When gold was first discovered in Mt Alexander in 1851, Victoria’s Governor quickly realized a surveyor was needed to understand the land formations. Governor Hoddle wrote to the office of the Colony in London requesting someone with appropriate qualifications and expertise.
In May 1852, Victorias first Geological Mapmaker Alfred Selwyn (pictured right)arrived .
In 1856, Selwyn and his team commenced a systematic program of surveying – beginning with Central Victoria/ Castlemaine area and the country around Melbourne – which would result in the map series known as the quarter sheets.
This was map-making from scratch. Since no reliable topographic maps existed, Selwyn’s geologists had to create their own, precisely surveying every gully and hill before they could overlay the geological details.
Of the four years (1858-62) it took Ulrich and Aplin to complete the Castlemaine quarter sheets, three were spent in mapping the topography.
To figure out what lay under the ground, field geologists relied on clues exposed in outcrops, road cuttings, quarries – and mines. In the course of their Castlemaine mapping, Aplin and Ulrich climbed into 3,000 diggers’ holes and dug 81 of their own, each about 3 metres deep. They not only ‘read’ the strata exposed in these holes, but prospected for gold, so as to gauge the extent of the goldfields.
Alfred Selwyn declared the Castlemaine quarter sheets ‘a perfect specimen of what the goldfields’ geological maps ought to be’. To read more of the escapades of these early journeymen read here.
Oh, and the first person to leave a comment might just get a prize!
Geological Survey camp tent, ca.1865
