Old puddler and cemented gravels

[Goldtarget]

My search got a little wider in recent days and I came across something very interesting. In situ was a line of what I thought might be cemented gravels but on closer inspection one side turns out to be a very old puddler. Does anyone know how far back they used cement? It is possible because of the hard digging they used the natural terrain to make this one side but it had me stumped. The ground is fairly well worked although shallow.

Anyone had any luck under pipe clay cemented gravels with quartz wash while I'm asking? The work stopped when the ground became too hard but under the 2 foot of hard cemented clays there's the familiar angular quartz mirroring the surrounding mullock. Took me 3 hours to dig up a 20l bucket for nought but I was excited at the prospect.

I'll try and get some pics I left my phone at home today to help explain. There's barely a scrape back in the area but I'm sure they left something it's almost certain in my experience.

 

[noncents]

I think the Romans used cement and concrete so its been around for a couple of thousands of years.

 

[Marked]

Noncents is certainly correct - The Colosseum in Rome exists because of the Roman's use of cement; building with stone would have caused the whole lot to collapse under it's own weight.

 

[G0lddigg@]

Hey gt my understanding is that pre 1930s puddlers where predominantly built by placing prewashed quartz down as a base then timber similarly to a wine barrel using a metal ring around the edge for support. Some puddlers used a stone wheel inside the puddler as well as the traditional wire fingers which would brake up the clay. As the stone rolled around under the slurry the wood would wave up and down which would aggitate the clay and assist with puddling. Theres some good records of yields won by puddler operators who dismantled their puddlers after many years and pulled upwards in the hundreds of ounces in fine gold which would work its way into the timber and supportive wash layer. In the 1930s and 1950s many of these sites where reused and cemented bottoms where used.

Most of my studies are limited to victorian goldfields prodominately in the golden triangle and expecially around avoca, creswick daylesford areas. Im sure theres many acceptions to the case.

With regard to the angular wash under pipeclay ive had very little success finding anything otger than very fine gold and often very little for the effort. In ballarat an example might be little white horse lead i dug a shaft maybe 8 feet. There where several layers of pipeclay which were followed by drift amd angular quartz which carried very little. After researching a little furtger i found that this area had 4 layers of pipeclay with the last being 20 feet thick before they hit basalt followed by some of the richest yields per tub. 180 ounces average.

Nowadays i use a hand auger that takes me down about a Metre if i dont see gold in this sample i dont dog it

 

[Goldtarget]

Thanks gents. I feel I'm a little more informed. There's one intact puddler on the site and after digging into the area returns were about 3 to 10 dwt to the tub, rushed hard and fast it was over in earnest less than a year after it began. Shallow diggings surrounding show the pipe clay to be thick and virtually unworkable, the scalloped broad area where the wash was generated in earnest seems to bottom out a couple of metres deeper.

I think what you wrote makes good sense GD I'll test further and if nothing jumps out put it to rest, at the very least until the dry is over. As for the intact puddler I'll leave it as expected, within a 10 km radius there's maybe 40 sites at a guess, and I haven't felt the need to desecrate one yet. If this one wasn't in nearly complete ruin (1/8 of a side wall left and heavily dug out previously) I'd leave it too, I just have to know what lies beneath. I honestly have better dirt to dig but I stumbled on this and I'm compelled to sample as I do every site. I know it ain't making me rich but I have to put each one to bed before I seek out the next.

Cheers again mate, have to put some time aside so I can get you and that dry blower over here. Surely your local is running out of gold Hey?