CHARLESTON
mile Beach, and during its 22 years of operation won about £100,000 worth of gold. The method at first employed was the old “blow-up” system, but later a hydraulic-pneumatic process invented and patented (N.Z.) by Mr. G. M. Powell, which greatly decreased the working cost while increasing the amount of dirt washed. This process was, in 1920, patented in the Federated Malay States also, and is still being used there.
Beach Combing: As the name suggests, this is a “combing” or sluicing of beach sands, water being brought to portable tables by means of calico hoses, and the sand shovelled into the hopper box, to be sluiced over the tables by the stream from the hose.
Stamper Batteries were mechanical means for crushing the “cement” which was then carried by a stream of water over tables, usually of copper plates, but sometimes fabric-covered. The batteries had varying numbers of stampers, heavy iron weights that fell upon the blocks of cement placed under them. The stampers were operated by an eccentric shaft revolved by water-wheels (usually overshot) which caused the weights to alternatively rise and fall. At first steam power was used but this proved to be too costly. The batteries replaced the primitive methods of pulverising by hand, or by horse-power, or of burning the cement to disintegrate it.
Fly Catching was the placing of tables in the bed of a sludge-channel, i.e., a stream into which the discharge of “tailings” was permitted. It is estimated that not more than sixty per cent. of the gold was captured by the claim owners, forty per cent. escaping with the tailings into the sludge channels. Much of the escaping gold was caught by the fly-catchers, the remainder being carried into the Nile River and thence to the sea, from which it was washed by the tides on to the nearby beaches to be gathered by the beachcombers.
The principal fly-catching stream was Darkie’s Creek, where table-rights were held by Gregory & Horner, George Moore, Joseph Warne, Roger Walker, and G. R. Brown; the latter better known as “Parson Brown,” because an enthusiastic church-worker. Brown later sold to Laurenson, who sold to Magnus Mouat, from whom Brown re-bought.
178
