Mining and Geology

Gold Mining in Queensland – Four Hand Coloured Magic Lantern Slides – 1890’s

Four rare original magic lantern slide issued by George Washington Wilson (G.W.W.) in the late 1890’s. Hand coloured to a high standard.

Original 3.5 inch square, standard size, lantern slide. Original label from G.W.W.. Fine quality image – no damage except the odd ageing to the securing tape, easily replaced.

G.W.W. sent their top photographer, Fred Hardie, to Australia in the 1890’s to take images for their business in magic lantern slides. Hardie travelled from South Australia to Cairns, Queensland mainly by train but occasionally by horse and trap. Very active at the time. G.W.W. went out of business just before WWI, through competition and a waning in interest in the product. The slides produced are quite scarce, and rarely seen coloured. The bulk of the G.W.W. catalogue eventually ended up at Aberdeen University.

The slides comprise:

Alluvial Gold Diggings – Cradle at Work – Aberdeen Reference 30591; Alluvial Gold Digging Queensland – Good Prospect – Reference 30592; Sinking in a Payable Reef – Reference 30593 and Gold Digging – The Whim – Reference 30595. Note we have an uncoloured slide of 30594 The Whip which is being sold separately.

Rare Hand Coloured Images of Queensland Gold Mining Activity.

SO SORRY SOLD

$390.00

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James “Digger” Nash – Discoverer of the Gympie Goldfields, Queensland – Original Magic Lantern Slide 1890’s

A rare original magic lantern slide issued by George Washington Wilson (G.W.W.) in the late 1890’s.

Original 3.5 inch square, standard size, lantern slide. Original label from G.W.W.. Fine quality image – no damage or mould. We are sorry that if you look closely you will see my iphone reflected in the image …

G.W.W. sent their top photographer, Fred Hardie, to Australia in the 1890’s to take images for their business in “Travelogue” lantern slide. He travelled from South Australia to Cairns, Queensland mainly by train but occasionally by horse and trap. Very active at the time G.W.W. went out of business just before WWI, through competition and a waning in interest in the product.

The slides produced are quite scarce, some more so such as this one. The bulk of the G.W.W. catalogue eventually ended up at Aberdeen University. Expert in the field, Mark Butterworth, tells us that the original plate for Digger Nash is missing from that archive. He regarded this as probably the finest photograph of Digger Nash known to exist. He donated a copy to the Gympie Gold Mining Museum.

James Nash (1834-1913) discovered gold at Gympie in 1867. Born in England, he migrated to Sydney at the age of 23. In 1863 he moved to Queensland, to calliope and Nanago. On an extended prospecting tour in 1867 he found rich deposits near the Mary River. His report of the find on 16th October of that year started on of the wildest gold rushes in history.

Original Magic Lantern Slide – a Fine example – “Digger” Nash

$160.00

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Douglas Mawson – Report from the British Antarctic Expedition – Transactions and Proceedings of The Royal Society of South Australia

Published by the Society, Adelaide 1916, Being Volume XL.

Thick octavo, 631 pages with 54 plates and 21 figures in the text, Mawson map and folding diagram. Fine condition, barely opened, clean as a whistle inside. Unusually still in its original mailing envelope albeit chipped here and there. A super copy.

Numerous papers, many on entomology, marine species, flora, mineralogy etc.

Douglas Mawson features twice. First, his report on the Aurora Australis … “Aural Observations at the Cape Royds Station, Antarctica”. Pages 151-213 with plates xxi and xxii. The observations were taken during the British Antarctic Expedition in 1908. Mawson states that they were intended for publication in 1911. The delay was due to Shackleton wishing to publish the Scientific Reports as a series. However, for lack of funds this could not happen, and the series ides was abandoned, allowing this work to be published here. Special thanks are given to Edgeworth David for his contribution to the work.

Second, “Mineral Notes” is based on Mawson’s analysis of minerals exhibited at the Society in 1910 and 1911. Publication, gain, had been delayed … this time because Mawson mislaid his notes before departing for his own Antarctic Expedition of 1911. Minerals described include … Octahedrite, Twinned Gypsum Crystals, Beryl, Loadstone, Monazite, Cordierite, Sillimanite, Spinel, Sphene, Davidite, named after the great man, and much here about the radioactive properties. An addendum page by W.T. Cooke on the constituency of Davidite with reference to the spectroscopic work of the great Sir William Crookes identifying Scandium as a component.

Another standout report is by Walter Howchin on “The Geology of Mount Remarkable” pages 545- 584 with large coloured Geological Sketch Map.

Nicely illustrated journal with interesting reports by Douglas Mawson in very good condition.

$140.00

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The Geology and Palaeontology of Queensland and New Guinea – (Plate Album – Some Hand Coloured) – Robert Logan Jack and Robert Etheridge (Jnr) – 1892

This is the scarce first edition plate album published by James Beal, Brisbane in 1892 and Dulau, London

Small quarto (25cm by 19cm) containing 68 striking plates. A plate 69 is listed being a Geological Map of Queensland, as this was bound separately it is nearly always missing as in this case. Original embossed brown cloth covered binding, gilt titles to spine, original patterned endpapers. Some ageing to extremities. Internally very clean, with some damage to one plate (no 25) not affecting the images.

The specimens figured are predominantly from the Geological Survey of Queensland Collection along with some from the British Museum, Australian and Queensland Museum ; and private collections including the late Richard Daintree, Tenison Woods etc

Robert Logan Jack (Voyager hero) was the Government Geologist for Queensland. Robert Etheridge son a an equally famous father of the same name worked with Logan Jack previously on the Geological Survey of Scotland. At the time of this work Etheridge was Government Palaeontologist of NSW.

The first 44 plates contain 661 individual illustrations lithographed by Berjeau & Highley and printed by Mintern Brothers, London a combination active in scientific works of the period including the leading London Societies. 11 of the plates represent geological sections of varying degrees of complexity; a plate of drill cores; a coloured folding chart of the Burrum coal field; a larger folding coloured plan of Gympie Gold Field; a larger again folding coloured plan of Chartered Towers. The 12 excellent hand coloured images of rock thin sections drawn from the microscope by Isabel Phoebe Clarke (1863-1960) wife of Arthur Walter Clarke (1854-1893) who was at Chartered Towers

Important Queensland Geological Work – Special Plates

$490.00

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The Antiquity of the Aborigines of Australia and Tasmania – The Discovery of Gold – Magnetism etc – Georgina King FRASA – Sydney 1924

A self-published pamphlet by Georgina King of work previously published in the “Sunday Times”. Printed by William Brooks, Sydney and issued in 1924.

Octavo, 23 pages, soft wrappers as issued, three illustrations in the text regarding aboriginals. Some age from use still a very good copy.

The articles are as per the title … The Antiquity of the Aborigines of Australia and Tasmania – Two Stone Ages in Australia; The Discovery of Gold and How it was Found in Payable Quantities; Magnetism – terrestrial and Universal; Diamond and Their Origin.

A most usual body of work. Georgina King (1845-1932) was an amateur geologist and anthropologist. As a woman she was excluded from the “professional” category e.g. she was not allowed to read her own paper at the Royal society of NSW. Her ideas were rather whacky though and make for interesting reading … they did not stop her becoming a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Society. The daughter of Rev George King she was advised by him and naturalist Bennett not to marry if she wanted to get on in her chosen filed. She corresponded with Robert Logan Jack regarding geology and Huxley on natural sciences. In her eccentricity she blamed other for stealing her ideas, including Edgeworth David on her radical concepts of the earth’s formation and Einstein on the theory of relativity. She believed diamonds were fossilised marine organisms … quoting from the paper contained here …

“Diamonds existed as marine organisms. They are composed of pure carbon, containing only a little hydrogen, and the most minute particles are often found in what were small cavities, perhaps their breathing apparatus; some were like feathers. The cleavages of the diamond were the gills of those marine organisms …”

Her article of the aborigines is a lot more grounded. She was a friend of Daisy bates and provided financial support to Bates for her work among aboriginal people.

Georgina King isolated Australian Scientist with some wild ideas and some interesting ones.

$50.00

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Gold-Dust and Ashes – Ion Idriess – 1935 Edition

The Romantic Story of the New Guinea Goldfields

First published by Angus and Robertson, Sydney in 1933 this is an eighth edition (still early) 1955.

Octavo, 285 pages plus Idriess catalogue. Endpaper maps and nicely illustrated with period photographs. Very good dust jacket. Spotting to page edges and occasionally in text. A very good copy of this pre war edition.

Ion Idriess’s great book about the early New Guinea Goldfields of Bulolo, Wau and Edie Creek.

One of the must have books in the PNG list.

Gold- Dust it is!

$80.00

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Gold Mining in Queensland – Four Hand Coloured Magic Lantern Slides – 1890’s

James “Digger” Nash – Discoverer of the Gympie Goldfields, Queensland – Original Magic Lantern Slide 1890’s

Douglas Mawson – Report from the British Antarctic Expedition – Transactions and Proceedings of The Royal Society of South Australia

The Geology and Palaeontology of Queensland and New Guinea – (Plate Album – Some Hand Coloured) – Robert Logan Jack and Robert Etheridge (Jnr) – 1892

The Antiquity of the Aborigines of Australia and Tasmania – The Discovery of Gold – Magnetism etc – Georgina King FRASA – Sydney 1924

Gold-Dust and Ashes – Ion Idriess – 1935 Edition

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