Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Gold chest

Gold chest

belonging to Thomas Livingstone Mitchell, c1851–55
Wooden chest with brass fittings, containing 46 mineral specimens in four trays
Bequest of Sir William Dixson, 1952
DR 157

During the winter of 1851, the NSW surveyor-general Thomas Livingstone Mitchell travelled west to survey the recently discovered goldfields around Bathurst. At the makeshift tent settlement of Ophir on the Summerhill Creek, he planned the streets and allotments for a township. He also collected a fine quartz specimen, which he catalogued and carefully stored in this wooden chest, along with other specimens collected from his various expeditions around NSW.

Inside the wooden chest are four specimen trays, three of which can be removed. These originally held 48 specimens (two are now missing), mostly quartz, varying in colour, shape and texture. Most have light concentrations of gold; a few have heavier concentrations. The chest also contains specimens of gold dust.

Mitchell’s planned township of Ophir at the meeting of Summer Hill and Lewis Ponds creeks was never built. The site today is a recreation reserve.

Quartz is a hard white or colorless mineral consisting of silicon dioxide, found widely in igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks.It is the most common mineral found on the surface of the earth, making up 12% of the earth's crust by volume.

Ophir was named after the biblical city of gold by Edward Hargraves, one of the first prospectors to the area.

Thomas Livingstone Mitchell was born in Scotland in 1792. He trained as a surveyor in the British army before arriving NSW. He was appointed surveyor-general in 1828 and remained in this position until his death in 1855.

‘Fools gold’ is actually iron pyrites, which looks a little like gold but is worthless.