Ophir gold diggings in 1851 - asset 2

• This asset shows one of the possible locations on Lewis Ponds Creek in the Orange-Bathurst area of New South Wales, where the first officially recognised 'payable gold' find was made by John Lister and William Tom in April 1851 - Edward Hargraves (1816-91), a gold miner returning from California, had shown them how to use simple mining equipment and had instructed them to pan for alluvial gold in the creek; their later find of 4 ounces (nearly 125 grams) of gold, and Hargraves's claim for the £500 reward, as well as all the glory, led to a dispute that raged for 40 years.
• It shows an alluvial gold field - alluvial gold is found near the surface; usually it has been eroded from gold-bearing quartz reefs and deposited over the years in creeks and waterways, especially at points, such as bends in the creek, where the flow of water slows.
• It shows prospectors in the field during Australia's first gold rush - the Ophir rush was only the second major gold rush in world history after California; just four months after gold was discovered more than 1,000 prospectors were on the diggings; the colonial authorities responded by appointing 'Commissioners of Land' to regulate the diggings and collect licence fees for each 'claim'.
• It gives an impression of Ophir as it looked in 1851 - the tents incorporated miners' living quarters, sly grog shops, a blacksmith's shop and a slab-and-bark cookhouse; soon after George French Angas made this sketch, there was a police station made of logs, several banks and a commissioner's camp (the bank managers would store their bank's gold under the commissioner's bed).
• It depicts an area already beginning to be devastated by the demands of gold miners for wood and suitable clay - the area was known to its original inhabitants, the Wiradjuri people, as 'Drunong Drung', believed to mean 'many snakes'.
• It is one example of the paintings of Ophir created by George French Angas (1822-86) - Angas was in Sydney when gold was discovered near Bathurst; he travelled there to record the diggings and prepare a number of drawings of the scene; these were published in Sydney and subsequently in London.
• It shows a lithographic print - lithography is a flat-surface printing method in which the image is drawn with a greasy crayon on a prepared Kelheim stone, which is treated with nitric acid and water, and then gum arabic is applied; when the stone is dampened with water, ink will adhere only to the design; the inked stone and paper are then run through a printing press and the design is transferred onto the paper; colour or chromolithographs are produced using a different stone for each colour or, as in this case, the black-and-white print is hand-painted.

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