Huge Gold Nugget Metal Detecting

Huge 5.1 ounce gold nugget discovered metal detecting.

It certainly seems that if you’re hoping to find a huge gold nugget metal detecting, your best bet would probably be Australia.

Huge Gold Nugget Metal Detecting

Huge Gold Nugget Metal Detecting

Did you know the largest gold nugget discovered was called the Welcome Stranger, it was discovered in Australia in 1869.  I’d venture to say that this gold nugget was so big that I doubt that there would be many who could even pick it up! Yes, the gross weight was  241 lb and 10 oz!

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

The Victorian gold rush was a period in the history of Victoria, Australia approximately between 1851 and the late 1860s. It led to a period of extreme prosperity for the Australian colony, and an influx of population growth and financial capital for Melbourne, which was dubbed “Marvellous Melbourne” as a result of the procurement of wealth.

The population of Melbourne grew swiftly as the gold fever took hold. The total number of people in Victoria also rose. By 1851 it was 75,000 people. Ten years later this rose to over 500,000.

Surface alluvial gold was the first to be exploited. It is reported that in 1851, when the first miners arrived on the Mount Alexander goldfield, near Castlemaine, nuggets could be picked up without digging. Then followed the exploitation of alluvial gold in creeks and rivers, or deposited in silt on river banks and flats. The gold-seekers used pans, sluice boxes and cradles to separate this gold from the dirt.

As surface alluvial gold ran out, gold seekers were forced to look further underground. Miners discovered so-called deep leads, which were gold-bearing watercourses that had been buried at various depths by centuries of silting and, in some Victorian goldfields such as Ballarat, volcanic action. They also began to exploit the underground gold reefs which were the original sources of the gold. Deep mining was more difficult and dangerous. Places such as Bendigo and Ballarat saw great concentrations of miners, who were forming partnerships and syndicates to enable them to sink ever-deeper shafts.

As gold-rush immigrants flooded into Victoria in 1852, a tent city, known as Canvas Town, was established at South Melbourne. The area soon became a massive slum, home to tens of thousands of migrants from around the world who arrived to seek their fortunes in the goldfields. Significant “Chinatowns” became established in Melbourne, Bendigo and Castlemaine.

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