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Gold Nuggets
Coarse gold cannot be found in all gold fields, even in cases when some gold fields are supposedly very rich. In some regions of Australia the gold is very fine and can be found concentrated in crevices in bedrock and any gravel wash that is overlying it. A metal detector is not able though to pick up this fine gold sprinkled through sand and gravel, and neither is it able to detect miniature traces of gold that remains to be enclosed in quartz reef material.
Miners were supposed to record the weight and spot of all the gold nuggets they had found that were over a determined size, even though this requirement was in many cases resented by the diggers who almost certainly steered clear of the directive whenever achievable.
There were more often than not some periods of activity for finding gold nuggets on an alluvial field. Subsequent to the opening discovery, the area was hurried by diggers from close by and then by far. The diggers that got there first used to work very quickly, and would sink hundreds or even thousands of shafts as long as possible to the area of the first finds. Every so often only a little amount of shafts dug would produce gold nuggets or any other form of gold. The ones that did showed the way of the rich lead, or possibly the reef from which the material was discarded.
Many, very many holes were sunk by pick and shovel until gold surrender dropped or the shortage of water made it not viable to stay on the field. As soon as either or both of these things took place, the people simply used to pack their small belongings and would run to the next discovery they had heard about.
After the first rush to the nugget filled areas where the men work with excited velocity, there were also some with some skill and improved equipment. They looked for the reefs, which are the sources of the alluvial gold. Some of them constructed puddlers and with a horse and water they processed gold wash for themselves and others. Some puddlers were placed together after the rush to reprocess the mullock heaps that had been forsaken on the field.
