The Diggings was a colloquial term for the
gold rush
A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New Z ...
locations in
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
and the United States beginning in the 1850s.
Gold miner
Gold mining is the extraction of gold resources by mining. Historically, mining gold from alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. However, with the expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surface ...
s - the
diggers - would describe their journey "to the diggings" and say they were "at (or on) the diggings." Because of the speed at which a "rush" to a particular location might occur, or at which it might be abandoned at news of another rush, the term diggings tended to apply to general areas.
In Victoria, some of the major diggings were
Ballarat
Ballarat ( ) is a city in the Central Highlands (Victoria), Central Highlands of Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. At the 2021 Census, Ballarat had a population of 116,201, making it the third largest city in Victoria. Estimated resid ...
,
Bendigo
Bendigo ( ) is a city in Victoria, Australia, located in the Bendigo Valley near the geographical centre of the state and approximately north-west of Melbourne, the state capital.
As of 2019, Bendigo had an urban population of 100,991, makin ...
(Sandhurst),
Mount Alexander or Forest Creek,
Ovens Valley
The Ovens River, a perennial river of the north-east Murray catchment, part of the Murray-Darling basin, is located in the alpine and Hume regions of the Australian state of Victoria.
Location and features
Formed by the confluence of the East ...
and
Omeo
Omeo ( ) is a town in Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia on the Great Alpine Road, east of Mount Hotham, in the Shire of East Gippsland. At the 2016 Australian census, 2016 census, Omeo had a population of 406. The name is derived from a ...
.
In the US the major gold rushes were the
California gold rush
The California Gold Rush (1848–1855) was a gold rush that began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California fro ...
, the
Colorado gold rush
The Pike's Peak Gold Rush (later known as the Colorado Gold Rush) was the boom in gold prospecting and mining in the Pike's Peak Country of western Kansas Territory and southwestern Nebraska Territory of the United States that began in July 1858 a ...
and the
Alaska gold rush.
As surface gold diminished and mining companies replaced individual diggers, the term "diggings" dropped out of use.
The miners used a shovel, a pan, a cradle or
sluice box
Placer mining () is the mining of stream bed (alluvial) deposits for minerals. This may be done by open-pit (also called open-cast mining) or by various surface excavating equipment or tunneling equipment.
Placer mining is frequently used for p ...
and other tools to dig for gold.
Australian gold rushes
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