WARDEN BATTERY AND TREATMENT WORKS SITE
CASSILIS ROAD TONGIO, EAST GIPPSLAND SHIRE
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Statement of Significance
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WARDEN BATTERY AND TREATMENT WORKS SITE - History
Heritage Inventory History of Site: The Warden battery began its working life as the Hope battery, erected by the Rose of Australia Syndicate in 1889, when the Cassilis quartz reefs were first coming to life. In 1893, it was purchased by McCulloch and Eckberg, who operated it on the same site as a public treatment works, adding a chlorination plant. In 1894, the plant consisted of a 10-head battery, hydraulic separator, Frue vanners, and a large settling pit, and was described as ‘the best fitted plant to treat the sulphide ores… and will probably shortly be furnished also with the necessary furnaces, apparatus, &c., to work them on metallurgical principles’. A Cyanogen (cyanidation) plant was added soon after, to treat tailings from the settling pit. As a public treatment works, the battery and plant were instrumental reviving the Cassilis reefs, many of which had been idle since 1890, when miners found it difficult to retrieve gold from the complex ore. Prospectors were able to prove the value of abandoned claims, by having ore tested at McCulloch and Eckberg’s up-to-date works.In 1896, the Warden GMC purchased the plant, which by then consisted of battery with boiler and steam engine, two Wilfley tables, five Frue & Triumph vanners, two Watson & Denny grinding pans, chlorination plant, 160-ton capacity cyanide plant, and 38 x 10 ft open-hearth roasting furnace with flue and chimney stack. The Warden Co. added an Otis rotary mill (ex Mt Hepburn Co.) and fitted their battery and mine with electric light.The Warden mine was located on Mt Markey, about 1 mile east of Cassilis, with the battery at the mouth of a gully which headed on the opposite side of the ridge. Ore was sleighed uphill from the mine, then tipped down a chute to the head of the gully, and finally carted by drays to battery. The Warden battery crushed and treated ore for most mines on the Markey line of reef during the 1890s-1900s, and their treatment process consistently achieved a higher average yield than the far more expensive plants associated with the Mt Hepburn mine. The Warden mine was one of the main mines at Cassilis until 1905, after which it was tried with less success until 1913.Heritage Inventory Description
WARDEN BATTERY AND TREATMENT WORKS SITE - Heritage Inventory Description
Battery - partly collapsed timber uprights and framework for 10-head battery. Stampers and other machinery removed. Cyanide works - two uprooted and one in situ 16ft diam galvanised iron vats with concrete bases and two full slum ponds, several circular impressions with jumbles of circular iron rings. Furnace - stone base of roasting furnace and extensive scatter of red brick, some in situ iron work remains. Calcined sand - small peaked dump of burnt sand above road.
Heritage Inventory Significance: RegionalScientific significanceùrange of features
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WARDEN BATTERY AND TREATMENT WORKS SITEVictorian Heritage Inventory
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