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LA MASCOTTE TREATMENT WORKS
LocationSOPTHORPES TRACK AND LITTLE DART RIVER CORRYONG, TOWONG SHIRE LevelHeritage Inventory Site |
Statement of Significance
The La Mascotte Gold Battery and Chlorination Works has been well scavenged but still retains a 60ft long roasting furnace. The furnace is constructed of rivetted iron panels and its interior still retains some of its brickwork. Associated with the furnace are numerous buried and partly buried machinery bits, and some ground level foundations. The La Mascotte Company erected the furnace (a mechanically rabbled one) on the site in 1897. The chlorination works proved unprofitable and was eventually closed in 1903. The La Mascotte Gold Battery and Chlorination Works is of historical, scientific and archaeological importance to the State of Victoria. The La Mascotte Gold Battery and Chlorination Works is historically and scientifically important as a characteristic and well preserved example of an important form of gold mining. When the greater part of the gold in some ores is contained in its pyritical contents, the gold is very difficult to extract. From the mid nineteenth century miners experimented with various metallurgical (or heat treatment) processes to unlock gold from heavily mineralised ore. Evidence of these metallurgical processes, such as the one carried out by the La Mascotte Company from 1897-1903, are extremely rare in the State of Victoria. The La Mascotte Gold Battery and Chlorination Works is archaeologically important for its potential to yield artefacts and evidence which will be able to provide significant information about the technological history of gold mining. [Source: Victorian Heritage Register]
Group
Mining and Mineral Processing
Category
Battery/Crusher