Early Gold Mining In Australia

Lake County Mail, Issue 41, 17 March 1948, Page 7

Early Gold Mining In Australia

In a recent interview, Mr D. J. Richards, now a successful business man of Philadelphia, U.S.A., told of his boyhood days in an early Australian gold mining town. “ For five years I lived in Southern Cross, a famous gold mining town in the great Australian desert, where my father operated the general supply store for the mines. The heat was intense, with the mercury reaching 150 degrees F. in the dry season, which lasted nine months, with burning sun and no rain. A moderated temperature and a slight rainfall occurred during the other three months. The nearest water supply was Perth, on the coast, about 250 miles away. Water was brought in by rail and sold for 10s for 100 gallons. There were water holes throughout the desert, where the native buslimen got water, and which also supplied the few camel caravans that travelled the desert. Canned goods were the principle food supply, with a few goats contributing an occasional supply of fresh milk to provide a change from condensed milk. “ Our home was on the outskirts pf the town, and as nightfall came, the howl of the dingoes (wild dogs) coming in from the bush, was the onl}' music creeping in from the outside world. The nights were often so bla<*k that people living in the outer rim of the town, if caught by the rapidly descending nightfall on their way home, made themselves as comfortable as possible and waited for the morning to’ light the sky. “ There were scores of open pits close to the town, dug by gold prospectors and left unfilled when deserted. On a starlit night, in the dry season, the lakes of solid salt glistened; on a hot

day they radiated a white sheen. These lakes were as much as four feet deep —solid salt left after the volatilisation of the water pumped from the gold mines into the hollows in the sand. For pots we occasional baby kangaroo captured when its mother was killed during a hunt, but largely a collection of lizards of all sizes and colours. “In 1901 we went to Pennsylvania, U.S.A., and it was there that I ate my first apples and ice cream and saw snow.”