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Mitchell's Gully Gold Mine
| Terraces mined since 1866 and redolent with nostalgia and authenticity
have been re-opened both to win gold and to demonstrate the original methods
used to extract the precious metal from ancient raised marine deposits.
Here, as nowhere else, one steps quite literally into the past. In a
tranquil bush setting a restored battery, driven by an overshot waterwheel,
pulverises gold-bearing 'cement', which is then washed over copper-mercury
tables designed to trap the gold. A miner's hut, gold-mining equipment, a
system of water races and a host of tunnels, dug last century to exploit the
rich 'beach leads', may also be inspected. The claim has been worked by one
family into the fifth generation. |
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