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THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM MAGAZINE. 



THE LURE OF THE BIG NUGGET 



B^ THE EDITOR. 



Gold occurs in nature chiefly as specks, 

 veins and masses in quartz, when it is 

 called reef gold, or as grains, flakes and 

 irregular lumps in the gravels, sand and 

 debris of stream channels and flood plains, 

 when it gets the name alluvial or detrital 

 gold. Detrital or drift gold deposits re- 

 sult from the denudation of the surface 

 layers of the earth, which were perhaps 

 several thousand feet in thickness, and 

 were traversed b}' auriferous quartz lodes, 

 the gold, because of its relative insolubility 

 and high specific gravity, becoming natu- 

 rally concentrated by the action of running 

 water. 



Alluvial gold, especially when near the 

 surface, is much more readily and more 

 cheaply won than the gold which is locked 

 up in the hard quartz of reefs; therefore 

 it will be readily understood that in the 

 early days of Australian gold mining, when 

 small parties of diggers, or even solitary 

 prospectors, were delving for the newly- 

 discovered wealth, it was the drift deposits 

 that received most attention. These were 

 the palmy and adventurous days of mining, 

 so well described in Charles Reade's fine 

 novel, // is Xci'cr Too Late to Mend. The 

 alluvial gold miner was a gambler, for the 

 precious metal is erratic in its occurrence, 

 and weeks or months of hard work w-ould 

 sometimes be spent in an unavailing search 

 for "pay-dirt," while a more fortunate dig- 

 ger might "strike it rich" in a few days. 



Any lump of gold found in the allu- 

 vium is called a nugget, whether its weight 

 be a few pennyweights or a hundredweight 

 or so. The word nugget, used in this 

 sense, seems to be of .Australian origin, 

 for in the early convict days a lump of 

 tobacco was called a nugget, and amongst 

 farmers the same name was applied to "a 

 small, compact beast or runt." Rolf 

 Boldrewood, in Robbery Under Anns, 

 writes: "We branded the little red heifer 

 calf first — a fine fat six-months-old 

 nugget."^ 



The finding of a large nugget of gold 

 was the occasion for great rejoicing on the 

 part of the successful digger, and much 

 excitement among the community. Valu- 

 able nuggets are occasionally turned up 

 even now, but in the early days of our his- 

 tory as a gold-producing country, such an 

 event was much commoner. Australia has 

 produced more large masses of gold than 

 any other continent, and this is re- 

 sponsible for the fact that many a "new 

 chum" lands in .Australia expecting to find 

 nuggets of gold scattered in his path like 

 pebliles. 



The original nuggets have, practically 

 without exception, long since found their 

 way to the melting pot, tn be converted 



into coin of the realm or, mayhap, to adorn 

 some fair lady's finger or stop a hollow 

 tooth to keep the ache away. But, fortu- 

 nately, we have models of some of the 

 most famous nuggets, which, when skil- 

 fully gilded, are to outward appearance 

 almost as good as the originals and not so 

 likely to be a temptation to some poor 

 but dishonest man. In the mineral gallery 

 of the Australian Museum a fine collection 

 of nugget models will be found in a wall 

 case near the entrance, and the stories of 

 the discoveries of the originals are full 

 of interest. 



The visitor to the museum will be at 

 once attracted by the huge "Welcome 

 Stranger" and "Welcome" nuggets ; the 

 former weighed 2,520 ozs., and the latter 

 2,217 ozs., the respective values being about 

 io,534 and ^9,323. The "Welcome Stran- 

 ger" was the largest nugget ever discovered 

 and the circumstances of its finding are 

 somewhat romantic. It was found on Fri- 

 day, February 3, 1869, in Bulldog Gully, 

 near Dimolly, Victoria. Two miners, Rich- 

 ard Oates and John Deason, had been sur- 

 facing in the gully for about two years. 

 They were Cornishmen and had come out 

 to Australia in 1854 in the same ship, 

 arriving at Dunolly in 1862. They were 

 fairly lucky during their first two or three 

 years there, but four very lean years fol- 

 lowed, during which they scarcely made a 

 living. At the beginning of 1869 their 

 capital was completely exhausted and on 

 the very morning of their great find, Dea- 

 son was unable to get a bag of flour on 

 credit at the nearest store. But the two 

 men must have been made of good stuffs, 

 for they tightened their belts and worked 

 on. Deason was fossicking round the 

 roots of an old tree, where an obelisk 

 now stands to commemorate the event, 

 when his pick struck something hard. He 

 was a profane man — many miners are — and 

 "Damn it all," he said, "I wish it was a 

 nugget, and had broken the pick." You 

 can imagine the eager delight of the two 

 when they realised that here in very truth 

 was the very grandfather of nuggets, 

 which, as they feverishly applied pick and 

 shovel, revealed itself as being even larger 

 than their fondest hopes had pictured it. 

 Their sensations were much the same, no 

 doubt, as those which thrill the treasure- 

 seeker of romance, when at last he has 

 traced to its hiding place, on some haunted 

 isle of the Spanish main, the long-lost 

 hoard of the old-time buccaneer. So the 

 very welcome stranger was joyfully levered 

 from its long resting place and, with great 

 labour and much helpful language, trundled 

 to the miners' tent. .Ml through that Fri- 

 tlay night Deason sat before the fire clean- 



