John Noble

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John Noble, Australian Town and Country Journal, 1897.

Background

Goldfields Involvement, 1854

Post 1854 Experiences

Newsworthy

A Pioneer Miner.
Mr. J. Noble, a pioneer miner, is an Englishman by birth, but went to America at the age of 20 years, and joined in the gold rush of 1849 to California, where he expereienced many vicissitudes incidental to the rough and ready life of the period. Mr. Noble claims to have been the first prospector of a quartz reef in California, though not the actual discoverer of gold in quartz. This was on Colonel Fremont's grant at Mariposa, California, in the year 1850. In the year 1852 Mr. Noble, in com-pany with eight companions, left California for the newly discovered gold fields of Victoria, and in a paper which he has placed before us he graphic-ally and vividly depicts the scenes of that stirring early time on the Australian gold fields, Ballarat being the theatre of his exploits. Mr. Noble explains how he and his mates sank in the space of twenty-six months twenty-three shafts, varying in depth from 57ft to 120ft. He was the prospector of the famous Red Streak at Ballarat; and in 1854, in conjunction with Captain Robertson and Captain Stephenson, he opened the clebrated Port Phillip Gold Quartz Reef, Clunes, and put an engine and chillian mill on the same. The loss of quicksilver in the mill was, however, very heavy, and to ob-viate this loss he put into operation an idea he had gained from Colonel Fremont in California, name-ly, the barrel process of amalgamation, at first worked by a hand crank, but afterwards worked by belt and shaft motion on all the gold fields of Australia. The Port Phillip Gold Quartz Reef was eventually sold to Dr. Bland. Mr. Noble took no action in the agitation which led up to the now famous Ballarat riot. He explains that he simply entered the Stockade by getting the password, and, entering on December 2, 1854, he there delivered an address to his fellow diggers, in which he advised caution and moderation. The attack, however, came, and he notes the absence from the melee of the principal agitators on the diggers' side. He himself eecaped with a whole skin, but some of his! mates were not so fortunate, as several of them were more or less severely wounded. He was one of the promoters of the School of Mines, Ballarat. In 1860 he visited New South Wales on mining business, since which time he has been prominently identified with many of its mining fields. He speaks hopefully of the basaltic forma-tions of the Abercrombie, Isabella, and Macquarie Rivers, and has gone to considerable expense in paying wages for the devel-opment of some of these fields, all of which projects have, however, up to the present failed. He is of opinion that payable gold exists in these districts, and says the main deposits have not been discovered as yet. Mr. Noble, notwithstanding his stirring life, is still hale and hearty man, and apparently good for many more prospecting campaigns.

See also

Further Reading

Corfield, J., Wickham, D., & Gervasoni, C. The Eureka Encyclopaedia, Ballarat Heritage Services, 2004.


References


External links