Chilean mill

Replica horse-powered Chilean Mill at Sovereign Hill open-air museum in Ballarat.

The Chilean mill was a machine used on gold fields in an early period of gold mining. The machine was composed of two rotating wheels that would revolve over a pan filled with gold-bearing rocks. The idea was that the wheels would break open the rocks with gold, so they could harvest gold from multiple rocks at a time.

One of the earliest such machines was built in Ballarat in Victoria, Australia during the Victorian gold rush and was combined with a sluice for extracting the gold.[1]

References

  1. ↑ Davey, Christopher. The origins of Victorian Mining Machinery. Volume 19 The Artefact, 1996. pp 52-62


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