Wesley Tin Mine in Emmaville (Vegetable Creek) NSW 1895

Title: "Wesley" Tin-Mine - Flannery's Washing Plant

Excerpt from "New South Wales: the mother colony of the Australias" (1896)

Our principal tin deposits occur in the Vegetable Creek (Emmaville), Copes Creek, the Inverell and Tenterfield districts.  The stanniferous deposits, as far as is known, occupy an area of 5,500,00 acres.  Tin, both in alluvial as well as lodes, has also been found at Jingellic and Dora Creek, Albury district; also at Tumbarumba, and at Sandy Creek, Tumut district; also at Tibooburra, and some Toadsye or Wood Tin has been discovered in the auriferous drifts at Milkman's Flat, near Grenfell.  But as stated above, the Tenterfield and Glen Innes districts have supplied the principal of our tin productions.

Some of the alluvial stanniferous desposits were very rich, and in some instances as much as 10 feet in thickness has yielded 300 cwt. of stream tin of 72 per cent. to the ton.  Large fortunes have been made by working miners in alluvial tin-mining; but so far, with the exception of one lode near Tent Hill, Emmaville, known as the Ottery Lode, few, if any, of the numerous lodes have had even a fair trial.

Professor David, one of the New South Wale's most eminent geologists, gives it as his opinion that very extensive stanniferous areas covered over by basalt will sooner or later be prospected and worked, and geological surveys made by Professor David have brought out facts on which he based his belief that number of deep channels or leads covered over by basalt, are still lying undisturbed; hence, with the rise in the price of tin, we may look forward to a great production of tin, and a healthy reaction in that industry.  About 1,500 miners are still employed in tin mining.

Provenance: "New South Wales: the mother colony of the Australias". Frank Hutchinson, Edited by F. Hutchinson.
Author: Frank Hutchinson
Date of Publication: 1896
Publisher: C. Potter
Place of Publishing: Sydney
Copyright status: This work is out of copyright
Courtesy: The British Library