There’s gold in ’em hills

Gold! Today, a Mineral Resources Tasmania researcher sent me a copy of this 1879 survey map showing John Ellis’s 10-acre lease in Salisbury Gorge at the south end of the Cabbage Tree Range, at Brandy Creek in the West Tamar District. A bookend match for the original registration of the claim and its execution.

The claim was recorded on 27 Sep 1878, but not granted 15 Jan 1880: a testimony to the inefficiency of an under-resourced and over-stretched Mining commissioner, and the general confusion arising from leases being granted under one Mining Regulations Act and executed under another.

The Ellis brothers worked it as Rising Sun Mining Co, looking for gold but finding a rich vein of copper and a little silver which aroused considerable interest. On assay, the lode gave 26 per cent of pure copper per ton. Operations were suspended in 1883 at a time when greater inducements were on offer for going on, and of proving the full extent and value of a very promising metalliferous deposit.

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