Walhalla Township
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A closer examination of it denoted it to be auriferous, and the party decided
upon marking out and registering a claim, and their example was soon followed
up by thirty other prospectors, or little companies of prospectors, each
obtaining an area of eighty yards along the line of the reef. Among these was
the Walhalla, discovered by an American, whose aristocratic bearing had
acquired for him the appellation of "The Duke".
Most claims were eventually consolidated into companies, and the first battery erected was put up by the Alpine Company. Some magnificent yields were obtained, the best coming from the reef owned by the North GippsIand Company, 400 tons averaging eight ounces to the ton, but smaller crushings by other companies had given as high as ten ounces to the ton. With returns like these to stimulate the activity of prospectors, the country was soon pegged out as mining claims for miles in all directions, but as is usually the case, a considerable amount of capital and labour was fruitlessly expended upon undertakings which were entirely unremunerative.  Gold crushing battery and treatment plant, Long Tunnel Mine. Click on image to enlarge The Long Tunnel Company, the phenomenal success of which has made it famous, was registered in the year 1863, and it commenced operations by driving a tunnel into a hill which rises almost perpendicularly from the bed of the creek. But it was not until January, 1869, that the necessary machinery, transported across country for a distance of sixty or seventy miles at an immense expense, was got into position, and crushing was presently commenced. So satisfactory were the results that before the end of the year the cost of the machinery, of the dead work performed, and of an ample supply of timber and firewood, had been paid for out of the proceeds of the crushing, and in the month of November in the same year the first dividend of £ 1 upon each of 2,400 £ 5 shares was declared. This lucrative enterprise, it should be added, was singularly fortunate in its superintendent and engineer, Mr. Ramsay Thompson, who, in addition to other admirable qualifications, seemed gifted with something like an instinctive perception of where to look in order to pick up the line of reef if it happened to be temporarily lost-as will occasionally happen in all lodes-by the occurrence of those "breaks" or "slides" which cause an interruption of continuity. |
From first to last this wonderful mine returned the shareholders about a
million and a quarter sterling in dividends upon a capital of £12,000 or in
other words repaid them for their original outlay more than 100 times over,
while a well qualified writer on mining matters states that the total amount of
gold won from this line of reef is approximately two million ounces, of the
value of eight millions sterling, without reckoning the alluvial gold shed from
it into the creek.
Another company, called the Walhalla, which was sold to the Long Tunnel Company
in 188 1, started in 1865 with a capital of £ 8,000 only. It never had occasion
to sink below 800 feet, and during the fifteen years it was in operation it
obtained 144,000 ounces of gold, and paid its shareholders £228,478 in
dividends, or upwards of twenty-eight times the amount of the capital they had
invested in the enterprise. Next in importance to the Long Tunnel, which has
been partially exhausted of its riches, is the Long Tunnel Extended, whose
workings are to the northward of the latter. This company was organised in the
year 1870 with a capital of £53,280, in 9,600 shares of £5 11 s. each, and it
has already paid upwards of £30,000 in dividends.
 One of the many water wheels along Stringers Creek. The wheels were used to power machinery for treating tailings dumped into the creek by the big mines. Click on image to enlarge The mining district of GippsIand comprehends as many as twelve divisions, and upwards of 100 companies are carrying on operations, which are in every instance successful in so far as the winning of gold is concerned, but only seven of these appear in the official returns periodically issued by the Department of Mines as paying dividends. Conspicuous among these fortunate undertakings are the New Loch Fyne and the Victors Quartz. The first of these has called up only 4s. 7d. per share upon 34,000 shares, and had paid in dividends up to 31st December, 1903, no less a sum than £ 109,700. The second had called 3s. 4d. per share upon 32,000, or little more than £ 5,000, and up to the same date had distributed £ 30,800 in dividends. It is these great prizes in the lottery of gold mining which lead to such large sums of money being embarked year after year in purely speculative undertakings in this branch of industry. |
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