Hey guys thought I had better touch base & clarify exactly what I,m trying to achieve.
For some time now I,ve been interested in the many small hardrock shows that were opened up in the hills between the murray river & the great divding range. I started out by just picking up a few pieces of quartz of the mullock tips of one of the major mines in the Bethanga area. I dollied it and washed it and to my surprise there was a couple of specks of gold. That was 25 years ago. Anyway ever since then Ive been testing the quartz / veinstone that was left behind on dumps and under dollying trees and even on old dray & sled & barrow tracks. I have found some good stone & Ive found some barren stone but on average ive found more gold bearing stone than barren stone.
Ive become very interested in one particular area (partly due to distant family connections) and the varied geology of the reefs encountered. I started out bringing home samples off the dumps in the area & breaking them down with a pnuematic hammer and a dolly pot, toooo slow. Next came the rod mill tooo noisy.
Anyway Ive almost completed building a flail hammer mill (pics & thread when its ready to go) which will be used in conjuction with the rod mill to grind the ore down to about 100 mesh or finer., then it will be concentrated on a wilfley table yet to be built & finally roasted to oxidize the sulfides & smelted in a crucible to liberate & consolidate the very fine goldthat is present in the ore from this area and purified using a cupel.
Some of the mines were very rich, one going 10oz to the ton throughout & many others averaging 3oz to the ton. Another in another area about 10kms away went 1000 grams at the outcrop according to mines dept records I have nt found this one yet but have figured out which gully it was located in by researching old newspaper articles on trove. All the mines were high in sulphides so a lot of gold is locked up in the sulphides, hence i need to roast the concentrates. hope this gives you all a bit better idea what im up to.
