Australian History: Finding Gold
There are two main types of gold. Alluvail gold is the gold found as small flakes, nuggets or dust. Buried gold is found beneath the earth's surface.
Alluvial Gold
This gold was once buried below the eart’s surface. Over thousands of years, rivers and creeks slowly wore away rocks containing this gold until the gold washed away rocks containing this gold until the gold washed away and settled at the bottom of them. Diggers found gold flakes and small nuggets when they washed dirt and sand from old creek and river beds.
Buried Gold
Once they had taken all the alluvial glold, miners started to dig in search of gold found in deep seams (‘seams’ means deposits of gold). The followed leads (‘leads’ means gold-bearing deposits of rock) down into the earth. At first, teams of three or four would dig shafts 30metres or more deep. Later, companies were set up to extract gold from reefs (‘reefs’ means veins of rocks) deep underground using heavy equipment and machinery.
Panning for Gold
The simplest way to find alluvial gold was to pan for it. To do this a digger needed:
- a pick to break up the soil and rock
- a shovel
- a panning dish to wash the soil and rock
At first diggers used any round dish they could find to pan for gold. The best types were the wide tin dishes used in dairies to separate milk and cream. Soon tinsmiths began making special pans with a wide base and shallow rim. Some diggers used pan to see if the soil and rock they were digging up had any gold. Then they would use more efficient equipment to wash the paydirt – the gravel soil and rock that contained gold.