Wattle Gully Mine holds a pivotal position in the history of the State's quartz mining industry. The rich strike at Wattle Gully mine in 1937 helped revive the State's gold mining industry that had been in the doldrums since the First World War. Wattle Gully, and a handful of other 'new' companies - the Maude and Yellow Girl, Morning Star, A 1, and North Deborah - were the flagships of the revived industry and sustained the State's gold production for some 30 years. Wattle Gully mine, with a yield of 350,000 ounces, was the richest mine of its era. By 1940, the Wattle Gully Company had paid out £207,000 in dividends to its shareholders. The company continued to mine profitably through the Second World War, though it struggled due to a shortage of manpower. After the war, the mine continued to develop - in the early 1950s new plant including a winding engine, steel poppet head, and twenty-head battery was added. The plant was obtained from the Central Nell Gwynne Company, Bendigo. On 13 March 1969, the Wattle Gully Company closed down the mine, laying off 62 men. Since 1970 Wattle Gully mine has worked intermittently. Recent additions to the mine's infrastructure has been a new ore processing plant and a decline tunnel. The ore processing plant was operated by Newmont mining from 1987 to 1990 and subsequently operated by Consolidated Victorian Mines and Duketon Goldfields. The mine site has retained evidence of its development since 1937 with its most recent periods of equipment upgrades in the 1950s and 1980s being documented by buildings, structures and intact and working machinery. Heritage Council Victoria: https://vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au/places/2380 Black and white photograph: view of Wattle Gully mine site with two elevators, centre of image. gold mining, underground, wattle gully gold mine, ore elevators

Black and white photograph: mine site, landscape view. In foreground, excavation evident with mine equipment in background on higher level. Equipment includes large tanks and elevator. Some ore piles on site. mining, underground miners, 1980's., bendigo, mine site

The 1st edition of this famous work, giving an excellent account of the machinery used in late 19th century metal mining in the UK and overseas is very rare. It covers a wide range of equipment - pumps, steam engines, drills, winding engines, stamps & concentration mills, aerial ropeways, tramways and early uses of electricity etc. Brown hard cloth covered book. xvi 564 pages with additional advertisements, with over 300 illustrations and drawings, some fold out. Chapters include Water as a motive power, Wind engines and ventilating machinery, Steam boilers/engines and oil engines, hoisting machinery, draining of Mines, pumping engines, rock drilling machinery, boring machinery, concentration machinery, sizing and classifications trommels, joggers and jigging, fine concentration, milling of gold ores, milling of silver ores, amalgamation plates and machinery, dry and roasting machinery, chlorination and cyandide processes for the extraction of gold, electricity as a motive power for mining, electric lighting and blasting, aerial wire ropeways, transport by rail and road. There a a number of lovely line illustrations in the book including: Poncelot's undershot waterwheel; Fromont furnace;Victor turbine; Pelton waterwheel; Root's positive blower;Cross section and front elevation of Lancashire boiler; Robey's Compound Mill Engine; Portable Winding Plant; Iron Pit Head Gear ; Loading Arrangement in an Incline Shaft; kibble; Worthington Pump; California Pump; Scram's Air Compressor; Rock drill Bits; Special Sharpening tools; Boring tools;Rotating Picking table; Ore Feeder; roller crusher; stamp battery; round buddle; slime table; vanner; amalgamating plant; belt elevator;roasting furnace;splicing wire rope; capel; tipping waggon;mining, cornish pump, linkenbach table, water wheel, ventilation, oil engine, california, america, water, steam boilers, steam engines, oil engines, pumpimg, rock drilling, boring, jiggers, milling, silver, gold, drying and roasting, chlorination, cyaniding, lead, zinc, copper, electricity, electric lighting, wire ropes, transport, wind engine, poppet head