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ST Gill
born England 1818, died Australia 1880
Tin dish washing 1852
lithograph
21.0 x 15.8 cm (sheet); 16.0 x 11.5 cm irreg. (comp.)
The University of Melbourne Art Collection
Gift of the Russell and Mab Grimwade Bequest 1973
1973.0355
"Tin-dish washing is difficult to describe.
It requires a watchful eye and a skilful hand; it is the most
mysterious department of the gold-digging business.
The tin-dish (which is of course round) is generally
about eighteen inches across the top, and twelve across the bottom,
with sloping sides of three or four inches deep.
The one I used was rather smaller. Into it I placed
about half the ‘dirt’ – digger’s technical
term for earth or soil – that they had brought, filled the
dish up with water, and then with a thick stick commenced to make
it into a batter; this was a most necessary commencement, as the
soil was of a very stiff clay.
I then let this batter – I know no name more
appropriate for it – settle, and carefully poured off the
water at the top.
I now added some clean water, and repeated the operation
of mixing it up; and after doing this several times, the ‘dirt’
of course, gradually diminishing, I was overjoyed to see a few
bright specks, which I carefully picked out, and with renewed
energy continued this by no means elegant work. "
Mrs Charles Clacy, A Lady’s Visit to the
Gold Diggings of Australia, 1852–53, London, 1853, p.
64.
Cited Stone, D and Mackinnon, S, Life on the Australian
Goldfields, Melbourne, 1976, p. 22.
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