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Title
One that almost got away
Description

An 87 ounce gold nugget was discovered upon the highly favoured Caledonian lead on 24 July 1857. According to the Ballarat Times, the nugget was shaped ‘not unlike a cat’s head’.

Date
24 July 1857
Interpretive description

An 87 ounce gold nugget was discovered upon the highly favoured Caledonian lead on 24 July 1857. According to the Ballarat Times, the nugget was shaped ‘not unlike a cat’s head’.

Published Source
The Ballarat Times, 25 July 1857. Details

Versions

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    Type
    Transcript

Concepts

Transcript

It is quite flat at the bottom, and irregular at top, with a slight intermixture of party-coloured quartz. There is a somewhat novel occurrence connected with the finding of this bit of gold. It was picked down, shovelled up, put into, and emptied from the bucket, carted, puddled and thrown into the heap for cradling off, and until fairly in the hopper, was never discovered. That a nugget of seven pound weight should go through all but the last process of washing without being seen is a circumstance almost unprecedented in the annals of gold digging.

Created: 13 October 2006, Last modified: 19 October 2006