’s rain. The flooring is of 2-inch stuff, shot and rounded on the upper face, and laid a quarter of an inch apart, allowing for escape of dung below; joists 8 x 14, and 18 inches apart, taken up every two years to clean out manure. The station carries 50,000 sheep, and last year’s clip was 400 bales. The side aisles of the shed are divided into pens, each holding one dozen sheep. These being opposite each shearer, as soon as his sheep are shorn they are passed into the second side aisle pens, and the gate thereof shut; then the gate of the first aisle pens is opened and fresh sheep are passed up to replace them. Outside the west side of the shed is a wooden trough, 30 feet long, with battened sides, along which foot rot sheep, after being cut, are compelled to pass walking in a solution of arsenic and water.
“At the north end is fixed a patent wool press, by Rome and Co., of Melbourne. It consists of a powerful spiral screw and plate and two boxes, the lower one fixed in position between stout uprights secured firmly above and below, and the upper travelling on a double tramway when shunted off the lower box, the upper one is supplied with a false bottom which allows it to be filled independently to the other one. When both are filled with wool and well trodden, the upper box is run vertically over the lower one, the false bottom drawn and the screwplate adjusted above. One man commences at the wheel, subsequently two, and for the last few turns three or four, adding an endless pully round the wheel. The screw presses the contents of two boxes into less than one, and the screwplate is then returned to its place, the jute bale is sewn partially over; the front door of the lower box being unfastened burst open, and the bale is turned out to be finished on the floor, while the process of filling it is renewed, a fresh bag being of course fitted fitted and fixed in the box below. By this press it is said that three men keep twenty-eight shearers fully employed, and unusual care is taken in the getting up of this wool, and at the sheep wash are fitted up an engine, Chinese pump, hot and cold water tanks, and complete apparatus for washing the sheep. The engine is of 10 horse-power by Ruston, Proctoorf, and Co., of Lincoln, and there are four tanks for hot water, heated from one flue and one tank for tempering the boiling water in its passage to the ‘bath’ - a force pump by Jennings of London, forces cold water up into an iron tank from which the sheep first undergo a cold shower bath, after which they swim two minutes in hot water; they then pass under a cold water spout, men standing in galvanized iron tubs to pass them up the gangway and so into paddocks where they await for baout three days the operation of the shears. Mr. Rutledge’s farming operations are confined to thirty acres of wheat, thirty acres of oats, six acres of potatoes and 120 acres of hay. Regarding wheat - some rust is found in ‘the old’ ground but none in the new. The granary is lined throughout with galvanized iron and the ground posts are capped with square sheets of the same material - it is capable of holding 3000 bushels. The stock of Kingfishar, a son of the celebrated Victorian horse Fisherman, is multiplying on the station, five yearlings realised 845 guineas in may last.
“It is twelve warm miles to Queanbeyan through a highly quartz country. On the right hand three miles before entering the town is a so-called copper mine, abandoned some five months since; and on the left are two silver mines abandoned four months since - or if not abandoned, work has ceased for those periods - they are called the Primrose Valley and the West Primrose.
“The town of Queanbeyan is prettily situated in a hollow on the river of that name, and the land around is suitable for agriculture and Scotch Thistles, which have discovered and taken possession of the river banks. The wheat crop is unusually heavy, and the straw also unusually long. I may add also that the atmosphere was unusually warm and dusty all the time I was in the town; but this luxury, I understand, was not confined to Queanbeyan about this time. It is rather hard on the dusty and perspiring traveller that in the smaller towns of the interior, dedicated to agriculture and repose, the most refreshing drink obtainable should be ginger beer hot, or mulled lemonade. It is the more vexatious because one knows that, with a tub of water and a canvas bag, all fluids can be kept cool.
“Woolgarie, January 24.”
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