Flint in Australia - Our early "Flint Pebble Industry"

[john...@ozemail.com.au]

Flint in Australia -  Our early "Flint Pebble Industry"

 

Hello,

Here's some assorted flinty thoughts/data.

Cheers,  John B.

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Mentions of early ships having up to 30tons of flints as ballast can be found, but as Gary has pointed out - did they ever unload in Sydney in earliest times (before export industries developed).   Even convict ships would have carried some ballast to stabilies the keel - but when returning to Britain why unload any of that?.   

In the early 1900s Australia was producing quite a bit of flint itself.   But how much of it, if any, was passing through Sydney?

Supposedly anything can be found of eBay or similar, and "Australian flint" is no exception (e.g. https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1-3-lb-australian-flint-rough-lots-of-pink ).   That is being sold by someone who says "I intend to stand behind every last rock I sell."   What it is I don't know and it is hard to find photos of true Australian flint.

A 1904 photo "Australian flint tools" is of items from Boat Harbour”:

https://pictures.royalsociety.org/image-rs-10058

This doesn't look like flint though.

Most Australian flint is from Tertiary limestone, and having never yet seen any of it myself I cannot guess why it is called flint rather than chert.   The material does throw sparks with steel, so maybe that could be the reason?

At Carpenter Rocks in South Australia, the "Flint Pebble industry" developed with the registration of the Cape Banks Flint Company Ltd. in 1909.  

It was reported that "large deposits" were found along the coast and that they had "dislodged from the sea floor and accumulated along the foreshore".

It was said they were used for the paint industry, ceramic industry and in the mines all over Australia.    By 1916 they were producing 2,000-3,000 tons a year with up to 1,000 tons a year going to Broken Hill.   Australian total consumption at that time was about 8,000 tons a year.   The miners stacked up somewhere about one million tons collected.   That material turned over would produce about one ton in six suitable for dispatching.   The business of the competing Iceland pebbles had been introduced by the Krupps.   

They were collected in the size range of 3 to 4 inches, bagged and transported to Burrungule Railway Station.

A load for a bullock dray could be up to 12 tons.  

In November 1910 in the House of Representatives, during the discussion for the amendment of the Customs duties of the Commonwealth, Mr. John Livingston drew attention to the fact that the wattle bark and flint industries were both being undercut by cheap imports.   He described the necessity of doing something to protect the flint miners.   He noted that "flint stones, such as are used in the mines, have been discovered on the south-east coast of South Australia. Thousands of these stones can be obtained there, and can be delivered to the mines all over Australia at a very cheap rate.  Since this discovery, however, the flint stones imported from Iceland and France have been reduced in price to the extent of several pounds per ton. There is no protective duty, and the result is that, owing to this reduction in prices, those engaged in the local industry have on their hands a great heap of stones, which have been picked over at great cost, and carted to the nearest railway station for delivery. There are hundreds of tons of these stones which they cannot deliver to the mines owing to tile low prices ruling.  Both these industries are peculiar to our own country, and for the protection of our own people I trust that the Minister of Trade and Customs will devise some means before the session closes of assisting them. 1 have placed before him all the facts, and he has been good enough to say that he will do all that he can to assist, these industries.  I  am sure that he will carry out his promise to look carefully into the matter, and afford these industries a little protection in the interests of the workers of Australia".

This nodular flint is in the Tertiary Gambier Limestone and erosion by the sea along a 30 km stretch of cost from Port MacDonnell to Carpenter Rocks has concentrated extensive deposits of the nodules along the beaches.    The flint industry there supplied the limited Australian demand between the 1880s and 1985.   The estimated total resource there is 330,000t.   The recorded resources for areas that have been held under tenure is ca. 140,000 t from which an estimated 45,000 t been mined.  The main operation was Middle Point Flint, with an estimated resource of 80,000 tonnes, of which approximately half has been worked.  Activity ramped up during WWII, reaching 2,800 t.p.a. production rate.

The shore from Port MacDonnell to Carpenter's Rocks had many flint deposits pegged out by 1909 when people thought it might be marketable ( https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/203444115 )   

Near the headland of Northumberland is "an immense spit of piled flint jutting far out to sea" ( http://portmacdonnell.sa.au/data/documents/Stories-of-Port-MacDonnell.pdf ).    There is a photo in Google Earth at 38° 3'22.39"S , 140°45'51.05"E labelled "Flint Ridge", but now when you open it one only reads "The classic Panoramio layer in Google Earth is no longer available since Panoramio has been retired".   

Incredibly the best description of all this might be in the 1989 report  "The flint report" written by D.J. Flint, R.B. Flint and M.W. Flintoft ... which Mineral Resources Divison of South Australia ( resources.cus...@sa.gov.au ( .. the Division's webpages currently have this and other links broken) [ Flint, D.J., Flint, R.B. and Flintoft, M.W., 1989. The flint report.  South Australia. Department of Mines and Energy. Report Book, 89/52].

Aborigines also mined the flint in SA, e.g. at Koonalda Cave (inland).   At Koonalda Cave there is evidence that flint mining extended about 75 metres below the surface and up to 300 metres from the entrance of the cave.   In "Australia: The Land Where Time Began" the writer states that Koonalda Cave is the oldest dated stone quarry known from Sahul.

Re the Thames flint, this man says it is "pretty dreadful" quality ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zF37AQ-TiBM ), and that the Thames flint is "beautifully black" - 'pure black stuff' with very few inclusions.   Also he thinks the flint gets 'naturally smashed to pieces as it goes down stream .. and that the river in this process makes pretty good 'impersonations' of prehistoric stone tools (from www.prehistoricsshop.co.uk ).

The Thames Discovery Programme is an organisation devoted to the archaeological exploration of the river.    "Introduction to flint and lithics (Jon Cotton) ... Join Jon Cotton, James Dilley and the Thames Discovery Programme for a day all about flint. The workshop will explore the place flint occupies in archaeology and you will learn how to recognise worked flint and how to diffentiate between different types of flint tools. The afternoon will include an opportunity to learn and have a go at flint knapping techniques."