Carl Zaccharie in South Australian influx of German geological expertise and miners
Carl Zaccharie headed German miners operating the Wheal Gawler mine at Glen Osmond from 1850.
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia
Carl Zaccharie was heading a group of German miners operating the Wheal Gawler mine at Glen Osmond by 1850 – in addition to the 80 from Harz Mountains working at Burra copper mine by 1851.
Zaccharie was part of the influx of German geological expertise into South Australia after the discovery of copper in the 1840s. His geological report, originally written in German and published in the local German-language newspaper, was later translated and published in the English press.). He also did a report on on the Burra copper mine and the associated mineralisation. In 1851, “Herr Zachariae” was also named as scientific superintendent of the Lobethal Union Mining Company.
Other Germans working in South Australian mining and geology at this time include Gustav A.H. Thureau and J. Wilhelm T.L. von Blandowski, along with Dr Ferdinand von Sommer who was employed at Burra to make drawings of the mining field.
In 1848, Dr Georg Bruhn was advertising his services as a mineralogist, geologist, miner and chemist in Adelaide. He published his views on the (later confirmed) possibilities of being found coal in South Australia and sourced local finance to explore for deposits. Ironically, George Bruhn was among the experts who went to other colonies (von Sommer went to Western Australia) to make discoveries that brought South Australian mining to a halt. This is particularly so when Bruhn discovered gold in Victoria in 1852.
Zacchariae was among the geologists who headed to the Victorian goldfields. Even Johannes Menge, South Australia’s first official geologist, who had lived in the colony for 15 years and was aged 64, walked to Victoria but died soon after he arrived.
The Victorian gold rush put a serious brake on geology in South Australia as a discipline and a profession. It was only restarted when the University of Adelaide was opened in 1874 and with the Geological Survey of South Australia in 1882.