Prospecting for Gold

In the context of what this book is, and what it has offered to generations of Australians, this is an excellent book.
Essentially, it is a clearly and simply presented instruction manual for (primarily) gold mining in Australia. It starts at its most basic - shiny yellow stone, and ends describing a stone crushing battery. It covers everything in between. It describes everything you can imagine is needed, and it continually refers back to the basics.

Prospecting, dishing, banjoing & cradling. Hydraulics - boxing & sluicing. Dams and river work. Alluvial gold, dry stacking, wet season claims, hydraulic sluicing (at a large scale). Elevators, dry-blowing. Reefs and reefing, the battery, amalgamation, cyanide. Platinum, osmiridium, opals, oil.
Literally - it covers the lot.

It is well know that despite being produced in vast numbers, with significant re-prints and re-editions (with chapters added fairly regularly) copies are relatively rare, and indeed my copy (the picture associated with this edition is mine) is well worn, and I had the cover reattached by a binder. This just goes to show these are not books for the like of me - reading it on the couch, thinking about the many young men (primarily) who headed to the outback to try their hand at prospecting and mining - it was literally an instruction manual for the adventurers, the ambitious and those who were without regular work (there was a depression, and also a lot of soldiers returning after the war), who put in the hard hours, days and months putting the advice into practice, and hopefully succeeding.

I was genuinely impressed with Idriess and his sharing of knowledge. Yes, he probably made plenty of money selling all those copies, but really it seems he had a greater good in mind. Lots of successful miners, accessible cashflow and prosperous towns all mean an Australia on the up, and while all of Idriess' books celebrate success in one form or another (particularly his biographies, but also his autobiographical work) he was certainly committed to a Australia that keeps improving itself.

A pleasure to read. 5 stars.