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Title
A description of one mining method
Description

Miner Edward Snell’s illustrated diary offers a detailed picture of life on the diggings. He describes everything from cooking damper to the intricacies of mining methods.

This entry from his diary was written at Mount Alexander.

Published Source
Snell, Edward, The life and adventures of Edward Snell, Tom Griffiths (ed), Angus & Robertson and the Library Council of Victoria, Melbourne, 1988. Details

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Transcript

We sunk about 10 feet through yellow clay … till we came to the slate … we observed the slate had a ‘dip’ in one direction and dug out a tunnel till we came to the bottom of the dip, expecting to find a lot of ‘Nuggets’ in the pocket, but were disappointed. All the earth which we judged likely to contain gold we carted down to the water hole … The earth was then passed through a cradle, one person pouring in water constantly … This … requires great care and some skill or the gold is liable to be washed away with the earth.

Created: 24 August 2006