Silvermania has miners rushing to Flinders Ranges' Ediacara and Beltana in speculative Adelaide 1880s bubble
A contemporary map showing the Ediacara and Beltana in the northern Flinders Ranges of South Australia during the 1880s silver rush. The many abandoned mines left their boilders scattered around the area.
Images courtesy Flinders Ranges Research
Ediacara in the South Australia’s northern Flinders Ranges was target of a renewed silver rush, after Beltana station overseer W.B. Greenwood made a discovery on in 1887.
Mines –Ediacara, New Ediacara, Ediacara Consols – sprung up, with 100-plus working at Winnowie Mine. They all stayed at Richards boarding house (“Winnowie Coffee Palace”).
In Beltana, Francis Molesworth, ex chemistry and geology lecturer, worked as assayer and agent at the mining exchange five days a week. On Saturdays, the building was used for dances and for Sunday church services. Molesworth found Ediacara mine specimens with 25 to 48 ounces of silver per ton.
Ediacara Silver Mining Company, from 1888, had mostly Beltana shareholders, including the Doig family with up to 21 claims. Beltana residents, who supplied materials to miners, petitioned the South Australian mines minister for a silver smelter in the town. Among companies formed to mine Ediacara, Winnowie and Wirrialpa fields was Mabel Silver Mining and Prospecting Syndicate with $1,000 capital. It dug a 20-metres tunnel without finding any silver.
Mabel Extended Silver Mining Company with $1,400 capital, four leases, and an office at Melvin Chambers, King William Street, Adelaide, backed two months digging in nearby Lake Torrens heat without success. Great Extended Beltana Silver Mining Company, with $20,000 capital mainly from Adelaide backers, was short lived.
Beltana Broken Hill Proprietary Silver Mining (1888) did better with four mineral claims at Ediacara. Its had Adelaide promoters but also Broken Hill, Silverton and Flinders Ranges shareholders, including John Gibbs, E.H. Blewett, F.M. Buttfield, J. Dobson, H. Shepherd from Beltana. Farina residents involved included J.J. Doig, A.S. Lewis, J. Napier, P. Provan. Several shafts and some drives exposed enough ore for captain Lewis to tell directors that five tons of ore were taken to Dry Creek smelting works, “the return from which (32oz.), if it can be maintained . . .will render yours a very valuable and dividend-paying mine”.
Great Winnowie Central Silver Mining with $100,000 capital and two Ediacara claims had MPs J.W. Downer, L. Scammell, W. Milne, H.W. Hughes and L.A. Jessop as directors but didn’t find much silver. In March 1888, more than 450 mineral section applications were made. Familiar names applied: E.H. Blewett, A. and E. Bralla, T.C. Cotter, C.M. and S.C. Hantke, C. Mottram, Edith Gason, F.M. and Helen Buttfield, A. Braddock, Anna and Marion Doig.
All mines needed huge amounts of timber, mainly for boilers and furnaces. Logistical problems in servicing mines continued. Yet Mount James Consolidated was incorporated when silvermania and excessive speculation on Adelaide stock exchange and the silver fields were exhausted. In July 1888, Beltana reported that “the silver boom being over, the gold fever has broken out, and the excitement is immense”. Gold hopes soon faded.
Silver still had believers at Ediacara where, in 1891, the government instructed E.C. Playford to survey a township. New Ediacara and Beltana North mines became Ediacara Consols Silver Mining Company that, in 1891, made a call of two shillings per share to increase capital, promising “great strides of development were being made and were at a stage where more machinery was indispensable”. Machinery included Gawler’s May Brothers' automatic pulsating concentrators. But directors kept calling for money as problems continued and the venture was called off. Edicara township was never proclaimed.
As late as 1947, Austral Mining and Smelting Company held leases at Edicara that later become internationally famous for pre-Cambrian fossils found there by Reg Sprigg.
