Hillendiana: Comprising Vast Numbers of Facts and a Considerable Amount of Fiction Concerning the Goldfields of Hillend

xi,82p. : ill., plates ; 25cm. #090422 Reprint of 1956 edition.
New South Wales. Hill End & Tambaroora. Gold fields, 1851-1874. | Gold mines and mining — New South Wales — Hill End — History. | Gold mines and mining — New South Wales — Tambaroora — History. | Hill End (N.S.W.) — History. | Tambaroora (N.S.W.) — History.
Hill End gold deposits
Mineral Resources
The gold in the Hill End district occurs in quartz
veins generally parallel to the bedding in a
sequence of slate and greywacke (sandstone);
alluvial deposits are also common along the Turon
and Macquarie Rivers and other major streams.
The host rocks are interbedded sandstones and
shales of the Silurian Chesleigh Formation. This
formation is part of a deep marine shalesandstone-silicic volcanic series deposited in the
Siluro-Devonian Hill End Trough.
The sediments have been deformed into largescale north-trending folds. The major fold in the
area is called the Hill End anticline.
The veins strike north-south and typically dip at 60-
70° to the east in the immediate Hill End area,
however elsewhere in the district they may dip east
or west, depending on which limb of a fold the vein
occurs. They are generally about 10-20cm wide,
but can range up to 30-40cm.
Some of the veins were followed for more than
600m horizontally; the Star of Peace and Mica
veins at Hawkins Hill were followed down for over
200m. The richest values came from the top 120m.
Quartz veins commonly occur as bedded or
laminated veins, bedded veins in the form of
normal and inverted saddle reefs in fold hinges,
and blows (often the top or ‘caps’ of a saddle reef).
Blows are commonly associated with faults,
sometimes contain brecciated slate fragments, and
in places grade into bedded veins with depth.
‘Cross courses’ are also an important source of
gold. Mining at Hawkins Hill resulted in the
discovery of a number of east west trending cross
courses (faults). These structures often were the
source of rich ‘bonanzas’.
Other minerals associated with the gold include
pyrite, pyrrhotite, arsenopyrite, sphalerite, galena
and magnetite. The gold generally occurs as finecoarse grained granules. Little or none is present in
the grains of other minerals.
Whim and shaft houses along the western slope of
Hawkins Hill, Hill End, 1872
The gold and quartz were deposited from solution,
probably after the cross-faulting subsequent to
regional folding. The source of the gold, however,
is uncertain.
It may have been derived from granitic bodies such
as those near Bruinbun and Bathurst, from the host
sediments themselves, or from basaltic and
ultrabasic rocks similar to those at Lucknow, or as
recently suggested from underlying volcanic and
sedimentary sequences.
History of mining
The Hill End-Tambaroora Gold Field was one of the
richest gold mining areas in NSW, and the first reef
mining area in Australia.
Gold was discovered in 1851 at Golden Gully,
when prospectors worked their way north east from
Ophir, where the first alluvial gold mining in
Australia had commenced a few months previously.
Gold mining licences were introduced in May 1851;
they cost 30 shillings per month and were only
issued for alluvial gold.
During 1851-1852, a miner called Collinson
crushed reef gold to pass it off as alluvial gold.
He eventually won the right to mine ‘gold in matrix’
from the line of country