The opening of Lode in Stock’s air-hole from top of NW entrance, April 12th 1847, watercolour, National Library of Australia
In the 1840s, Gill recorded South Australia’s earliest mining boom – coppermania. In this watercolour, he includes himself in the picture as witness to the opening of a new lode. A miner rams home a charge of gunpowder, while hastily installed timbers support the already excavated areas. Around the edges of the cut-away rock are the exposed seams of gleaming colourful ores. Contemporary newspapers reported on the combination of dangerous and exhausting work and the wonderment of this enchanted subterranean world.