THERE’S GOLD UNDER THE HOUSE. Newspaper Article

THERE’S GOLD UNDER THE HOUSE. Newspaper Article

By JACK RICHARDS

The writer recently visited a little place in Victoria called Wedderburn - you may have heard of it. Here are a few of his impressions.

CAN YOU go out into your front garden, dig a bucketful of alluvial from a trench a few feet deep, and wash off the dirt in a miner's dish to reveal colours of gold, including some bright, coarse specimens?
In Wedderburn a few mornings ago I saw Mr. David Butterick, 68 year-old retired farmer, and now famous as Wedderburn's recent gold discoverer, do exactly this.
You could step from his front verandah into the trench, and I could tell by the smile on his face and his hopeful demeanour generally that he knew there was gold in the dirt-al- though perhaps no nuggets!
A few hours later I saw him pan off the dish to disclose the gold specs. He had a long trough in which he submerged the dirt in water, and then panned it off.
This far from modem but never- the less effective way of winning gold took place on the side of the adjoining block of land which he had purchased from the Bank of Australasia for £150.
Glancing across from the former bank block to his home I said to Mr. Butterick, "There must be gold under that thar house! When are you going to shift it?'"
TO PROVE that he firmly believed there was gold under his house, he went inside and returned with a letter from the former owner of the home. This former owner had picked up a 4 oz. slug six inches below the surface of the garden.
So Mr. Butterick had known for some time that he might be "sitting" on a gold mine. He went to work quietly, and fixed up everything with the Mines Department so that he could go safely ahead with his mining, and have no fears that anyone could "jump" his claim.
He has been on the job for about three years, although the rich strikes have not come till recently.
A look over the back paddock shows numerous shafts and tunnels, which could not have been dug in a few months. From one of the holes £1,300 worth of gold was obtained.
Mr. Butterick said that to prospect the two blocks for alluvial gold alone would occupy him and his four sons-in-law for a year or .two, and they would also go after the "indicator" formations which are believed to run through his property.
Experienced miners describe Wedderburn as "indicator" country, and they are trying to pick up these "indicators," not only in Wilson street outside Mr. Butterick's home, but farther along that street and in neighbouring streets as well.
In geological language, an "indicator" is a narrow pyritiferous seam, the intersections of which with auriferous ore shoot in the vein. On the day of my visit, two of Mr. Butterick's sons-in-law-Bill Matthews and Rex Chapman were making a "cradle" to enable them to handle in an hour or so the same quantity of dirt as it took them a whole day to wash off in a dish.
One miner who, with his mate, had dug a shaft l8 feet deep, and were beginning to tunnel, offered this explanation of how the Butterick family had been so lucky. About 60 years ago, he said, the whole of Wedderburn had been "turned over" in the search for gold, but the Butterick blocks, being private property, had escaped the fossickers.
I found Tom Vance and Herbert Timms, who had come from Sydney to try their luck. Four were in the party originally, but only three of them remained. Vance had worked for ten years in Queensland mines, and he and Timms had just taken over an abandoned claim a short distance from Butterick's front gate They had filled in one hole, but were' hopefully prospecting a second one.
And Albert Smith, of Wedderburn, who unearthed a 70 oz slut worth about £1,100 some three weeks previously, was still working just outside the Butterick property. He was collecting some alluvial which he thought worth while bucketing for washing later.
And while all this, activity is going on in the Wilson street neighbour- hood, the State battery a short distance away was idle. I was told that it had been idle for about 13 years.
All the prospecting, however, is not confined to the township area. Prospectors are out some miles in the country, hoping to discover a reef which will carry gold in sufficient quantities to warrant some more crushing’s at the State battery.

The Argus
1950
http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/

This is a picture of the mining going on in town.
https://2img.net/h/i946.photobucket.com/albums/ad309/Rayswork/Golden%20files/Goldenfiles397.jpg

Rwork

Thanks mate my word that would save cutting the grass … grin. cheers