Ask to use material, get more information or tell us about an item
Mobile Recording Unit announcer Leo Fowler introduces a series of recordings made at the Austral New Zealand Gold Mining Company’s dredge at Lowburn Ferry, six miles up-river from Cromwell and near the village of Lowburn Ferry in the Clutha valley.
He describes the huge piles of shingle tailings the dredge has deposited along the valley. Gold has been prospected here since the early 1860s, by panning, sluicing and now dredging, with what is now the most up to date dredge in the Southern Hemisphere. The enormous dredge looks like a five or six storey factory building, floating in the river. Manager Mr Rogers is interviewed about the dredge, which was built on site, initially below the bridge. It was moved along the road to by- pass the bridge.
He says the pontoon is 176 feet long, 76 feet wide and 13 feet deep. About 60-70 feet high in the highest point.
On board the dredge, Leo Fowler describes it as a ‘mad maze of machinery’. With considerable noise from the machinery in the background, Mr Rogers and the dredge master Mr Haymer [Hayman?] are interviewed in the dredge control room, about its operations. Mr Silver is interviewed about geological history of the region and how gold came to be deposited there.
[Also included in this series of recordings are several tracks of dredging machinery sound effects.]