Last worked on:  November 2011

Please send enquiries and further material to john.mail@ozemail.com.au

NB: This file is at various places but only the version at http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5737284/mining-museum.htm has been updated post-2009.

Sydney at just after the end of the century (I think?).   At the close of the 19th century Sydney had long outgrown its penal settlement roots and was a solid city in a wave of change.   Electricity was introduced - trams ran alongside horses and street lamps would change from gas to electricity.  But electricity came in two flavours, AC and DC.  The choice was not entirely straight-forward and strong influences promoted each alternative.  The State was backing DC but the City fathers opted for AC.  In the context of these machinations a (State) DC powerstation that began construction in George Street at the Rocks was abandonned and never fitted out with generating machinery, although the chimney for the boilers did get constructed.   It was in this 'white elephant' building that Mines Department gained space for its museum.   The museum had existed before then but had migrated between temporary places of accomodation around the city.   This power station building which was never initiated as a power station became the permanent home of the museum - till the unhappy day when the State government many many years later hit it on the head with the strong hammer of economic rationalism - the museum had been asked to 'pay for upkeep'.   There was no way it could.  The government tried privatising it, giving it to industry to have and to hold, but it proved an unwanted gift for industry to, and thus it perished.    Gone but not entirely forgotten.  A few of t he memories or other traces are gathered herein.    One of the museum's mechanical displays, an earthquake machine, migrated to California and as last heard of is still in storage somewhere over there.   The rocks, minerals and fossils remain owned by the State and have been safely conserved - but somewhat sadly it is not thought likely that any form of mining/geological museum will be revived in the near future based on these materials.   Despite the fact that several generations of much smaller population managed to support such a place, with little known public outcry over outlandish cost of it all, such a museum these days is considered too expensive to contemplate. 

 

A museological 3Ms - from 'methodist'/'method-ological' (scientific) to 'Mickey Mouse' (popularist/policy-driven) 

.  

George William Card, as the above (Minfo 20, p. 66) suggests, was much of the methodical approach.   As he envisaged a museum it was 

via a very scientific and ordered (taxonomic/"stamp-collecting") consideration of things.   This was the methodical/'methodist' or what, in

retrospect, might be called the 'traditionalist' way.   Sydney's Mining Museum went from methodist to Mickey Mouse, and then died.

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT "MINING AND GEOLOGICAL" MUSEUMS

With special reference to the former Mining Museum formed at Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

The Mining Museum (a NSW government State museum) suffered two great disasters:

- When first housed within the Garden Palace it burned down and virtually all the collections were lost, then later on

- Years after the collections had been gradually re-built, and the Museum re-housed at a location (in a never-used State DC power station at the Rocks which seemed to offer stability), the then State Treasurer, Mr Egan, gave it the chop ... as a budgetary saving.

-- It is also`of at least passing interest that the same Mr Egan who gave the chop to the museum also gave the green light to privatise the NSW Electricity industry .  That was in 1997 and that process was gradual because of massive opposition along the way, with the final intended sell-off completed in 2010 (power generation still being retained in State control).  On the very eve of the sell-off, the majority of the Directors of the State electricity enterprises resigned in protest at what was transpiring.  When first announced in 1997 some 4,000 people were expected to lose their jobs.  The final outcome is possibly still not yet tallied in jobs lost or other terms but both sides of politics have labelled it disastrous - the Right saying the State sold the assets far too cheaply, and the Left deploring that it was all done totally against the clearly expressed will of the people (and even of the majority in the Labor Party itself), then asking how can any faith in democracy now be restored?  The "power sell-off" or "power struggle" became one of the biggest and most bitter political struggles in NSW history.  The NSW Government in December 2010 announced a midnight deal worth more than $5 billion to sell off the state's electricity assets.   Under the sale, the government-owned retailers were sold to Origin Energy and the Hong Kong company TRUEnergy, both of them to be serviced by the state-owned power generators Delta Electricity and Eraring Energy.  However, Board members on both state-owned electricity companies resigned en masse rather than back the privatisation deal.  Tony Maher was just one of the defecting directors who regarded the deal as such a squandering of state assets he simply would not be party to it ( fide http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2010/s3094305.htm ).

Staff of the former Geological and Mining Museum at "The Rocks"  area of Sydney Harbour.   Photo taken at a 1996 reunion  - Numerous people and a number of dogs have been associated with the museum over time.   [ A preliminary staff listing for the old Mining Museum has been commenced.  For the moment this list is not linked here as  it is considered that it is may still be too error-ridden, or could be much improved - but if wanting a copy please  contact the writer to john.mail@ozemail.com.au to be sent a copy, or to contribute any names or details of people who worked there] .  

 

PREAMBLE

It is perhaps a little hard to say what this webpage is about as all things are connected and it has rambled off in different directions according to what information has so far been found.   Apology for that and is hoped/intended to eventually split off the diverse themes into individual webpages of tighter focus once sufficient has accumulated for each.

The central theme started as 'Memories of the Mining Museum', a place where the writer began working as an NSW public servant, in the Mines Department.

However, even the mining museum is not entirely a simple concept/entity.

The mining museum, as the collection of the NSW Geological Survey moved around Sydney and tangible portions of it still live on today in the form of a building at The Rocks (Geological and Mining Museum, renamed Earth Exchange, renamed Arts Exchange) , the State collection it housed (later moved with the Chemical Laboratory to Lidcombe, and later still to Londonderry), and at a least on part of the former displays (an 'earthquake machine') whose later movements have been found and are described herein (other portions of the given-away display materials could be at Lithgow coal museum and at gold museums north of Bathurst, not yet enquired after).

The museum relics (like the earthquake machine) and collections (rocks, fossils, minerals and ores) and museum building which do survive are however not the original.   Little, or more likely nothing, survives of the earlier places the museum or collection earlier resided in - like an old Iron Shed in the Domain, and the magnificent Garden Palace.   The Garden Palace was a disaster in the history of the museum and it burned down and all was lost - the museum having at that time to rebuild its collections from scratch.

People believed, at first, that the museum had obtained a 'permanent' home when it moved into a building built at the Rocks by the NSW Government for an abandonned and indeed still born idea - a DC power station.   Why the State formulated and went ahead as far as it did with such a plan is a mystery which is still being investigated.  For an AC/DC debate ("battle of the currents") had been waged in America in the 1890s which had demonstrated AC as the clear winner, and moreover the Municipal Council of the city of Sydney was known to be building a big power station at the time the building at the Rocks went up - so why was the State even contemplating to 'compete' with that?    As it was being built, the Rocks power station's plans were much downsized and a lower building completed than the six storey one on the original plan - reflecting how second thoughts on the scheme must have been afoot(?).   Even though built as a power station no further action to equip it was made and the whole idea was obviously abandonned.   The request to make it into a museum for Mines (and also Forestry and Agriculture) and a Chemical Laboratory (for Mines' Assay Branch, then at Clyde) was agreed to, so the building what then complete to the orginally planned number of level and duly occupied by government department staffs.   Mines moved in immediately.  Agriculture followed but both Agriculture and Forestry appeared only half-hearted in the museum business and it is thought they soon faded from the scene (to be checked) and the building came to be entirely the domain of the Mines Department other than that the Julian Ashton Arts School somehow moved in there too.   How Julian Ashton came to gain tenancy in the building is still unknown.   In 1890 Julian Ashton opened the Sydney Art School in Beaumont Chambers, King St.  Later on it was located in the Queen Victoria Building, then in 1933 The Sydney Art School moved into the museum building at the Rocks.   At present (2010) a comprehensive HISTORY OF THE SYDNEY ART SCHOOL / JULIAN ASHTON ART SCHOOL  is progress, so more information should be forthcoming.

The museum occupied the 'power station' building for many years but by the 1970s some staff who were on site and witnessing change in the city and rising land values were worried that the coming potential for more profitable land use could destroy the museum.   The advocated relocating the museum to cheaper land at Londonderry or anywhere well west of the City.   The 'relocate or perish' concerns were dismissed outright at senior departmental levels and no relocation was ever seriously considered.   In 1995 a consortium of Aboriginal groups asked the newly elected Premier Bob Carr for the building in order to establish there an Aboriginal Arts Centre.   According to them (details below) the Premier told them they could have the building.  That same year the government announced closure of the museum.  Which came first, closure or the promise of the building for alternate use by the Premier, is still being looked into.  Museum staff around the time of the closure only knew of the art centre proposal by way of rumour.

Webpage / file contents:    For the moment (and just for my own storage convenience) things that may come my way on geological museums and collections have also been put into this file - including many links at the bottom of this page for which I thank Ms Penny Packham of the Australian Fossil and Mineral Museum in Bathurst.   Later on all other that Mining Museum of Sydney material will probably be separated off into other webpage files.  Also in existence is a file on the people who worked at or were associated with the Mining Museum in Sydney.  If you would like a copy of that please contact me ( john.mail "at" ozemail.com.au).   For the moment that file is not linked here pending improvement to it in accuracy and comprehensiveness. 

Later on it is intended to separate the Sydney Geological and Mining Museum (the "Mining Museum") to its own webpage, as the 'chronology' for it is improved.  

The case of the Homestake mine in the USA is especially noted, since in the future there may be apt comparison made between it and whatever becomes of Broken Hill (NSW) materials, in  the geoheritage sense.

 

~~~~~

THE FORMER

MINING MUSEUM

AT

THE ROCKS, SYDNEY

AUSTRALIA.

*

*

THE  GEOLOGICAL SURVEY MUSEUM

Note approximate three levels:  1) shore, 2) George Street North, 3) hill on skyline.  Between 1/2 was a cut vertical quarry face (within the base of which quarry the power station and two structures to the right of it were built.   A higher quarry face, above George Street also was developed.

Sydney Cove towards a century earlier than the above view with the 'mining museum' Power Station erected.  This view was published in London in 1810, by Clarke, after John Eyre (an aquatint drawing).  The high rocks in the foreground (after which name of 'The Rocks' was given to the western side of Sydney Cove is seen in the image below too, and where the railway line and Harbour Bridge was later built to cross to the North Shore of Sydney.

According to the CNN video, made October 2011 when the above book was about to begin its journey 'home' to Sydney, it had been found in a house in London that had belonged to a couple who left no heirs.  The book was auctioned.  It  had been found in a bedroom closet, behind some clothes and piled on top of a shelf with some other books.  

[ BTW:  The above painting, which was repatriated from England (private possession0 by the NSW Government in 2011 at considerable cost, is but one of many detailed images of the Colony left to us by the very stilled convict artist Joseph Lycett.   Lycett had been convicted of forgery on 10 August 1811 and was transported to Australia, sailing aboard the General Hewitt, arriving in 1814.  In May 1815 while Lycett was employed in the police office, Sydney became flooded by hundreds of skillfully forged 5 shilling bills drawn on the postmaster.  They were traced to Lycett, who was found in possession of a small copper-plate press.  Lycett was sent to Coal River or Newcastle, a place of internal exile and further punishment for those already under the punishment of being transported convicts.  At newscastle he came to the attention of the commandant there, Captain James Wallis.  Wallis used his skills on a number of projects, which likely included two significant painted collectors chests, both now held by the State Library.  Lycett also drew up the plans for a church, and when it was built in 1818 he painted the altar piece.  After his sentence had expired, and he'd received his pardon 1821, he returned to England in 1822 with his daughters.  The Monitor, dated 16 April 1828, reporting the same man, published this:  "FORGED NOTES.- Last week the constables of Birmingham proceeded to the house of an engraver, named Lycett, in Bath-row, in that town, to search for forged notes, and in one of the upstairs rooms found newly-prepared £1. plate, of the Stourbridge and Bramsgrove Bank, with a facsimile of the signature, entry, number, and date.  Lycett, alarmed at the consequences, cut his throat; but he was removed, to the hosptital, and it is expected he will recover. His daughter, who was found with him in the house, is also in custody".  Lycett died in Birmingham and a penciled note in a copy of his Views in the State Library states that when in hospital he tore open the wound and thus completed the killing of himself.  However, this is not confirmed as far as I know. ]

 

The Mining Museum housed the geological and mining related collection commenced and looked after by the Mines Department, or more specifically the Geological Survey branch of that department.   It moved around Sydney a little prior to seemingly finding a 'permanent' home in the building shown above which had been build as a power station but then abandonned as such before going into use.

This 'Mining Museum' building, then 'Government Power House' (with chimney) was photographed as above in 1904 by the American adventurer Melvin Vaniman (1866-1912).   Vaiman arrived in Sydney in February 1903 and spent a year, on and off, photographing the city and harbour. His distinctive panoramas were nearly always taken from high above the ground and if a nearby building or ship’s mast was not at hand he erected his own thirty-metre pole to achieve a bird’s-eye view.   How he obtained the above photo is uncertain.   The bare land at right hand edge is where the Sydney Harbour Bridge and railway lines now pass.    

Melvin Vaiman took his 1904 photo showing the 'mining museum' power house in 1804 which was the time when the first Sydney city electric street lights were turned on. At the time, the promising electricity business was a department of the Sydney Municipal Council and served a population of about half a million.  The new lighting was running AC.   Turning them on was the utlimate demonstration of the futility of the Rocks DC power station.  It would be cheaper for premises nearbyt to get their electricity from the Council.   The major puzzle, as will be further discussed, is why the State-built Rocks DC power station ever got planned and commenced at all - as there must have been much evidence by then that AC was superior and of what the Council was planning.

Finding the history of the mining museum (power station) building and land has been a slow business.    Tony Brassil, heritage officer at the National Trust, advised in 2008 as follows:

"The building was designed by Govt. Architect W L Vernon and built 1902-1903 for an Electric Light Station and Workshop on an old vacant quarry site. The lower part of the building was constructed but left unfinished and roofless, with the generating equipment never installed.  This was simply because it was realised that, if the government was to enter into the field, the original plan/proposal was far too small for the projected demand (economic considerations relating to centralised generation mostly) ..... and the building was too small to hold bigger or additional generators and the site too small to allow expansion so, in 1903, planning for a Sydney Council power station changed direction and a new power station building was commenced in Pyrmont it started operation in 1904 (generating AC)".   And "It was not the size of machines or AC/DC that was the critical issue - the Parsons turbine installed in Ultimo Power House in 1903 was already proving that reciprocating steam engines were on the way out for electricity generation and AC was already on the way in - rather, it was the lack of potential for expansion that would prevent the Rocks ever being a viable power station.  The incomplete building at the Rocks was transferred to the Mines Department for use as a geological museum in 1908.     

Similar also comes from the Sydney City heritage inventory and other sources.  For example, a similar version found on the net states "The power station was built to supply power to the 1,000 dwellings in the Rocks /Millers Point area following resumptions of the whole area after the outbreak of the Bubonic Plague in 1900. Demand quickly outstripped supply and the power station was grossly inadequate. Furthermore, debate had been raging as to whether direct current (DC) or alternating current (AC) should be adopted as the world standard. In consequence to the leaning towards AC, a decision was made during its construction to change from DC to AC and the new station was not big enough to house the new equipment."   No primary sources have yet been identified, however.

 

 THE 'WAR OF CURRENTS'

It is interesting or perhaps even somehow ironic, or a least a strange 'quirk' or history that the Mining Museum (then renamed as the Earth Exchange) was killed off by the same man as first began the undermining/devolution/privatisation of State Electricity in NSW, Mr Egan --- yet that it was an earlier 'electricity war' - sometimes called the war of the currents - which gave rise to a back-then State electricity generating station (built for the "losing current - DC") being abandonned and then becoming a home that served the Mining Museum collections and staff so well for a great many years.    

As Tony Brassil has noted, it may not have been the AC/DC debate or "War of Currents" that was the critical issue for the non-proceeding of the Rocks or George Street power station plan.   The fact of the Council coming along with a much bigger and better scheme at the same time must have been critical.   Nonetheless,  the AC/DC debate is well to know about since that too surely must have been influencing the thinking of State Government (... and when it decided to generally adopt DC?   Some think this occurred soon after 1900.).   

However, even after Sydney's general conversion to AC there remained with some customers a strong preference for DC, which had some significant part to play for a long time thereafter.  For example, despite Pyrmont producing AC electricity in 1904, the Council made a key decision to continue supplying the central business area with DC.  Machines were therefore installed at Town Hall and Lang Park for that purpose. These incorporated the rotating elements of an AC motor and a DC generator into one unit, to ‘rectify’ the AC input back into a DC output.  One reason for such was that many customers already had DC lamps and motors connected to their own generators or to the supply of certain small private generation companies, and the expense of conversion to AC - whether borne by the customer or the Council - would have been a major deterrent to the Council winning their business.  Thus the central area of the City apparently stayed for some time on DC even though the Council had decided to generate AC power.

In 1909 the Council engaged Preece and Cardew to review the technical, financial and commercial direction of their electricity business undertaking.  Cardew was largely satisfied, but questioned the Council's practice of continuing DC distribution in the inner city.  He suggested that it would be preferable to supply large customers with high voltage three-phase AC and to step down the voltage at their premises.

The operating advantages of DC - easier cable undergrounding, apparently greater reliability, suitability for motors and the scope for battery storage - had been been overtaken by AC technology yet it was not until August 1930 that Council finally adopted a policy of changing from DC to AC in the central area.  Due to the Depression, and then WWII, the transition was delayed but in 1954 was said to be ‘90% completed’.  Even though no new DC connections were made after 1935, DC supply was maintained to customers who did not wish to, or could not change. The last substation to maintain DC supply was Clarence Street, using mercury arc rectifiers.  By 1974 the maximum DC demand was 0.7 MW compared with a maximum AC demand of 209 MW in the City (and 1,983 MW for the network as a whole). The last DC supply was ceremonially switched off on 28 August 1985 by Mrs.L.Ashby, grand-daughter of Mrs.Lees, who as Lady Mayoress had switched on the City’s first electric lights 81 years earlier in 1904.

   

Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931), left,  who invented the phonograph and the electric light globe was for DC.  Nikola Telsa (1856-1943), right was for AC.

During the initial years of electricity use, Edison's direct current was the standard for the United States.  In 1887 there were 121 Edison power stations in the United States delivering DC electricity to customers.

Edison's DC distribution system consisted of generating plants feeding heavy distribution conductors, with customer loads (lighting and motors) tapped off them. The system operated at the same voltage level throughout; for example, 100 volt lamps at the customer's location would be connected to a generator supplying 110 volts, to allow for some voltage drop in the wires between the generator and load. At the time it was felt that 100 volts was not likely to present a severe hazard of fatal electric shock.

A three wire distribution system was used. The three wires were at +110 volts, 0 volts and −110 volts relative potential. 100-volt lamps could be operated between either the +110 or −110 volt legs of the system and the 0-volt "neutral" conductor, which only carried the unbalanced current between the + and − sources. The resulting three-wire system used less copper wire for a given quantity of electric power transmitted, while still maintaining (relatively) low voltages.  However, even with this innovation, the voltage drop due to the resistance of the system conductors was so high that generating plants had to be located within a mile (1-2 km) or so of the load.  Thus the Rocks power station is thought by some only to have been likely designed only to service the Rocks area itself (then being under consideration of re-building after a clearance due to bubonic plague in 1900).

Higher voltages could not be used easily with the DC system because there was no efficient low-cost technology that would allow reduction of a high transmission voltage to a low utilization voltage.

In the alternating current system, a transformer was much more easily used between the (relatively) high voltage distribution system and the customer loads.  This could allow power to be transmitted at much higher voltages, say, ten times that of the loads. For a given quantity of power transmitted, the wire diameter would be inversely proportional to the voltage used. Alternatively, the allowable length of a circuit, given a wire size and allowable voltage drop, would increase approximately as the square of the distribution voltage. This had the practical significance that fewer, larger generating plants could serve the load in a given area.  Equally important as time went on was that large loads, such as industrial motors or converters for electric railway power, could be served by the same distribution network that fed lighting, just by using a transformer with a suitable secondary voltage.  Also, converting DC power from one voltage to another requires large spinning machinery which was difficult, expensive, inefficient, and required maintenance, whereas with AC the voltage can be changed with simple and efficient transformers that have no moving parts and require very little maintenance.  This was another key to the success of the AC system.  Modern transmission grids regularly use AC voltages up to 765,000 volts.

As AC rose in popularity, by 1886 the Westinghouse Electric Co. was employing 3,000 people.  By the time Tesla lectured on a system for alternating current generators, transformers, motors, wires and lights in November and December 1887, it had become clear to many that AC was the future of electric power in general, and especially for distribution networks.  However, low frequency (50-60 Hz) alternating currents can be more dangerous than similar levels of DC since the alternating fluctuations cause the heart to lose coordination (ventricular fibrillation).  

When the limitations of DC began to be publicly appreciated, Edison seized on the seemingly higher danger of AC to launch a propaganda campaign to convince people that AC was far too dangerous to use.  He carried out a campaign against of alternating current, including spreading disinformation on fatal AC accidents, publicly killing animals, and lobbying against the use of AC in state legislatures. Edison directed his technicians to preside over several AC-driven killings of animals, primarily stray cats and dogs but also unwanted cattle and horses. Acting on these directives, they were to demonstrate to the press that alternating current was more dangerous than Edison's system of direct current.  Although Edison claimed to be opposed capital punishment his desire to disparage the system of alternating current led to the invention of the electric chair in 1890 - all part of promoting the idea that alternating current was deadlier than DC.  Years after DC had lost the "war of the currents," in 1902, his film crew made a movie of the electrocution with high voltage AC, supervised by Edison employees, of  Topsy, a Coney Island circus elephant which had recently killed three men.   

Eventually, the General Electric company was formed by a merger between Edison's companies and the AC-based rival Thomson-Houston group in 1892.  However the merged GE continued to favour DC.   At the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, J.P. Morgan (General Electric Company) offered to power the first all-electric fair.  GE, still backing DC,  asked for one million dollars to light the fair. This task would require massive amounts of copper wire, some for the motors, and others for the lights. Different wires had to be used because of DC's difficult to change voltage. George Westinghouse was by this time, a believer and supporter of Tesla's AC system. He offered to light the fair for half the price. This was a practical offer because AC wouldn't require all the wire DC needed. So a point was won for AC and Tesla when Westinghouse was granted the contract for powering the fair.  On May 1st 1893, the Chicago world exhibition was festively opened by the American President Grover Cleveland.  By turning on a hundred thousand bright lamps, he lighted the entire fairgrounds, and the spectacle clearly conveyed to the visitors that the future of electricity lay with alternate current.

GE's retaliation was to ban the use of Edison's lamps for Westinghouse. This was a small obstacle for Tesla and Westinghouse, as they once again paralyzed the public in awe at the Columbian Exposition later that same year. They were chosen over Edison's DC system to power the fairgrounds and win the appreciation of spectators and energy users of the country. It didn't take many more displays of superiority for AC to be renowned as the more efficient power source.  More successful demonstration of AC capability came at Niagara Falls in  1896.    

Apparently Edison never acknowledged he'd been wrong in the battle of the currents till as late as 1908.  However, with the superiority of AC so well demonstrated in the 1890s one must wonder why was the NSW Government designing a DC power station in the early 1900s?

Tony Brassil also noted that in by 1882 in Sydney, the Government (i.e. various government departments/ authorities and the City Council) was operating lighting plants at Circular Quay, in the NSW Parliament Chambers, the GPO and at Macquarie Lighthouse.  The City Council in 1882 consulted overseas experts, including Edison, about the cost of lighting the streets of Sydney with electric light.  Placing a plant at Circular Quay would have enabled to important wharves to be illuminated.  Nothing further about the lighting plant at Circular Quay has been discovered, nor for how long electricity generation at Circular Quay persisted.   The same year, 1882, was when the world's first commercial electric power station began, in London (For a time line of electricity developments see http://www.ewh.ieee.org/r10/nsw/subpages/history/history_electricity_syd_county_council.pdf).

"Electrifying Sydney" - an article in the September 1996 issue of Engineering Heritage Australia, on the installation of Sydney's street lighting.

( Copy gratefully received from Michael Clarke )

The Municipal Council of Sydney Electric Lighting Bill 1896 had authorised the City Council to undertake such work.  The first step taken to establish the Council as an electricity generator was to engage an overseas expert, Sir William Preece.  Sir William arrived in Sydney in 1900 and he recommended a station site in Kent Street near the Observatory - which is not far from the 'Mining Museum' power station.  Kent Street did not proceed and the Council instead built at Pyrmont.  Construction of the power station at Kent Street would have commenced in 1900 but for the outbreak of plague. On public health grounds, the government resumed all of the Darling Harbour waterfrontage, including the power station site.  In 1902 the Council purchased a new site in Pyrmont near the harbour foreshore, with good access to cooling water and suitable for coal delivery by both rail and sea.

Clearly with the rapid rise of Pyrmont, the Hickson Road power station was not needed.   However the details of how two power schemes came to be running in parallel in Sydney like this have not yet been found.   NSW Heritage says of the matter "The building is illustrative of the then debate on electricity supply, DC current being strongly, and stubbornly, supported by Thomas Edison. Generally however AC power was universally adopted and this power station was never put into action" ( http://www.heritage.nsw.gov.au/07_subnav_01_2.cfm?itemid=5053178  ).    Truly one images there must have been some local 'debate' somewhere on this too .. but where is it?

Tropman and Tropman (1996) have even said that this failed/abandonned power station is "representative" of the decision to "generally change from direct current (DC) supply to alternating current (AC) supply in NSW".

What *exactly* transpired is still subject of speculation .. one can imagine that with the City Council rolling out the electricity cables by 1903, and commencing its own power station at Pyrmont, the State government must have been rapidly having very serious "second thoughts" about necessity of its own power station at the Rocks(?).   The Rocks one is assumed to be State as no mention of the Council in connection with it has turned up.   The 1902 plans were drawn by the first Government Architect Walter Liberty Vernon for the 'Electric Light Station and Workshop' and they depicted a six level structure facing George Street.   But in 1903 a set of revised plans was again drawn by Vernon and these showed only a two level structure facing George Street and a three levels high structure facing Hickson Rd.   It was built as a power station in that reduced form, but the generating equipment was never installed. 

The upper floors were completed in 1908-1909 so that it could be occupied by the Mines Department as a museum and chemical laboratory.   In that year (The Sydney Morning Herald, Tuesday 10 August 1909, p. 9) a published explanation of events read:

""""""""""""""""

During Mr. O'Sulllvan's term of office as Minister for Works the building of an electric light station for the Government was undertaken. A site in Goorge Street North was secured, with a frontage also, to Ferry-road, which abuts on to the western side of the Circular Quay. A massive smoke stack began to rise above tho surrounding roofs, and became an object of interest from the harbour. The scheme, however, was abandoned, for in the meantime the Government found It more advantageous to get its supply from the City Council electric light plant, so the buildings, which up to this point had been erected by day labour, were deserted. The Mines Department, however, was in need of a museum and chemical laboratory, while the Agricultural and Forestry Departments also required a museum.  The Mines Department had all its valuable specimens in the old iron building in the Domain, while was housed at Clyde the chemical and assay branch. It was represented to the Government that by the expenditure of a few thousand pounds, the deserted building could be finished in such a manner as to produce a very fine mining museum and chemical laboratory, and at the same lime one of the floors at least could be utilised for display purposes by the Agricultural and Forestry Departments. The Government Architect prepared plans, .and a contract was  let to Mr. Charles M'Carthy to complete tho buildings at a cost of a little over £10,000. The work is now practically finished, and already the Mines Department has moved a large quantity of its showcases, etc, from the Domain into the ground floor rooms.  The building is situated on the north side of the Coroner's Court. It has an imposing stone and brick front elevation to George street, but owing to the great difference in the levels of George-street and Ferry-road, the building, a six-story one, only rises three stories above George-street. Internally there has been no attempt to spend motley on ornamentation. Plain brick walls and steel girders and stanchions, with plastered ceilings, constitute the general finish in each floor. The basement, which is on the level of Circular Quay, is to be utilised as a bulk store.  On the first and second floors, which are entered by means of a vestíbule at the George street level, will be found the mining museum, with a number of smaller side rooms, to be used as the curator's offices, classrooms, and rooms for storing exhibits. The third floor is to be handed over as a museum for forestry and agriculture, while the top floor is to bo utilised as a chemical and assay brauch for the Mines Department, and instead of having the assay branch at Clyde and the museum in the Domain, the whole will now be under one roof.  The extent ot the building may be gauged from the fact that each floor has a space of 7000ft, and in the case of the museum this is all in one comparrtment.  The building throughout is being lighted with electrlcity, and an electric lift is being installed  The work has been carried out under the personal supervision of Mr. Perdriau, of the Government Architect's Department.  In a few weeks time, the old Iron shed in the Domain, which is the last remaining building connected with the Garden Palace Exhibition, and which until now has been used as the Mining and Forestry Museum, will disappear. 

( Related article:  Another report in the SMH, of Tuesday 5 December 1911, p. 4, confirms that Agriculture (but not Forestry?) did finally move in there too.

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MUSEUM OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS.

The Department of Agriculture has established a museum of agricultural products in the Mining Museum, George-Street North, near Dawes Point.  There is an interesting display of entomological subjects, wheats, oats, barleys, grasses, etc.  The Education Department has been invited to make the museum more useful by promoting visits of school pupils. Teachers have been requested to avail themselves of the advantages of the new museum. )

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In 1892, the Redfern Municipal Light Station commenced operation as the sixth municipal council in NSW to establish a municipal electricity utility (Tamworth, Young, Penrith, Moss Vale and Broken Hill preceeding it).

It was Redfern which first deviated from the norm and began generating AC current, which it distributed at 1000 volts (from Mather & Platt alternators).  Street lights were of the Thomson-Houston patent and Williamson Electrical and Engineering Company designed the works and supplied all plant.  Users/customers were required to install local transformers to reduce the voltage to more practical levels.

Tony's note that "in 1903, planning for a Sydney Council power station changed direction and a new power station building was commenced in Pyrmont it started operation in 1904 (generating AC)" is the next bit known of the story; and of course 1903 is also the year when the cabling roll-out was underway as shown in the above photo.  

Sydney's Geological and Mining Museum, commonly known just as the "Mining Museum" regardless of its various name changes, inspired or at least fascinated countless people during its long existence - especially children - and it may have helped influence not a few take up further study of geology.   One person it likely did inspire was Benjamin  Dunstan (1864-1933) who became Government Geologist of Queensland in 1908.   He strongly advocated there the establishment there of a geological and mining museum.   Previously he had been an evening student at Sydney Technical College, where he graduated in 1887 with honours in geology, mineralogy and mining. After graduation, he was employed by Cox & Seaver, consulting civil and mining engineers of Sydney, as assayer and draughtsman.  Dunstan succeeded S. H. Cox as lecturer in geology, mineralogy and mining at Sydney Technical College, probably in 1891.  He also acted as consulting geologist to the Australian Agricultural Co. which had major coal mining interests in the Newcastle coalfield.   The range of Dunstan's geological interests was very broad.  While a lecturer he investigated and made considerable collections of fossils from the Mesozoic rocks of the Sydney area.   Given all that it is reasonable to assume that his strong advocacy that Queensland set up a geological and mining museum means he was inspired by the one in Sydney.   Regretfully though, there seem to be no direct accounts (or reminescences) surviving of what anybody thought of the old Mining Museum in its early days.

A former collection manager at the museum, geologist Phillip Black, has been one who has considered the history of the place (and there might well be others?).  Phillip's notes have been the main "modern" overview of the museum relied upon herein.

The museum had its roots in the later 1800s  (1875) at a time when the thought for forming such a museum seems to have been unquestioned as a good and natural thing to do.  Later on the need for such a place would be questioned from time to time, such as around and after the Great War and the times of the Great Depression - both of which were obviously time of greatly waned optimism throughout society.     But arguably the museum's greatest test, which it ultimately failed, came in the 1980s as neoliberalisation (economic rationalism) began rising rapidly on its path to global dominance as latest political paradigm shift, and which translated locally into whole new sets of managerialist ways of speaking/thinkiing and re-organisation.   These emphasised the 'bottom line', cutting or dispensing with "non-core" functions, "commercialisation", etc.   The department created a new "Director Commercialisation" position, and ways were sought to dispose of the "non-core assets" and make retained assets profitable or to at least generate greater income.   In the case of the museum outright disposal was probably never initially contemplated, but rather a scheme for lowering the burden of its upkeep on the government coffers via encouraging the mining industry to take an interest in it, and then contribute part of the cost of maintaining the museum.

Following the model of the many "Privatization of Government Functions Task Force" type reviews being carried out in the USA, the NSW government began such a review for the NSW  Public Service.  In keeping with these sweeping policy changes of the '80s, the "Government Functions Task Force Review" in 1982 did finally recommend "closure or disposal" of the museum - unless it became "self-supporting" by June 1984 (something that all those who knew the museum well thought was nigh impossible).   Many thought that this was a virtual death sentence in that they considered the museum had not the slightest chance of becoming self-supporting by 1984 .   Despite expressed concerns of impracticality to become self-supporting the pressure on the musem  was seldom lessened in any way.  If anything the noose continued to tighten, especially following the election of the Greiner government in 1988.  Following that, a meeting of most high level managers brought to the State Office Block as audience for a touring American speaker (who had written a book on "Re-inventing Government") was told by Mr Gary Sturgess that he (Mr Sturgess) could not really conceive of anything within goverment, except perhaps this reform policy itself, which was forever sacrosanct or "core business" - and hence could not ultimately be divested.  Mr Sturgess was at the time (1988-1992) the Director-General of The Cabinet Office and responsible for promoting such "reform initiatives", including the corporatisation of many government activities.   [The model then promoted/followed what was later documented in "Reinventing Government : How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector" by  by David Osborne and Ted Gaebler.]

Wishing for its own survival, the museum (greatly shocked/dismayed by the 1982 announcement that it would be closed if not  self-supporting by the deadline) sought to appease the radical new thinking by laying plans to 'commercialise', and to emulate private industry, etc.   Some superficialities would of course be easy (e.g.  the head of the museum could be renamed from "Curator" to "General Manager" or "Managing Director").  However  that money could ever be found sufficient to maintain the museum, apart from the public purse via the traditional direct government funding aegis, was very seriously doubted by most, if not all, who had museological experience.

The general plan, well formulated in 1983-1984, was to begin semi-privatising  the museum by means of a Trust formation, and to conjointly be seeking direct industry sponsoship.   It was early envisaged that government might go on paying salaries and doing building maintenance, but that all the actual costs of mounting displays, doing promotional advertising, etc., would hopefully be borned more and more by industry as time went on.   At this time the museum also explored the potential for cutting itself adrift from the State of New South Wales, to become an Australian Geological and Mining Museum.  However, it was discovered that other groups in other States of the nation had also been soliciting industry with much the same idea and that there was no concensus either that such a thing was a good idea; or if it were, then if Sydney was the best place for it.   The Trust was established in 1989, and the name of the museum changed to "The Earth Exchange" (for reasons as yet still unknown).

A MUSEUM's LIFE SUMMARY:  "Conceived with the Mining Act of 1874, the Museum of Mines, Sydney, was born on 6 March 1876.  Re-named the Mining and Geological Museum, it had a near death experience when the Garden Palace was destroyed by fire on 22 September1882.  At Federation the museum was located in the Outer Domain, Sydney.  It had a new curator, a new collection, and yet another new temporary home.  Federation was a time of great idealism for the new Curator, George W Card.  He compared the ‘Mining Museum’ with other similar geological institutions throughout the world with whom he regularly corresponded and exchanged specimens.  Card wrote the only published Handbook to the museum in 1902.  He worked towards securing a permanent home to showcase the geology and mineral deposits of NSW and saw this achieved in 1909.  For most of the 20th century the Museum persistently functioned from this home in The Rocks, Sydney.  The Museum continued despite fighting off recurring inquiries into its function and struggling for funds, but after a long and fulfilling life, the Museum, as the Earth Exchange, died on 29 September 1995.  Following claims by relatives, its remains were packed into storage boxes and interred at Lidcombe"  (Former Collections Manager, geologist Phillip Black, who worked at the museum 1979-1991) .

 

Most of the museum's collections are known to be today at Londonderry, or else on display at the Australian Museum. 

Miscellaneous material was dispersed and may or may not survive still.  Some such items from the disbanded museum may yet be traced, and equally some fruitful attempt to find out what happened to the staff should be possible as well(?).  Thus far one of the well known items from the museum has been located.  This is the "earthquake machine".   It turns out this was rescued and re-housed by Sydney's artistic fraternity, and has been lovingly restored as an example of the late-capitalist culture's "entertainment-industrial-technological" complex (see below).

 

 

THE INITIAL "GARDEN PALACE" PHASE

The Garden Palace was situated just south of the present Conservatorium of Music and was built for the Sydney International Exhibition which opened on 17 September 1879.

The design had been for a cruciform with nave and transepts with a central dome.

Under the central dome stood a fine bronze statue of the (then young) Queen Victoria - different to the other statues and imageiry of her which depict a more elderly queen. 

Built of iron, glass and wood with brick foundations, the Garden Palace cost  £192,000  - a very large Public outlay at that time.The 

The ground floor covered 5 1/8 acres.   When the areas basement, galleries and tower floors were added, the total area for displays or storage was 8 1/3 acres.

After the great exhibition closed on 20 April 1880, the Garden Palace  was used as an auditorium and gallery and to house the first Mining and Technological Museum.

[Note:   After the Palace burned the idea of a "Mining and Technological Museum" was abandonned for the rebuild.   The Mines Department restocked a 'Mining Museum' in the City area, and a new 'Technological Museum' was to rise at Ultimo (the direct predecessor of today's Powerhouse Museum.   Some of the more 'technological' aspects of geological and mining museology did go to the Tech Museum, most notably "Building Stones".    This museum appears to have been first called the "Technological, Industrial and Sanitary Museum" (it also apparently displayed examples of sanitary apparatus).

An idea of what was lost geologically in the fire might be looked for in the Annual Reports of the Mines Department.

The Garden Palace basement was used to house government records/archives/papers, including the papers of the official 1881 Census.

Fire broke out at about 5:40am on 22 September 1882, perhaps kindled by the 1881 Census it took only about 40 minutes to  totally consume the entire contents, and destroy much of the shell, of the once glorious Garden Palace building.

 

 

 

 

The Garden Palace, built for the 1879 Great Exhibition, viewed from the eastern side from across Farm Cove.

 

 

Garden Palace, viewed from Macquarie Street side.  

 

 

Garden Palace entrance on Macquarie Street.   These front gates were unaffected by the fire.  

 

 

A young Queen Victoria, under the main dome at the completion of the Garden Palace.

Two levels of display bay space extend off along both sides of each cruciform arm.  

These spaces were filled with the displays of the Great Exhibition.

 

 

Displays within the Garden Palace during the Sydney International Exhibition, 1879   (Photo: NRS 4481 SH1590)

 

 

More Garden Palace photos:

 

- (contstruction) http://gallery.records.nsw.gov.au/wp-content/gallery/garden-palace/thumbs/thumbs_7_16203_sh1168.jpg

- (inside contstruction) http://gallery.records.nsw.gov.au/wp-content/gallery/garden-palace/thumbs/thumbs_7_16203_sh1169.jpg

- (inside) http://gallery.records.nsw.gov.au/wp-content/gallery/garden-palace/thumbs/thumbs_7_16211_sh1381.jpg

- (inside) http://gallery.records.nsw.gov.au/wp-content/gallery/garden-palace/thumbs/thumbs_7_16217_sh1588.jpg

- (after fire) http://gallery.records.nsw.gov.au/wp-content/gallery/garden-palace/thumbs/thumbs_7_16212_sh1418.jpg

- (after fire) http://gallery.records.nsw.gov.au/wp-content/gallery/garden-palace/thumbs/thumbs_7_16212_sh1421.jpg

 

 

 

 

Handbook (1902) to the mining and geological museum, Sydney with special references to the Mineralogical collections.  As this states, the Geological Surveyor began collecting (and also likely soliciting donations)

in 1875.  In the Department of Mines Annual Report for 1876, the donations made that year to the

"Museum of Mines" in Sydney are listed. 

 

 

The Garden Palace building.   (Drawing by Simon Fieldhouse)

 

 

 

View from the Royal Botanic Gardens side

 

 

 

 

 

The Garden Palace ruins after the fire.   In the Illustrated Sydney News, 1882.

The obelisk is left standing.

 

 

The obelisk was intended as a display monument to the rising gold output of the colony.

 

 

Ghost of the Garden Palace building superimposed on present day Botanic Gardens park.   Now almost

totally forgotten or unknown to most Sydney people it was a huge building; several times bigger than the

Queen Victoria Building.  It's loss on September 22, 1882 was reported by the Herald  as news "the

whole colony - indeed the whole of the Australian colonies, and we might add, the whole of the

civilised world - will hear with deep regret".  (Image: Sydney Morning Herald 15 Sep 2007 ).

[The outline may be wrongly positioned - check.]

 

Garden Palace fire

 

 

Colonial Architect to the Principal Under Secretary regarding destruction of the Garden Palace.

File 82/6815 .   Department of Public Works (Colonial Architects Office), Sydney 23rd September 1882.     [State Archives - NRS 906 Colonial Secretary: Special Bundles 1879-82 – Garden Palace (applications for space in, report of the Colonial Architect on the fire, newspaper reports of the inquiry into the fire, re records lost in the fire, etc [1/2527.2]].

 

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23.9.82

Sir,

It is my painful duty to report that on yesterday morning at about twenty minutes to six oclock, a fire broke out in the Garden Palace, resulting in the total destruction of that building and its contents the fire spreading with such rapidity that in forty minute, from its commencement nothing remained but a mass of smouldering ruins.

In reporting this calamitous event, I do myself the honor to give the particulars of the occurrence as furnished by F. Kirchen, the night watch man and J. Mcknight the caretaker to my officer, Mr Simpson employed in attending to works required in and about the building.

Kirchen the night watchman  stated that he went on duty the previous evening at 5.45 and remained on duty the whole whole of the night, during which time he was visited three times by Police Constables McVane and Day – the last visit being at 5.15am, the constables named were in the building as far as the fountain – they remained two or three minutes, and then walked towards the West entrance and left about 5.30am – the constables had only left him two or three minutes, when he had to let Mcknight the caretaker in at the gates – this was about 25 minutes to 6 oclock – they both went towards the western Entrance and while doing so, observed smoke issuing from the building – they then ran towards the fire cocks in the west transept, connected the hose and applied the water to where the smoke was coming up the well hole of the fountain in dense masses – they as well connected a second length of hose a(nd) turned to get down the staircase of the dome, but were driven back, and had to abandon the hose and branch director, the fire was so great – they then ran to the Telephone, and at the same time commenced ringing the large Bell at the west entrance by this time they were driven out of the building, and nothing could save it – Kirchen also states that he was in the basement four times during the night, the last time about about a quarter to five oclock and returned  from the basement by the north tower staircase without noticing any smell of fire, or anything to cause alarm – he then went along the north nave, and west transept, to the west door to let in the two constables, and did not detect anything to excite his curiosity during the night, he added that assistance came in about a quarter of an hour from the time the fire was first noticed, but assistance was of no avail.

The particulars given by  Mcknight the Caretaker respecting relieving the night watchman when when the fire was first noticed and what was done by both are similar to those given by Kirchen the night watchman.

I may state that I was at the scene of the fire before seven oclock, but the building was at that time in ruins. 

All information that can be obtained as to the origin of the fire will no doubt be elicited at the enquiry that will be made by the Coroner. 

I have the honor to be

Sir

Your Obedient Servant

James Barnet

Col Arch^t

 

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From figures mentioned above in 1902 it seems that in numerical terms the collection consisted very largely of material collected by the Rev. W. B. Clarke (the "Father of Australian Geology") when it was destroyed.   All of Clarke's library and manuscripts were being housed with the specimens and were lost.  Thus vanished the the physical evidence that would have told much about why it was that W.B. Clarke early gained acclaim as the "father" of Australian geology.   After the Garden Palace tragedy Mr Wilkinson and the Survey set about re-building the collection.  It was re-opened to the public again by 1886, in a small temporary building erected at the back of the Geological Survery premises at 233 Macquarie Street.  In 1893 it moved to a building behind the Sydney Hospital.

 

One of the best known names associated with the museum is that of George Card, Mineralogist and Curator for many years.  Card promoted the museum and aided the growth of the collections.  He published a handbook of the Museum in 1902.  Under Card the museum moved into what was hoped to be its permanent home at the Rocks in November 1909.

 

In the same year, 1909, the NSW government purchased the important mineral collection (ca. 3000 specimens) made by Broken Hill publican Edward William Aldridge.

 

 

Aldridge's garden at the Duke of Cornwall Hotel

 

In 1889 Mr. Edward Aldridge, a broad, sharp thinking entrepreneur bought the Duke of Cornwall Hotel in Broken Hill and would set up there a most glorious gardens and mineral museum.   Eventually there were aviaries containing over 1,000 birds and many animals.   He had commenced collecting immediately forming the first major Broken Hill mineral specimen collection with the collection being amassed essentially over the three years from 1888 to 1891. The Duke of Cornwall Hotel was situated only about 200 meters from Block 11 so Aldridge was in a prime position to attract miners coming off their shifts and buy specimens from them. Aldridge also presumably had enough money from the Hotel receipts to fund his collecting. As a publican he was something of a showman and took the trouble to put his collection on public display in showcases upstairs in his Hotel. The collection and occasional visits by public figures to view it, were referred to on occasion in local newspapers.  Having decided after a few years to sell his collection, in 1892 Aldridge asked Charles W. Marsh - a mineralogist for whom marshite is named, to examine and catalogue the collection for him. Marsh spent four months living in Aldridge’s hotel working on the collection, noting specimens of other rare minerals in the process although unfortunately for later researchers did not record localities for these. Since Aldridge was experiencing money problems at the time he refused to pay Marsh for the cataloguing work who took him to court over the payment dispute but Marsh was not successful.

Aldridge contacted the British Museum to offer the collection for sale but was told that the Museum would not consider this without seeing it. Aldridge transport 150 boxes to England himself, to put it on display to try and sell it. Since the British Museum was only prepared to buy some of the specimens but not the whole collection Aldridge had to come back to Australia with most of it unsold.  Eventually the collection was purchased in 1908 by Sydney University for £7,050 - the money being provided by the benefactor Sir Hugh Dixson, of Abergeldie, Summer Hill.   This was a great deal of money at the time but it did not help Edward Aldridge for long, as he died in 1909.

 

The collection, then of 143 boxes of specimens and three boxes of photographs was transported to Sydney University in 1909.  The boxes of photographs have unfortunately now vanished. The collection was then broken up and split five ways. The Australian Museum received about 125 specimens, the Museum of Applied Arts And Sciences received about 200, the Geological and Mining Museum about 200, with about 500 being sent off to England for exhibition, and the majority and best specimens staying at Sydney University.  The Sydney University specimens were on display for about thirty years but in 1948 the management decided to use the display area for another purpose and the specimens were placed into temporary storage with knowledgeable local collectors such as Albert Chapman and Laurie Lawrence allowed to acquire some of them. The remaining specimens were stored in the Geology Building until the building was demolished ca. 2006.   The specimens originally sent off to London for exhibition had been forgotten about.  The Mining Museum's Palaeontologist, Lawrence Sherwin, was in London in 1972 and packed up the specimens there for repatriation to Australia.  They were sent to the Geological & Mining Museum for housing.    (Source:  The Dixson collection has been reseached by John Rankin).

 

During and after World War I the museum languished, with negligible funding.  The government of the day wanted to close it by it is believed Card instigated a strong campaign to win public support, and it survived that threat.

 

Again in the Depression years, the Public Service Board questioned the necessity for the museum.  An enquiry was held to reduce perceived duplication with Sydney museums that had similar display, the Mining Museum, Australian Museum and Technological Museum.  One of the results, in 1934, was that the mining museum was instructed to transfer all meteorites and tectites to the Australian Museum, since these were not objects that originated in New South Wales. 

 

In 1988 the New South Wales Government acquired another highly significant collection, the Albert Chapman Collection, and this was placed in the Geological and Mining Museum.

 

Albert Chapman, hailed as Australia's greatest mineral collector, was born in Mackay, Queensland in 1912. Albert's father was a sea captain and amateur naturalist, who often brought home natural history specimens such as sea shells and encouraged Albert to collect minerals.  In the 1920s, aged 12, Albert collected rocks on the shores of the Parramatta River, Sydney, where he later lived, and became interested in the sparkling crystals they contained. Some of these rocks that had been used in breakwaters came from Prospect Quarry and the crystals were zeolites.  He also found at Parramatta garnet gneiss from South America, which was ballast dumped from ships. He later visited the Prospect quarries, finding there beautiful prehnite and other minerals.  The mines of Broken Hill, also attracted him at an early stage, and many collecting trips were made.  Albert assembled one of the top ten private mineral collections of the world. He still maintained a keen interest in minerals right up to his death, on 20 July 1996, aged 84.  

 

When Albert Chapman felt that age was becoming a handicap, he sold the collection to the New South Wales government for a fraction of its true value to ensure it remained in this country.  His mineral collection was purchased by the New South Wales Government in 1988, with assistance from Conzinc Riotinto Australia, North Broken Hill and BHP. The collection was housed in the Geological and Mining ('Earth Exchange') Museum until its closure.  It was then transferred to the Australian Museum.   

 

REF (Chapman collection) :

 

Graham, I.T. and Pogson, R.E., 2007.  The Albert Chapman Mineral Collection.   Rocks and Minerals, 82 (1): 29-38.

 

During the 1970s-1980s a split existed in the management of matters within the Museum building.   Whereas the place was originally regarded as the "Geological Survey Museum" (as shown in the extract of the 1902 Handbook above) the overall status now became that the "Mining Museum" (as it was commonly referred to still within the Department) was formerly under the Information Division of the department (Director Mr  R.R. Lucas) reporting to the Secretary (Mr G. Rose) of the Department.  Yet at the same time at least one floor space of the museum was occupied by scientific staff of the Geological Survey (reporting via one of the Survey's Assistant Directors, Jeanette Adrian, to the department's Assistant Secretrary for the Mineral Development Division, Mr D.R. Pinkstone).  Various modifications of administration occurred over time but this basic division of having two parts of the museum (referred to internally in the building as the 'museum' and 'specialist services' staff respectively) lasted for many years.

 

 

FINAL CLOSURE  WAS IN 1996 (? late 1995)

The final closing of the Museum was underway in late 1995.   The State Opposition prepared a motion to rescind the closure but because of various delays this was not debated in State Parliament until 1996, by which time the closure and commenced dismantling of things had in fact become a fait accompli which even the movers of the motion by then doubted would or could be reversed. 

The finer details of the winding down of the museum, and the exact date it shut its doors to the public, remains to be found and added (the official closure date was 29 September 1995).  There is also a story yet to be told by those who were concerned that the treasures of the museum not be lost or debased.  One priceless large fossil fish specimen was recovered from an industrial wastes "dumpmaster" bin, along with proper wreckage, in the back yard,  where workmen clearing out the building had mistakedly thrown it.  Most of the museum's earliest records (covering the pre-Earth Exchange phase) have never been found.   At time of closure the museum has 26 full-time and 22 part-time staff.   Following closure the Government sought Expressions of Interest for removal of materials deemed available for disposal.  Tenders for this closed on 21 November 1995.  Items not taken by tenders were disposed of by public action in December.   But few employees were retained in connection with winding up and the gutting of the museum building.  These operations were put under the management of Mr Paul Crombie.   Mr Crombie was assigned several assistants for the task.

According to Phillip Black, quoted above, the Museum "died" on 29 September 1995.  However, the death was only more widely realised later on, and the following comment in the Australian Institute of Geologists newsletter dates from January 1996.  The long life of Sydney's "Mining Museum" came to an end in "1996" (but decision made in 1995).   Prior to its closure it was renamed as the "Earth Exchange".  None of those who worked there ever succeeded in finding out why the Government chose that particular name, or what it was supposed to mean (they were often asked this question by members of the public, on what the name meant, but the only possible answer was that nobody knew).   There are several other known uses of "Earth Exchange" as a name.  Most are connected with waste minimisation or resource optimisation.  One ( http://www.earthexchange.com/ ) is for identifying or matching earth materials deficit and surplus sites and suppliers/users etc.  This is in the UK but smaller attempts at the same thing have been tried in Australia too.   A second usage is as for a widely known thrift store (which calls itself "The second-hand store with an environmental message") in the Zachary Square Shopping Centre at  Maple Grove in Minnesota.   It is presumed that the name came from some consultancy that the government had used prior to the refurbishment but it is not know if such consultancy had any connection with Maple Grove.  In Sydney there is currently a business of this name/type, located at Homebush Bay ("Earth Exchange" Office 10, 1 Burroway  Rd, HOMEBUSH BAY, NSW 2127,  Ph: (02) 9748 6447 - listed as dealing in recycled goods and wholsaling).  

In the latter years the Museum had a large association of friends and volunteers, named FOGMM - Friends of the Geological & Mining Museum.  These people assisted in the operation of the museum in various ways.

In  January 1996 the President of the Australian Geoscience Council, Professor Chris Powell,  wrote: "I report, with regret, that the Earth Exchange Museum in the Rocks area of Sydney has been closed through the withdrawal of an annual $1.3 million subsidy from the NSW State Government.  News of the closure reached the Executive only after the decision had been taken; there was no consultation with the AGC or the GSA."  (AIG News No. 43, Jan 1996).

As Prof. Powell (op. cit.) also went on to note, there was a strong connection here to geology teaching in the schools: "To cut off, without consultation, an institution which has been visited by over 100,000 people a year and over 25,000 students carrying out educational exercises, makes hollow the the commitment of some governments to education and learning ... Meanwhile the nation prepares for the Olympics!".

The geological fraternity may have been slow to take note of and comment on the closure of the museum but the NSW Parliament was even slower.   The above comment in AIG was in January 1996 whereas the matter was not raised in the NSW Parliament until 2 May 1996 ( Hansard record thereof ), although some members of Parliament had been aware of matters late in 1995. 

The Hansard record reveals some detail on what was the precipitous timing of the closure announcement.

Four days before the Minister informed the Earth Exchange that it was going to be closed, the Department of Mineral Resources head office had written a letter to the Earth Exchange stating that it had received confirmation from Mr M. Lambert, secretary to the Treasury, dated 15 August 1995, approving for the Earth Exchange funding of $1.355 million per annum for the three financial years 1995-96, 1996-97 and 1997-98.  The Earth Exchange was told therein that it was going to be funded until the end of 1998.  Only  four days later the Minister conveyed to it the the grim news that its termination had been decided upon.

Likewise, a report made by the then director of the museum stated that on 8 August the Trust chairman, Mr McDonald, met with the Minister and others.  The Minister said at the meeting that he recognised concerns about funding matters, and that he would raise them at a meeting with the Premier later in the day. He also said that he would make representations to the Treasurer. That at the time was taken as a big success!  Yet within two weeks following the 8 August meeting the announcement of closure was made.

The museum was suddenly advised that it was to close on 29 October and would receive $1.5 million, basically as wind-up residual funding.  Staff at the time generally formed the opinion that the sudden termination decision may have been an off the cuff decision by one or two persons within Treasury.   The Minister was asked in Parliament to advise on that particular matter, but did not shed any light on who made the decision, or how.

Mr Martin, the then Minister for Mineral Resources and Fisheries stated that the museum had been closed because of falling attendance figures and the museum's "inability to attain its intended goal of becoming financially self-supporting" (not exactly the 'museum's goal or any traditional goal but rather part of the imposed broader neoliberal policy "reforms" going on throughout the government at the time).

The government had initially hoped that industry would "adopt" the museum and that it (government) could progressively withdraw from funding the place.  This wishful thinking never eventuated to the degree desired.  Mr Martin stated that the government was no longer "prepared to subsidise, without the assistance of industry" the continued operation of what had "become a costly business".

Of course societies in many places had long managed to support State museums with never the slightest thought that industry subside was any absolute necessity, but that was never mentioned - as by this time both sides of the NSW parliament were in fact basically of the same mind to get rid of non self-supporting burdens on consolidated revenue.   Mr Martin reminded the Opposition of that fact by pointing out that the previous Government agreed with not continuing to subsidise the operations of the Earch Exchange (On 10 March 1994 the former Treasurer wrote that he was unconvinced the museum should be funded indefinitely from Consolidated Fund, particularly if it seemed financially unviable). 

Mr Martin gave wrong (or at least not entirely correct) advise to Parliament when he stated: "The public is able to enjoy the mining and mineral collections of the former museum, and that will continue to be the case ... rehoused in venues in which they are able to blend with surrounding exhibits in a harmonious and fitting way".  For apart from the Albert Chapman collection which would continue on display at the Australian Museum most other material either went into storage or was disposed of (exhibition background materials, not specimens).

Mr Martin also stated that "Items of mining and historic interest have gone to the Powerhouse Museum" (possible, but not checked).  And that the Maitland bar gold nugget was sent to the Sydney Mint Museum for public display.

Mr Martin referred to the termination of the museum as the "Government's action to rationalise the Exchange's functions".

As the museum post termination ceased to have any functions at all this was certain a case of very extreme "rationalisation" of functions.

Beginning the museum's decline under the new political climate of "become self funding" the museum had been forced to change from a free public venue to one charging a significant entry fee.  This was deemed by some as "economically rational" and essential at the time.  However the decision to have steep entrance fees was likely an imposed one somehow, because the museological fraternity was very well aware of the adverse effects of Thatcherism and "user pays" measures on bodies like museums.  It was known that in the 1970s in the UK the introduction of entry fees had reduced attendance to 20%, a very sobering fall-off. 

In retrospect for the Earth Exchange the high cost of admission doubtless contributed to many people being unwilling to pay to see "rocks and things" which they otherwise may have been curious to view.  Most staff at the museum were appalled at the charges it was forced to impose and many predicted this would spell the end of the place (the new cost of admission imposed for a family of four was $27 at the Earth Exchange - greater than the $14 then charged at the Powerhouse and Australian museums).

Another political view (held by Mr Thomson) was that the location was foolhardy and quite poor.  Mr Thomson declared that the museum was "not competing effectively with the vast number of other museums in Sydney".   Therefore he thought it logical that its best displays should be taken and given to those museums he deemed to be more successful.

Other possible factors in the longevity or otherwise of the museum had been competing land uses.  The Rocks area had been a major unions/goverment battleground on the matter of redevelopment - a battle which actually "saved" much of the historic Rocks area from demolition and massive highrise redevelopment.  At that time the whole area had been re-vested ownership-wise in the Rocks Redevelopment Authority.  At that time the museum was told it could stay where it had always been as a "lease",  perhaps the first introduction of a feeling of doubtful permanence for the place?  At the time of closure it emerged that the building was then owned by the Farm Cove Authority, and confirmed that the museum only had a leasehold tenure.  It was also widely stated at the time that an Aboriginal art organisation was after the building for displays, but after the museum was closed and evacuated nothing ever came of that and the art interests in fact found more commodious accomodation in the nearby old Maritime Services building.

Educational functions:

The Mining Museum was for a long time very closely connected  to the teaching of the geology in NSW schools.

We now know that geology per se died in the schools too, but which came first the chicken or the egg?  Was there a dimished need perceived for the museum because it was determined or recognised that geology teaching would be downsized or ceased?  Or was that already underway before the Museum closed?

 

Replacing the geological education function the museum had fulfilled for school children for many years Mr Martin launced something called "The New Miners" program.  This was announced as a new curriculum item for New South Wales schools.  Whatever  "The New Miners" program was, it is virtually forgotten about today. 

 

One of the functions the Museum education officers had been involved in was the making up and distribution of specimen sets to schools.   This was done from Londonderry core store north of Penrith.   Rocks were collected in 44 gallon drum lots from many localities, broken to small pieces and put into the boxed sets.   After such 'mass involvement with schools came to an end this activity went on hold.  An attempt was make in 1997 to give away the stocks of rocks that had been held for making up specimen kits.   This was advertised to schools and was reported in the local press as follows:  "The Department of Mineral Resources had tonnes of rocks collected from across the country and invited teachers to sort through them for suitable teaching aids at their core library in Londonderry."

(Penrith Press, 15 August 1997, page 8.)

The Earth Exchange phase:

In its final phase the museum was known as the Earth Exchange.

 

By the late 1980s a mining industry-led Committee of Management was formed to develop the museum as a facility which could be used to raise public awareness about the value of geoscience and mining to the NSW public. A major sponsorship fund-raising campaign was initiated and within a few years sufficient public and private sector funds eventually totalling some $23 million was raised to build and design a modern, interactive museum with some outstanding innovative displays which explained volcanoes, earthquakes, and underground mining operations.

The Management Committee was quite committed to to the view that a modern science museum with interactive displays could more effectively communicate geology and mining more effectively than an undeveloped museum which was regarded by them as representative of old style facilities which were not attractive to a more discerning public. Certainly the Management Committee was encouraged by the investment of government and corporations in the new Powerhouse Museum (opened in 1988) as a replacement to the old Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences which was located in an old building in Harris Street

The ‘jewel in the crown’ of The Earth Exchange was without any shadow of doubt the Albert Chapman Mineral Collection, an outstanding collection of the economic mineral crystals from Broken Hill. This collection was acguired for the sum of $1million with funds totalling $750,000 provided by a special grant approved by the then Premier Nick Greiner and $250,000 provided by the three major mining corporations associated with Broken Hill. The acquisition was controversial because the mining company funds were directed to The Earth Exchange instead of to the Australian Mining because the Australian Museum had not agreed to meet Albert’s asking price of $1million. The success of the acquisition enraged the Trustees of the Australian Museum to the extent it is thought (based on anecdotal information) that The Earth Exchange was decidedly out of favour in the museum community or the Arts Portfolio, particularly following the election of the Carr Labor Government in 1995. It is interesting to note that when the museum was eventually closed by withdrawal of its government funding, the Albert Chapman Mineral Collection was assigned to the collections of the Australian Museum.,

The acquisition and display of the Albert Chapman Collection captured the imagination of government and corporate supporters.  To further the commercial objectives of the new museum, The Geological and Mining Museum Trust was established under its own Act of Parliament in 1989, and the name of the museum changed to "The Earth Exchange". The reason for the name change was quite simple -  it was considered that the Geological and Mining Museum needed to go through the same branding transformation as the Powerhouse Museum (the former Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences). One of Australia’s top brand designers, Flett Henderson and Arnold (who designed Telstra’s current logo) was commissioned to undertake this task. The name ‘The Earth Exchange’ was finally selected as it designated both a place of value (e.g. like The Stock Exchange) and a place where knowledge and information was exchanged. The original accompanying graphic depicting the planet Earth was beautiful and complemented the name.  Regrettably, following the change of Directors in 1990, the incoming Director discarded the original design and selected a modernistic design which arguably devalued the whole brand transformation process.

When opened, the new museum charged a commercial entrance fee, and for a while only Taronga Zoo and The Earth Exchange were the only public attractions charging an entrance fee while the Powerhouse and Australian Museums were virtually totally subsided from the public purse until a decision was made some years later to bring these museums into line with the other attractions.

POST CLOSURE 

 

Following the closure of the museum the collections (rocks, minerals, fossils) for some years were kept at the "new" Chemical Laboratory building that had been built some time previously in the grounds of the former Lidcombe State Hospital.   Much of the land there (State Hospital land) was sold off for housing following the closure of the State Hospital.   The government also ceased most of its work formerly done on analytical evaluation of coal, minerals, ores etc. and the number of employed chemists fell significantly until the Chemical  Laboratory at Lidcombe was also closed (a smaller laboratory doing a diminished range of activities has been continued in the Hunter Valley).    With the closure of the the Lidcombe Chemical Laboratory of the Department of Mineral Resources, the former collections of the mining museum went then to the Londonderry core store (north of Penrith), now known as the Clarke Geocentre (named in honour of Rev. W.B. Clarke who is commonly deemed the "father of Australian geology".

 

Whilst the collections resided at the Chemical Laboratory, some use was made of them there by an educational effort known as "Earthworks".   Earthworks, geared especially for school groups in much the same manner as the museum had been over many of its last years, operated at the Lidcombe laboratory for a few years before they too were closed.   Earthworks was reportedly well appreciated and used by schools, and remained a link which allowed some Departmental staff to still interact with education and, to a lesser extent, displays.  

 

So far none of the persons who operated Earthworks, nor any of the ?many people who were museum volunteers of members of the group Friends of the Geological and Mining Museum have been located, however it is hoped to find and record their contributions to the museum and its ongoing aims and traditions. 

 

 

A PART CHRONOLOGY  (.. to extent so far known)

Some chronology for the "Mining Museum" site: 

- 1700s - Late 18th century maps and plans do not indicate anything at the site.

- 1807 - Meehan's map shows the area leased to Robert Campbell Esquire (Campbell's substantial old storehouses, next to the Museum on the opposite side of Hickson Road are now tourist shops or eateries).

- 1840s - The land may have been within the Cunnyngeham's shipyard (cf. later Water Police area).

- 1901 - Plan of Sydney in Fitzgerald's Royal Commission indicates the site as intended for a power station.

- 1902 - In 1902 (or before?) possibly became the site of an old quarry, operator not yet known. The excavation at George Street North would have stood approximately three storeys above Hickson Road. There was either some independent quarrying phase of else the first excavations were all along part of the planned power station construction? The 1902 plans drawn by Government Architect Walter Vernon for an Electric Light Station and Workshop show provision for a six level structure facing George Street and a similar structure facing Hickson Rd., with an octagonal chimney stack on the northern side, and an attic level behind Romanesque style parapets and gabled roofs. In 1903 revision to the plans drawn by Vernon for the Electric Light Station and Workshop showed a two level structure facing George Street and a three levels high structure facing Hickson Rd., with an octagonal chimney stack 60 metres in height on the northern side, and simple gabled roofs.

- 1902/04 - Construction underway for a power station and workshops. Uncertainty and hiatus seems to have happened, probably in 1904. The lower part of the building was constructed for a power station and workshops but work ceased and it stood unfinished and roofless for some time. No generating equipment was ever installed.

- 1908 - Abandoned for power generation purposes and the site given to the Mines Department for a museum (likely considerably interdepartmental correspondence might be preserved leading up to this?). [State Archives records have NOT been searched.]

- 1908/09 - The upper levels of the building modified from origin planning, to now better suit changed purpose for a mining museum and chemical laboratories and a new entrance onto George Street was constructed.

- 1909 - The building was given as the Mining Museum in August 1909.   The collections were moved in and it opened to the public on 1 November 1909.

- 1930 - The Julian Ashton's Art School was given tenancy of the first floor in the building.  [This art school moved out of the Museum building in the 70s, but is still (2008) operating elsewhere along George Street North in the Rocks.]

- 1972 - A Museum shop was established.

- 1973/74 - The Julian Ashton's Art School moved out of the building and the floor it had occupied was used for museum display expansion. The Museum greatly expanded its role in schools education in the subject of geology and appointed qualified teachers as Education Officers in this regard.

- 1985 - An overseas study tour was carried out in connection with the redevelopment planning of the Geological & Mining Museum (‘the Mining Museum’). The tour lasted from April 8 to 27, 1985 . The tour members comprised Brian Garner, the then Museum Director; Peter Mould, Project Architect; and Ms Patricia Jones, representing the NSW Chamber of Mines and Extractive Industries. The aim of the tour was to examine a range of relevant museums to study aspects of building design, exhibition techniques, services provided to visitors, and funding sponsorship arrangements. Museums were visited in the USA ( Los Angeles , Chicago , and Washington ), Canada ( Toronto ), UK ( London and Coalbrookdale), and West Germany ( Munich and Bochum ) (GS 1985/196).

During the redevelopment of the new museum, the designs of the museum were further changed following the aquisition of the prestigious Albert Chapman Mineral Collection and a visit by the new museum director (1987/1990), Angus M Robinson, to major museums in the US which included The Exploratium Museum in San Francisco and the Los Angeles County Museum .

- 1987/89 – With the establishment of a Management Committee comprising mining industry representatives, the ‘Mining Museum's’ management was changed to a more commercial model, and ‘commercialisation measures’ began to be introduced, culminating in part divestment of responsibility for the museum by government with the establishment of a Trust under its own Act of Parliament under the direction of a full commercially-focused Board. The Trust’s first chairman was Mark Bethwaite, then Deputy Managing Director of Renison Goldfields Ltd, one of the major sponsors of the redevelopment.

Given the $20 million plus investment by government and industry sponsorship funding for the refurbishment of the new museum, it was hoped that the mining and exploration industry would contribute to the operational funding of the museum, supplemented by an annual grant by government and other revenues from commercial activities including catering functions.  In 1989 the building was transferred to the Geological and Mining Museum Trust under a 99 year lease secured with the Sydney Cove Redevelopment Authority, and the name of the Museum was changed to "The Earth Exchange", commensurate with the parallel re-branding of the NSW Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences to the new name, The Powerhouse Museum. The museum was closed, and physically emptied, pending re-development with a changed and "more interactive" style, and also one better promoting the value to society of the mining industry

- 1991 - The museum was closed for a long period for refurbishment works and its internal character very largely changed. Redevelopment was largely completed by December 1990 under the stewardship of Lindsay Sharpe, the former director of the Powerhouse Museum , and it re-opened to the public as The Earth Exchange in March 1991.Some special features at the new displays included walk through facsimile earthquake machine, erupting volcano, and Mt Isa mine exhibit. The "more interactive" style identified as desirable at the time of the early refurbishment planning in the late 1980s had been pursued to culminate in a touch screen computer program termed The Infomine (developed by Learnware Technologies Pty Ltd).

- 1996/2007 - The hopes for the mining and exploration industry helping greatly to maintain the museum, and for various other changed-direction plans (including mining industry and energy promotions - an Energy Information Centre was established in the building) were not successful and the museum closed permanently in 1995 after the State government ceased its majority funding contribution. The highest quality "show" specimens in the Museum, many collected by Albert Chapman from Broken Hill and other places, were all transferred to the Australian Museum where they continue to be on display and can be seen by the general public.  Other collections were transferred to the Chemical Laboratory at Lidcombe, and later on when that building too was closed they were moved to the Department's core storage facility in Londonderry . A number of specialist earth science staff moved with the collections, which continue to be well cared for, and can be visited by researchers on arrangement.  

- 1995 - The Museum was closed after the Treasurer, Mr Egan, scratched its funding.  Primarily this was said to be an economic decision but equally it was rumour known to some staff that the building had been offered as an "Aboriginal art centre".   The Tulagulla Limited Aboriginal Cultural Centre at  Dawes Point has subsequently written of how it had been endeavouring to establish a major Aboriginal Cultural Centre in Sydney that could house indigenous organisations involved in all facets of Aboriginal culture - visual and performing arts, film, literature, media, arts administration and so on.   The groups possibly involved may have included Bangarra Dance Theatre (with much work on seeking accomodation undertaken by then General Manager, Rob Bryant), Blackbooks, Blackfella Films, Bula Bula Arts (Ramingining) and the former AAMA (Aboriginal Arts Management Association - later known as NIAAA or the National Indigenous Arts Advocacy Association).  A former NSW Minister for the Arts in the 1993/94 gave this consortium $1.5 million and Tulagulla Limited was incorporated as a public company limited by guarantee on 30 May 1995.  A change in government occurred in March 1995 and Tulagulla remained committed to the establishment of the "Aboriginal Cultural Centre".  Following suggestions from the NSW Ministry of the Arts, TuIaguIIa wrote to the new Premier Bob Carr, requesting that he give them "the whole of the Earth Exchange premises", and they reported that they were excited when Bob Carr agreed!  They then announced "The Cultural Centre, under the guidance of TulaguIIa, will dedicate two floors to the visual arts, an independent film and video production house, and cinema; media services, including 24 hours of indigenous radio; publications outlet and, retail component; studio space for visual and performing artists; conference facilities; top quality cafe/restaurant; and other facilities yet to be determined.  ATSIC is committing $2 million towards the refit and negotiations on the lease are being finalised.  TuIaguIIa hopes that the lease will be a minimum of 30 years with a similar option and that the rent will be minimal whilst all the organisations will be responsible for meeting maintenance and operational costs. The major focus for Boomalli during 1996/97 will be overseeing the move to the Cultural Centre in the Earth Exchange as this is the most exciting development to take place in the history of Boomalli's nine years of operations. Tulagulla is planning a major opening event for the Cultural Centre, at this time mooted for mid 1997, so stay tuned for further developments".  This was written in 1995 at which time TULAGULLA Limited (ACN 068 041 746) comprised Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative Limited, Blackbooks, Blackfella Films and Gadigal Information Services.   This was all at the same same time as various arts groups were being given space at old discontinued working piers in Darling Harbour (Walsh Bay), very close-by and where Bangarra Dance Theatre still is today.

 The 'Earth Exchange' project was to be known as the Tulagulla Indigenous Cultural Centre, and further funding was sought from the Commonwealth. 

 - 1997 - Athough it had been indicated that the building was 'promised' for an Aboriginal art centre this for some reason did not eventuate. Since 1996 it was re-fitted for close office space but for some years remained unoccupied, still under the control of the Ministry for the Arts, to which it had been transferred after the dissolution of the Trust. [?Current occupants].

 

SITE DESCRIPTION

 

Looking west over Sydney Cover, in WWI time:  The new Government House building (or 'stables') is the white building at lower left.   To the right of that are the old tram shed going towards Bennelong Point (with a probable troop ship berthed).   Opposite that is seen "Campbell's Cove" with wharves in the middle of it, on the western side of Sydney Cove.  Landwards of those wharves is seen  the square-ish Mining Museum building which is easily picked on account of its tall chimney.  Immediately to the right of it seems to be a quarry wall, and then perhaps a quarry bench and to the right of that a lower quarry wall (all of which area was later covered in fill when the Sydney Harbour Bridge was built).     (Photographer:   Unknown, per SMH historic photos collection).

Northern continuation of the museum site in 1904.   One or two blocks with ?factories and a Victorian Italianite home.   These appear

to have been built in a quarry with its side wall just north of the Victorian home.

 

 

Vertical view (N to top) of the Harbour Bridge carriageway, and between the bridge and the museum building showing a triangular space

 which was formerly the site of the Mines Department garage.  This angle of view has the garage building obscured by the bridge.

 

 

Another vertical view angle, showing the garage building plus the palm tree outside its front that has been there many years.

 

 

More of a tree, and "Coca Cola" on a truck.   Previously Coca Cola was prepared to pay a lot to have the name on the Museum's chimney.

 

Earlier photo of the museum showing abovementioned triangular space with the Departmental motor garage building still standing.  The building when operating first as a Museum had its front at 36-64 George St.  This 'rear' view at Hickson Street shows how the Harbour Bridge approach overfilled and covered the former northern extension of the quarry the power station was built in.

The wharf outside the museum building today.  During much of the Museum's time this was the Water Police base.

  

 

 

Views from George Street North (above) and Hickson Road (below)

 

 

Hickson Road side of the mueum buiding in 1904 looking different than today.    It seems to have a different top (?4th floor) that must have been later replaced..  

 

After the museum's refurbishment as The Earth Exchange its main entrance was shifted to this side of the building (no photo available) and the address was given as 18 Hickson Road, The Rocks.  By then all five floors of the building were used for displays and it also incorporated in the north east corner of the bottom floor an "Energy Information Centre".  This had come about because of the merger of the Mines and Energy departments of the time into a single NSW Minerals and Energy Department.   The museum was generally open 10.00am - 5.00pm seven days a week (except Good Friday and Christmas Days).

 

From the relocated entry foyer at the Hickson Road level the stair access to the display galleries rose around replica of a coal mine shaft and main cage.  Levels off the shaft contained a continuous miner and longwall miner as two representative working levels, and service facilities on the third.

 

 

Basement level ca. 1970.   This is the Hickson Road level.  Another excavated level lies below, then known as the "Sub-basement".  The 'Photographer' room corner has a large window/entrance which was later opened up as the main entrance, in the Earth Exchange phase.  The layout shown here reflects the time when the museum functioned as a working part of the Geological Survey of NSW.  Later on the Museum was placed under a "Trust" and such a direct link withered, also meaning that the museum lost its nature as a 'working' museum or place with significant scientific capability.

At the early stage of redevelopment planning for the museum, in the mid 1980s, it was still being thought of (at least by most of the staff there) as primarily an educational and learning centre.  It was envisaged to have books, references, access to the department's very good photolibrary (photography has been in practice long connected with the museum as were other laboratory type services).  Access to Departmental computerised information systems was thought essential.   The way things progressed, however, worked out very differently.   In effect the museum became more and more divorced from the department, and from active geology generally.   The sense of serious or committed "Geology" was to slowly drain from the museum  and factors of commercialism, tourism, spin and pragmatic showmanship of 'whatever it takes' attitude was to grow.   The original spirit of the museum seemed to indicate something a Public Service department was proud of and wished to show off to the public.  Consversely, the Earth Exchange over time because something which Departmental geological staff began speaking more and more disparingly from.  With lessening level of geological expertise within it, some the museum's displays no longer made geological sense or were frankly regarded as being in gross error in some cases.   The museum also came, in its latter days, to entertain/explain the paranormal properties of gemstones - something which certainly was "popular" but which regular professional geoscientists typically disparaged.   

 

 

Details of the museum building's chimney as seen from the adjacent Sydney Harbour Bridge.

 

This museum site is adjacent to Sydney Harbour Bridge in George Street North.  It is fairly deeply excavated and may have been the site of some excavation of sandstone for construction use prior to when built on.  As far as is known it has only ever carried one building, which is the presently existing one.  The museum ran for many years and was visited by generations of people interested in rocks, minerals and fossils.  It was the museum of the Mines Department (commenced elsewhere in more meagre accomodation) and hence was first known as the Mining Museum, and later as the Geological & Mining Museum (during which years it was still colloqually or familiarly referred to just as the Mining Museum).  This reflects the original "practical mining" focus.  The geological part of the name was added later as the prestige of the establishment was increased by moving into dedicated and substantial new premises (a big improvement on the original premises which were recorded to have been leaky).  Most of the original collection of the Department was lost in the Garden Palace fire in Sydney, after which the collection was rebuilt, appealing to mines and contacts in New South Wales and further afield to donate specimens.

The Museum existed as a storage, research, display and teaching centre for almost 90 years at this site.

The building was run for with the Department of Mines Chemical Laboratory (and also a live-in caretakers' quarters) on its top floor, and an Art School, the Julian Ashton Art School on the floor between the Chemical Laboratory and the display floors. The Chemical Laboratory left when a very much bigger special building was purpose built for it at Lidcombe.

Site description and establishment:  The building is of Federation Warehouse style, designed by architect, Walter Liberty Vernon, the first NSW Government Architect.  The base of the building is excavated into the sandstone almost to flush with George Street North frontage. It is not certain if it was purpose excavated or if there was any former quarrying on this site simply for sandstone excavation, but it likely was a quarry of some extent to start with. There were, from time to time, plans (or 'dreams'/vision) about feasibility of excavating an underground 'mine' below the site purely for display purposes. The Museum for a long time had a small 'mine' constructed on one of the floors, blackened out inside and with artificial lighting and models.  Although obviously a 'fake' mine, this was always popular with school children.

The building has a tall chimney stack which is still a landmark in Sydney. The tall chimney is because the building was originally designed, but only partially constructed, as a DC power station. Plans changed before it was completed and it was then redesigned and completed to become a Museum and Chemical Laboratory.

The change during the course of building construction was associated with a decision to generally change from direct current (DC) supply to alternating current (AC) power supply in NSW. (Tropman 1996: 15)

COLLECTIONS

The N.S.W. Government, mainly via the Department of Mines., long ago began collecting minerals, fossils and rocks.   A lot of the collecting was done in connection with the work of the Geological Survey, but separate distinct efforts were also made to gather examples of ore from working mines.   Because of the Mines Department context, the minerals collection was generally known as an Economic Mineral Collection (ca. 24, 000 specimens).  The fossils collection (Palaeontological collection) is over  45, 000 specimens).  The rocks collection is also very large.  These collections date mainly from 1883.  There is little from before that date because  the State’s geological collections were destroyed by the great Garden Palace Fire of 1882. 

At the closure of the Geological and Mining Museum, which was the repository of NSW Government mineral and fossil collections, some of the most display-worthy minerals, largely from Broken Hill, were transferred to the Australian Museum where much of such material likely remains on display to the public.  The select specimens that were transferred to the Australian Museum had come to the Mining Museum via renowned mineral collectors Albert Chapman.  The Albert Chapman mineral collection was purchased by the New South Wales Government in 1988, with assistance from Conzinc Riotinto Australia, North Broken Hill and BHP.  Albert's collection was displayed in the Geological and Mining ('Earth Exchange') Museum until its closure in late 1995.   The transfer of this collection to the Australian Museum took place in December 1995.  There the Australian Museum opened it to public display again on 27 September 1996.

The bulk of the Mining Museum collections, however, were transferred to storage at the Department's Chemical Laboratory at Lidcombe (a.k.a. Mineral Resources Developmental Laboratories).

Later on, the Mines Department Chemical Laboratory at Lidcombe gradually became a very underused facility (as the Government got out of doing chemical analyses and the number of employees greatly downsized) and eventually this building was divested too.  The collections have since all transfserred now to the Department's bore core storage site at Londonderry north of Penrith.

 

 

 

 

MARK GROSSMAN FIND EARLY CORRESPONDENCE TO MUSEUM (Baron Constantin von Ettingshausen and others)

 

  Mark Grossman

 

Mark Grossman is President of QED Associates LLC, an industrial hygiene and chemical health and safety consulting company, which he established in 2000 (Viz. http://qedassociatesllc.com ).  QED Associates LLC is a 20-year-old consulting company incorporated in the state of Delaware.  Originally, a two-person partnership centered in New York City, the Associates of QED are now located in the New York and San Fransciso areas, and in Washington DC.  Mark n holds a Masters degree in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madision and a  Mark Grossman holds a Masters degree in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madision and a second MS in Environmental Health Science from the Hunter College School of Health Sciences in NYC, as well as a BS in Chemistry from Lehman College (CUNY).

 

Mark is interested in the history of science, in old scientific documents and letters, and especially in meteorites.  

 

Mark writes "Autographs and old books can create an indescrible link to the past.  Holding a letter or a book written by a scientist can provide insight into moments of great discovery. The feel of the paper, the look of the ink, and the nature of the script can mysteriously transport the reader back into time for a few moments to experience the nature of scientific pursuit. Scientists by their very nature have to communicate with one another, to replicate experiments, and to publish their results.  It is this "paper trail" that presents the collector of scientific autographs with intruiging puzzles, which beg to be solved.  Letters often mention a meeting between two scientists,  a reference to investigations, or a specimen of one type or another.  What did the scientists discuss when they met?  Was the investigation ever published?  Was the specimen ever sent and where is it today?" ( http://meteoritemanuscripts.com )

 

In December 2010  Mark wrote ( http://meteoritemanuscripts.blogspot.com ) as follows:

 

"""""""""""""""

Early Correspondence of the Sydney Mining Museum Uncovered

A few years ago I was fortunate enough to purchase at auction a lot of letters that once belonged to the Mining Museum, The Rocks, Sydney, Australia.  At the time, I didn’t fully realize the significance, because I was primarily attracted by the letters written by the likes of European scientists Daubrée, Berwerth, Brezina and Lacroix to C. S. Wilkinson and George W. Card of the Museum.

But I am still kicking myself, because I had to let a second lot of correspondence go to another bidder – correspondence that included letters from several noted British mineralogists, if I recall.

In any event, I was not aware of the history of the museum until fairly recently.  C. S. Wilkinson,  Geological Surveyor-in-Charge, started the geological collection in 1875, which would eventually include not only rocks and minerals, but fossils and meteorites as well.  The magnificent Garden Palace constructed for the Sydney Exhibition of 1879 became its home, but on Sept 22, 1882 the museum caught fire and an estimated 50,000 specimens were destroyed.   

 

George W. Card became curator and published a handbook of the Museum's collection in 1902.  It appears that he assembled the letters into an autograph album, unfortunately using a bit too much glue and pasting one or two of the letters down in rather precarious positions, but preparing manuscript labels for each one just the same.

 

In 1996, the Mining Museum was closed and the contents were dispersed in various ways, some rather unfortunate.  It appears that some items were discarded, others put up for auction, and perhaps other specimens donated or lost.  A history of the Museum which I found on the web indicates that early records have not been found.  

 

That is, until now.  In the next few posts, I will include samples from some of the Museum's correspondence. 

 

In the interim, a picture of part of the Museum’s collection that is included in Card’s Handbook is displayed below (single click on the image to view a larger one; click again to enlarge further).  

Mark

Source:  Card's Handbook, Google Books

References

History of the Mining Museum: http://geo-sites.zoomshare.com/files/mining-museum.htm

George W. Card, Handbook to the Mining and Geological Museum, Sydney, Geological Survey of New South Wales (1902).  Available for view on Google Books.

"""""""""""""""  

 

Mark then began to post what the correspondence was aboutg.  One of the early letters to C. S. Wilkinson was written by Baron Constantin Ettingshausen in 1886. 

 Ettingshausen was a noted professor of botany at the University of Graz in Austria who studied the fossil floras of Australia and New Zealand.  One of his important works was his 1888 publication Contributions to the Tertiary flora of Australia.

Wilkinson, Geological Surveyor-in-Charge, and T. W. E. David, Geological Surveyor, had collected plant fossils from tin mining areas in the Vegetable Creek and Elsmore regions of New South Wales and sent them to Ettingshausen for examination.

Ettingshausen responded with the following letter to Wilkinson:

8 Laimburggasse

Graz, Austria

the 3^rd August 3, 1886

 

 

Dear Mr. Wilkinson,

As I have promised you, I send you close by the list of numbers and names of species of your collection.  You will see that a great number of Fossils have been described and figured, and only a small number of them are not determinable.  As it was necessary to prepare some of the Fossils, I have found some new specimens, which I have carefully kept and numbered with the following numbers.  I enumerated them in a supplementary list close by and have forwarded them to you with the others all.  I packed the Fossils very carefully and hope that they will arrive well preserved at Sydney.

I am, dear Mr. Wilkinson,

Yours very truly

Baron C. Ettingshausen

Page 2 of the letter is as shown below:

Copyright © Mark I. Grossman

Repository:   Mark Grossman  (email: Mark.Grossman@meteoritemanuscripts.com )

Several species of fossils were named after Wilkinson by Baron Ettingshausen, such as Fagus Wilkinsoni, which is figured on Plate II of Ettingshausen's Contributions to the Tertiary flora of Australia (left hand corner of image below).

Mark will be scanning more of the correspondence with the museum, related to the mineral and meteorite collections of the Sydney Mining Museum.

During the Australian gold rush there was much digging in "deep leads" (stream and river deposits) beneath Tertiary basalts in Eastern Australia and many fossil fruits of that age were discovered.  Baron Ettingshausen was the obvious person to send those off to for determination and hence over a period of years the Baron received quite a volume of Australian material to examine.   These "woody fruits" were often quite well preserved.

At that time (e.g. in the Eocene) things were warmer than usual in Australia.   The same is true for England.   English early geology may be easily perused from "Elements of Geology - The Student's Series" written by Sir Charles Lyell, Bart., F.R.S. in 1871 and accessible online at http://geology.com/publications/lyell/ch1.shtml 

Lyell's book (chapter 16) tells us of the London Clay (Lower Eocene).  The principal localities of fossils in the London clay are Highgate Hill, near London, the Island of Sheppey at the mouth of the Thames, and Bognor on the Sussex coast - "In the Island of Sheppey near the mouth of the Thames, the thickness of the London Clay is estimated by Mr. Prestwich to be more than 500 feet, and it is in the uppermost 50 feet that a great number of fossil fruits were obtained, being chiefly found on the beach when the sea has washed away the clay of the rapidly wasting cliffs.  Mr. Bowerbank, in a valuable publication on these fossil fruits and seeds, has described no less than thirteen fruits of palms of the recent type Nipa, now only found in the Molucca and Philippine Islands, and in Bengal (see Fig. 205). In the delta of the Ganges, Dr. Hooker observed the large nuts of Nipa fruticans floating in such numbers in the various arms of that great river, as to obstruct the paddle-wheels of steamboats. These plants are allied to the cocoanut tribe on the one side, and on the other to the Pandanus, or screw-pine. There are also met with three species of Anona, or custard-apple; and cucurbitaceous fruits (of the gourd and melon family), and fruits of various species of Acacia.  Besides fir-cones or fruit of true Coniferæ there are cones of Proteaceæ in abundance, and the celebrated botanist the late Robert Brown pointed out the affinity of these to the New Holland types Petrophila and Isopogon. Of the first there are about fifty, and of the second thirty described species now living in Australia.

 

   

 

Ettingshausen remarked in 1851 that five of the fossil species from Sheppey, named by Bowerbank [Bowerbank, Fossil Fruits and Seeds of London Clay, Plates ix and x] were specimens of the same fruit (see Fig. 206), in different states of preservation; and Mr. Carruthers, having examined the original specimens now in the British Museum, tells me that all these cones from Sheppey may be reduced to two species, which have an undoubted affinity to the two existing Australian genera above mentioned, although their perfect identity in structure can not be made out.

 

Constantin Freiherr von Ettingshausen (or Baron Constantin von Ettingshausen) (1826-1897) was an Austrian geologist and botanist.  Ettingshausen was born in Vienna where he graduated as a doctor of medicine and became in 1854 professor of botany and natural history at the medical and surgical military academy in that city.  In 1871 he was chosen professor of botany at Graz, a position which he occupied until the close of his life. He was distinguished for his researches on the Tertiary flora of Europe and fossil floras of Australia and New Zealand.

 

 

THE COMMERCIALISATION/PRIVATISATION AND COLLAPSE - "EARTH EXCHANGE" PHASE

 

"Mining museum finally hits rock bottom after 120 years" - Sydney Morning Herald, 25 August 1995, News and features, page 3.

 

The collapse of the museum when it came was sudden and in a single line un-negotiable line-item hammer blow from the State Treasurer.  But the lead up to this ran over a decade, with the boom/bubble-burst h attributes of aggrandisation before the fall.

 

Most of those who thought they could see it coming (and left the museum for more secure places if the the department or public service spoke of the privatisation and de-traditionalisation of the place as the core of their fears for its ulitmate survival.

 

Exactly when privatisation began seriously creeping into the official thinking about the museum is not pinned down but it would likely have been towards the end of when Robert Hirst was director, and logically would have been after when total commercialisation and cost-recovery policy had been forced on the whole department from above.   The "new thinking" or new order was well advanced by the late 1980s.  In 1988 the "Mining Museum" re-furbishment of the "Mining Museum" was being completed but the new name of "Earth Exchange" had not been invented.  

 

The refurbishment was completed under museum director Angus Robertson.   In 1988 mining industry executives were appointed to the museum's Board of Management and it was announced that the museum would now aim "to become an important 'shop window' for the promotion of mineral development (Minfo 20, 1988).   The early swing to the commericalisation of thinking as well of the museum itself is perhaps reflected there even in the word "shop", as vintually all staff in the entire department of mineral resources ('mines department') has been put through extended sessions and workshops on commercialisation and 'becoming more like business'.   The first mining industry executives who were appointed to the Board in 1988 were Bruce Thomson (Coal and Allied) and Malcolm Lye (Esso Australia).   At this time the running of the museum was also being planned to be taken out of the department's direct control by means of the creation of a "Trust" (to be established at first via amendment of the mining legislation).

 

Also on the new "Board of Management" was Barry Flanagan, the General Manager of the Electricity Commission.  Reasons for this are associated with the State government amalgamating the depeartments of Mineral Resources and Department of Energy (an amalgamation which did not appreciably injure DMR but decimated the former Energy Department - the precursor for advancing energy privatisation which is closely associated with Treasurer Egan who also ultimately delivered the mortal blow to the Museum).  Also to be squeezed into the Museum building was Energy's  information centre.   It was set up with entrance from Hickson Road and operated there in the Earth Exchange phase of the building. 

 

In the late 1980s there was more use of the museum's "common name" of Mining Museum even in official pronouncements (even though it was still officially the 'Geological and Mining Museum').   If apparent rersion to 'Mining Museum' in the lead-up to 'Earth Exchange' means anything at all it possibly reflects the fact that the people (geologists) who had previously been responsible for geology-content displays in the museum had been removed from the building and were not going back in (they had been sent to temporary accomodation at "the sheds" at University of New South Wales, Kensington).   It seemed unlikely with the new aim of the museum that manifestation of any "pure"-geology was going to re-emerge therein, although 'economic geology' might have been able to(?).

 

In the late 1980s profound change began to ramify, from the top down, through the NSW public service, along the lines of the philosophies in a paper "NSW Incorporated" by the Greiner government.   This was the latest economic thinking from America.  There was at the time a terrific contradiction between all this ideology about running government as a business as a company and how the government actually did run.    NSW Incorporated stressed, inter alia , these three core aims :

• a more commercial approach - to be more like business, consistent with 

• downsizing and contracting out government functions; or totally privatising some parts of government;

• deregulation (marketted to the public as “cutting the red tape”).

By 1990 the by then amalgamated Department of Minerals and Energy (amalgamation was itself a form of downsizing and the two put together was accompanied by considerable shedding of staff - particularly from the former Department of Energy) had a "COMMERCIALISATION BRANCH".

 

In retrospect the Department of Energy, that was massively cut during the amalgamation, suffered most possibly because of the longer term planning to privatise or do away with its functions anyway - in the longer term.

 

The Commercialisation Branch, headed by Peter de Jager, as Commercialisation Manager, and D.G. Drysdale as Assistant Commercialisation Manager, embarked on trying to inculcate new thinking (culture change) throughout the department to make it more business-like.   Branches were informed they must generate 50% of their running costs (mostly salaries).    Many staff could not imagine that anything they did could possibly generate any income.at all, let alone the demanded "full cost recovery".    This development caused great stress in the organisation.

 

Some branches, such as issued licences and leases, could potentially generate income by putting up all the fees.   The Museum likewise could raise admission charges.    

 

These pressures for costs recovery began to be applied to the Museum probably long before the pressure was put on other branches of the department.   indeed the museum's "commercialise or perish" fate [which in the end became commercialise AND perish] was in fact sealed as early as 1982 when the State government instructed that it must become self-supporting within two years, as an alternative to disposal or closure (Garner, 1982) - NB: this actual instruction itself, that early, has not been traced beyond Garner's relating it. 

 

All this was the result of the, at first slow, introduction into the NSW public service of commercialisation and it's flow-through effects ("user-pays" etc.).  The pressures were decidedly ramped up after 1998 and the release of "NSW Incorporated" guiding philosophy.  Also agencies were instructed to dispose of non-core assets and the Geological and Mining Museum was a soft-target thereafter.   The museum actually lasted longer, after the 'become self-supporting' order, than many at the time expected it would (there was some grace given - full cost recovery cannot be achieved overnight it was conceded).  Many of the longer-term staff quite early on did see clear "writing on the wall" and sought to withdraw from the (semi-)privatising entity, such as into the perceived safer ground of the "mines" department per se.   As Broadbent and Guthrie (1992) suggest (1992, p.4) the commercialisation processes that  “redefined" the public sector in those years brought profound confusion and disturbance to those who worked in the public service as to just ‘what they are about’.   Burton (2006 or excerpts below) gives examples of that confusion of values or self-identities/perceptions re "proper" roles in the case of an entity transformed from a tradition museum, run in the perceived 'public interest', to an "Earth Exchange" that was to be run on a 'commercial' basis controlled by a Trust vested mainly in the mining industry (who in turn were tacitly expected to donate large amounts of sponsorship).  On a strictly "commercial" basis what did the industry stand to gain - except perhaps a showcase for better "managing" public perception of the industry.   Now if that was pushed to far both the staff and the public would feel politicised/propagandised.   But if not pushed far enough the industry might feel 'cheated' as it was deriving no 'value' from the deal.  Thus the museum itself was in the middle of a no-win highly compromised situation.

 

Even apart from the role confusion of staff, which gradually worsened rather than improved, even when they asked why is this being called "Earth Exchange" there was no satisfactory answer forthcoming for them ... 'oh, just a name thought up by some management consultant'.

 

Various perceptions of the Earth Exchange phase are collected in a study by Christine Burton (2006), from which some excerpts are shown below.

 

Given the choice of becoming self-supporting (by aggrandising to gain place in the "marketplace") or perishing, the staff of a once quite traditional museum had little choice but try and learn the "newspeak" of the marketplace and try to assume an entrepreneurial stance.   They tried but failed, as all along this was a poisioned chalice with minimal chance of local success - unless perhaps taken over 100% by industry and just (in the view of many) degenerated into a propaganda machine rather than a scientific or educational facility.   In effect the new "each exchange" became stripped of geological scientific expertise, so much so that it came to be regarded with distain even by many in the same department (such as by geologists in the Department who normally would have been expected to have been highly supportive of the place - one very senior and respected geologist termed it the "Lunar Park on the southern side of the Harbour, with respect to how the new management gutted it of factual/scientific basis in an effort to make it more 'entertaining' or gimmicky).   More and more, the things the museum was presenting displays were just outright wrong.   It developed a simple little hand-operated display to fold layered coloured pieces of flexible material to similar strata folding in the earth - but had the folding go in the opposite direction to what is natural.   The Department, as it had always done when the museum had previously been an intergral part of it, dutifully continued to send all new publications etc. to the Museum.   But the new Earth Exchange, with almost all earth-science staff now removed from it, knew not what to do with such things.   The Department would send them latest Geological Survey maps but they would just place them at jazzy angles (virtually unreadable) on pillars as if just nice coloured ornamental pieces of eye-candy or wallpaper.   The museum in being 'gimmicky' or seeking to be more 'popular' also mounted displays showing the supposed special spiritual and healing properties of crystals, minerals and gems.   That too added to the disdain felt by professionals within the Department towards those who were then running the Earth Exchange.   Also, the industry sponsors who dominated the Museum's Trust did not feel that they were getting their money's worth.   This is described in the excepts below from Christine Burton's thesis.

 

   Christine Burton - author of a serious/analytical study of what happened at the Earth Exchange.

 

Christine Burton has worked in the cultural field as a planner, consultant, researcher and academic. Her research interests include visitor choice in relation to museums; social impacts; value creation, capture and exchange transacted between new museums and their stakeholders.   She is probably one of the very few persons who has tried to 'study' the Earth Exchange phenomenon in some totality.  However an earlier review was carried out in 1994 by Richard Tallboys, the Executive Director of the World Coal Institute.  Tallboys was replaced as Chief Executive of the World Coal Institute in 1993 and after that he visited Sydney to do this review, or else he did the review because he was visiting Sydney for some other reasons.  Prior to being CEO of the WCI (1988-1983) Tallboys was the British Ambassador to Vietnam (1985-1987).  He now works (2011) as an "Enrichment Guest Lecturer" aboard cruise ships, giving "stimulating discussions designed for people who place value on learning and personal growth"   Tallboys' review was commissioned by the museum's Trust.  That review can be found in "Earth Exchange Papers, AK520", Box 4, preserved by NSW State Records (Archives).   The Tallboys review confirmed the worst fears of industry, that they were getting insufficient value from their 'investment' in the museum.

 

   Richard Tallboys - author of an earlier review of the Earth Exchange, done for the Trustees.

 

Burton interviewed many people for her thesis.  However all she says about the final demise of the museum was that it was "sudden".   She clearly didn't succeed in interviewing Mr Egan, or other high ranking politicans, about the exact circumstances and manner of when the museum was written off the State budget.   She has however documented some information of how the Arts Minister, at the time Mr Collins, did not support the continuation of the museum.  She apparently interviewed Collins in 2005, years after the closing (she sought the views of both the former Minister and also the then Director of that Department).   One aspect she does not include however, but which was known about to museum staff around the time of the closing, was that a consortium of Aboriginal groups had approached the Arts Ministry seeking to obtain the Mining Museum Building for an Aboriginal Arts Centre.   The exact timing of what came first is not known.   Although the building did become available by the cessation of the Earth Exchange, it was never taken over by the Aboriginal interests.   Upon enquiry to the Arts Ministry even later than Burton wrote her thesis, the reason given for this was that the groups involved in the consortium were never able to conclude an agreement amongst themselves.   Some of them obtained other premises nearby. 

 

[ COLLINS - Peter Collins (1947- ), parliamentarian and lawyer.  When a Liberal government was elected in 1988 Collins was appointed Minister for Health (1988-1991) and Minister for the Arts (1988-1995). He was later appointed to various portfolios including Attorney General (1991-1992), Consumer Affairs (1992), State Development (1992) and Treasurer (1993-1995). Collins was Leader of the Opposition between 1995 and 1998.  In 2000 Collins published his autobiography, The bear pit: a life in politics. Peter Collins resigned from Parliament in 2003.  His autobiography has not been looked at for relevant mentions, if any.]

 

 

 

 

 

( a.k.a. the "privatisation path", "commercialisation" or "neoliberalisation" of the museum )

 

 

 

 

 

( i.e. total disaster )

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Extracts from Burton (2006)

 

As Burton wrote, the first director of the revamping museum was "from a geological background with the Department of Minerals Resources".  This was Brian Garner who had a geology degree, followed by a diploma of education.  He had worked as an education officer and then as an editor in the department before being appointed the manager/director of the museum to oversee its re-development.   An "Overseas Study Tour for the Redevelopment Planning of the Geological & Mining Museum" was approved and was carried out from April 8 to 27, 1985. The study team comprised Brian Garner, Director; Peter Mould, Project Architect; and Ms Patricia Jones, representing the NSW Chamber of Mines and Extractive Industries. The aim of the tour was to examine a range of relevant Museums.  Museums in USA, Canada, England and Germany were visited.   The team got many ideas from this trip, some of which were introduced at the Earth Exchange or had hoped to be introduced but were never completed before the museum was discontinued.  Some of the ideas for depicting undergroud mining had been canvassed at the museum even back in the pre Earth Exchange years but they were more difficult to implement than smaller displays.

 

After the museum initial re-furbishment had been completed, the enhanced aspirations for the place were judged as possibly too big for the existing manager (which had also been done with the manager one previous, then called Curator, Rob "Lofty" Hirst), and Brian was forced to re-apply (unsuccessfully) for his job).   How the position was re-filled is not known, however if the new selection criteria had demanded experience in running a large modern museum then the existing incumbent would not have had such as the Earth Exchange had only just reached that stage of development.  The re-advertised position went instead to Dr Lindsay Sharp, who was understood by staff to market himself as a "museum doctor", meaning fix-it man for museums - one who could really make the operation pay etc.  For the first time in the whole long history of the museum the management of it passed out of the hands of people who directly knew what the museum was about (geologists).   Lindsay Sharp had previously steered the Powerhouse Museum at Ultimo, then a large modern new museum developed in an old electricity generating station, of similar vintage as the Mining Museum building.  The Ultimo power station was built in 1899-1902 to provide power for Sydney's new electric tram system.   Burton (2006) suggested that Sharp "may have also seen an opportunity to create a mini Powerhouse on the site of the Rocks smaller powerhouse".   Lindsay sharp had been the Director of Utimo's Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences in 1979-1988, and led the team responsible for establishing that museum into the nearby 'Powerhouse'.  

 

Sharp apparently viewed the museum as a a regenerated tourist, environmental and educational facility.  He doctorate was in history of science and his technical abilities/interests were a concern to some staff.   There are reports of very considerable staff conflict under his rule; one such being that when he summarily sacked one important job holder the 'victim' took vindictive action that endangered digitised records holdings.   Lindsay moved on to ultimately much bigger things, becoming Deputy Director of the Milken Family Foundation in Santa Monica, then CEO of the Royal Ontario Museum (1997-2000), and finally the National Museum of Science and Industry in London (2000-2005).

 

Sharp's critics in his Earth Exchange management days spoke of him putting in onto the "Mickey Mouse" or "Luna Park" path.  

 

It appears to have been much the same wherever he went.   At the Science Museum in London his detractors claimed that he had turned the place into Disney World.  Although some of the "disneyfication" was popular and successful financially (an addtional fee charged for special exhibits/events) it was also criticised as a dumbing down of the institution.  His supporters, or those who had appointed him continued to maintain that he was a gifted and inspiring innovator but in the face or rising staff mutiny he resigned and that was the last museum position in his turbulent reign (viz. "Museum peace after the Sharp shooting? - Times Online", http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/article548933 )..

Sharp’s management jarred so abruptly with so many traditionalists at the museum that it prompted an anonymous letter of complaint about him, signed “concerned staff”, which was sent to the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) and to the local newspaper.  “Remote” and “aloof” are words that crop up often. “His sentences are peppered with buzz words such as ‘dialogue’, ‘ progress’, and ‘regeneration’ - very management guru-ish.”

Sharp was reportedly brought in with a reputation for being an experienced and charismatic manager with a flair for persuading private benefactors to open their wallets.  This latter talent may be another clue to his appointment to the helm of the young Earth Exchange.

No matter how inspired his ideas, according to his admirers, he failed to persuade the workforce to support him at the Science Museum.  Under Sharp's "restructuring" some 30 curators lost their jobs at the Science Museum, another factor which would not have endeared him with the staff..

He also reportedly had similar problems in his previous post in Canada.   His three-year stint in Toronto was controversial, involving, some say, identical problems and accusations that he faced in London.  In another confidential memo leaked to the Canadian media, a 13-page document from unnamed staff members levelled similar claims against him.  Kim Herbenera, formerly a senior member of staff at the Toronto museum, was quoted as saying: “Lindsay acted as if he did not really understand what an important cultural institution was all about. He was swept up with razzle dazzle, as if Disney World was his ultimate ambition, rather than a respected museum.”

Although Sharp also had many strong supporters the bottom line for many old staff or 'traditionalists' who had had known their institutions for a long time was that Sharp was a remote figure who breezed in full of new managment-speak and little esle - they doubted that he had any real affection for "their" museum, and was perhaps 'reforming' it only as another step in his career ladder.  This recalls a quotation from John Tusa, the legendary BBC broadcaster, who, commenting on the restructuring of the BBC, said simply: “Management that wants to change an institution must first show that it loves that institution”  [source: press reports, mainly op. cit. above].  

In any event, Sharp became the "best known/remembered" of all four directors of the Earth Exchange.   Unlike in other places where he had both detractors and also many supporters on staff, the Earth Exchange staff was smaller and in their ranks he is remembered as having strong critics, but no known supporters.  He is politely praised in the official papers but the private views on the Trust members regarding his period of management are totally unknown.  Burton however does note that there was a crisis in confidence at Trust level which coincided with a change in director.

The Earth Exchange's third director, Burton states, was appointed in 1994 in an acting capacity but left in January 1995 when not confirmed in the position.  The 'final' director was very nominal in the sense that he had no museum experience and was not there to manage a museum but rather to close one down.  A difference with other museums where Lindsay Sharp's razza-mattaz and new managerialism was experienced is that it may have been beneficial for the big ones, as these had many subject/substance-knowledgeable staff to still keep the museum grounded, and a dose of innovative entrepreneurial medicine could have benefited them.   But with the Earth Exchange the formerly present scientific staff were at first almost totally, and later on totally, removed from the building, so what eventually resulted in that case was fearfully approaching a shell of all glitter and no substance.  Museological or museum-minded colleagues around the city, especially on the geological side, did not speak kindly of this.  Although somewhat sympathetic at the museum's ultimate very 'sudden' de-funding demise, at least one senior person said that it had to be hit on the head sooner or later from the point of view of the monstrous distortion it had grown into.   That was perhaps a very harsh view but it was also the view of a very sound-and-solid traditionalist long versed in the "sensible" substance of what such a museum 'should' have been about minus the attempted sensationalism to carry the place up-maket in attempted to gain more share of the "museums marketplace".

All in all, the Earth Exchange greatly changed the original nature of what the normal functioning of a Geological and Mining Musem had been for over a century, and the museum didn't survive this experiment that involved at least one famous "museum doctor" operating on it.    It is best to remember though that what fundamentally killed the museum was the commericalisation that was pushed through the mines department and all other NSW agencies, demanding that entities "earn" half their running costs, increasing "user pays" and so on.   It was this forced commercialisation drive through the public service which sealed the museum's fate initially.   The subsequent razza-mattaz and management management changes to make the museum more like a business were, at least by some, sincere efforts to try and save the unsaveable.    With the ?wisdom of retrospect, possiby the only way that it could have been saved and kept in operation might have been  to relocate the museum to 'cheap' (government-owned) land west of Sydney.   However, the alternative was run with, to give the museum to the mining industry (wanted or not), and for it ever to become a showcase for that industy, and return 'value' on their 'investment' in it then it surely had to be in Sydney and seen by more people.   The whole idea was at best only lukewarm taken up by industry.    Also in the realm of 'perhaps' - perhaps if the industry had made the place something with additional flavour of a 'school of mines' type operation, and ran their own fair-dinkum training courses in rooms at the museum it might have added substance to fairy floss, showing to those in the know that the museum was actually doing something for the industry.   Others possibly had other different ideas on how it might have been 'saved' that are not yet gathered here?

 

NOTES ON THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF CLOSURE

 

It was announced in August 1995 that the 48 staff of the museum would be made redundant, and that Government funding would stop in September.

 

Burton (2006, p. 243) noted how "suddenly" the museum lost its funding.   She, however, does not report any attempt to interview the Treasurer, Mr Michael Egan, or anyone in his office - when exactly what happened has never been gotten to the bottom of.   Whether the incoming new government just drew up a list and struck a line through some, or how it was actually decided upon, is not known.

 

The Treasury information release stated that the Earth Exchange is "badly located, it's too small and too specialised" and that "taxpayers were no longer getting value for money from their support for the Earth Exchange".   Yet compared to the past in most ways (when the museum was entirely taxpayer-supported) taxpayers were now only paying for a much reduced part of its support - the aim having been to hive it off to industry.    

 

The Earth Exchange issued it's own Media Release and this stated that "The Museum received confirmation of NSW Government funding for $1.355 millon dollars on 18 August (only) to be told on 23 August that the funding had been withdrawn, effectively forcing the Museum to close its doors".

 

This tells us that the Museum was informed on 23 August, and the Treasurer's office made a release the following day, 24 August 1995.  

 

 

Michael Egan served as New South Wales Treasurer from 1995 till 2005.  He is probably best known for pushing electricity privatisation, which began in 1997.  After Egan resigned, the role of Treasurer, along with privatising electricity was taken over by Michael Costa, until he in turn was sacked by Premier Iemma before he himself resigned.   The whole business proved disastrous for rank-and-file confidence in Labor by its party memters, as well as for many of those who had worked in the Electricity Commission, regardless of any asserted broader merits.   Whether or not Egan really had anything to do directly with the Museum's demise (decision to cut funding) remains unknown, despite his name being upon it.  The matter might have been dealt with mainly by Coutt-Trotter, as a single-line item savings, although at that time he was relatively junior on staff. 

The Museum's media release was by Ray Beale, President of the Earth Exchange Museum Society.     The Treasury release was by Michael Coutts-Trotter, who was then a Treasury media contact person.  He later on became the chief of staff to the New South Wales Treasurer, from 1998 to 2004, then was was appointed Director-General of the New South Wales Department of Finance and Services on Friday 1 April 2011 by Premier Barry O'Farrell.   Mr Coutts-Trotter, whose only formal qualification is a journalism degree but he was also previously in charge of Australia's largest education bureaucracy, overseeing almost 100,000 people.  He was also previously director-general of the NSW Department of Commerce after his period as chief-of-staff to former treasurer Michael Egan. Mr Coutts-Trotter's rise through the public service since starting work for Mr Egan is even more remarkable because he had been earlier given a nine-year jail sentence for selling heroin - of which he served two years and nine months ( http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/blogs/learning-curve/first-head-rolls-in-nsw-public-service-its-an-education-20110329-1ce0v.html ).

 

In the Government's 24 August 1995 media release which doomed the museum, one of the criticisms levelled against it was that it "costs a family of four $27 to visit the Earth Exchange compared to $14 at the Powerhouse or Australian Museums" (The Museum's media release put the family admission charge at $25 versus $12 at the Powerhouse and $8 at the Australian Museum).   

 

For most of its long life, as the Geological and Mining Museum, the museum had been free entry.

 

It was forced into charging the shocking amount of $25 family admission charge by being forced to attempt full cost recovery.

 

This was ENTIRELY the doing of government - then once it was done, Government crucified the museum on the very point it had been forced to.

 

Arguably though, the Museum's Media Release was also a bit on the untrue side.   It concluded "While visitation and support from sponsors is strong, without the ongoing support from the NSW Government the Museum is doomed".

 

It is uncertain how much Ray Beale would have known but 'strong' support from sponsors (industry) is doubtful.   It may have still have been expressed as strong but behind the scenes it had crumbled.   Burton (2006) wrote that even the initial support was seemingly little to do with the museum itself, but rather to do with gaining a channel of communication with young people.  She wrote "Eager for a channel for communication to secure the favourable attention of young people and in controlling the message to be broadcast, the mining and extractive industries believed that the Earth Exchange could deliver".   But as time went on the support waned considerably.   Tallboys (1994)  found that in twenty-eight meetings the 122 comments by industry stakeholders included only seven comments that indicated a continuation of conditional support.

 

Treasury's closure statement said that the Government would "open discussions to move the minerals collection to the Australian Museum and the mining displays to the Powerhouse".   Only the Chapman collection moved to the Australian Museum, and it is uncertain what displays the Powerhouse museum took, if any.   

 

The Museum building was also being used to house an "Energy Information Centre".   This was a reflection of a former amalgamation of the Mines and Energy departments.   The Treasury's 24 August announcement stated that what might become of the Energy Information Centre could be a "mobile service" (visiting schools and shopping centres) plus "modest fixtures" at Homebush Bay, or at an Advanced Technology Park at Redfern.   What actually did happen to the Energy Information Centre is not known.   There was, or is, an "Energy Information Centre" at 525 Ellizabeth Street, Surry Hills.  However that appears to be a private business.   State government Energy Information Centres continued to operate in other States.

 

 

SOME ASSORTED MEMORIES AND 'DESTINATIONS' AFTER CLOSURE OF THE MUSEUM

The key contents of the Museum were the systematic collections.   These mostly are now at Londonderry, apart from the fine display specimens which went to the Australian Museum.

Other assorted display material was given or sold to an array of interested parties.   Some that was gold related made its way to a private gold museum at Hill End.

A very large fossil tree which museum staff had arranged to have transported to Sydney from Blackwater in Queensland took years to track down and was finally found at the Newcastle Museum, where it is well cared for.

Below it is traced what has become of the Museum's "earthquake machine", which first ended up at  "Artspace" at 43-51 Cowper Wharf Road Woolloomooloo NSW 2011 Australia - but later on was taken 'on tour', to California.

"It's believed that the original suggestion to have an 'earthquake machine' in the museum was by Kay Koenig, a then collections manager".

 

 

Fate of The Earthquake Machine 

 

Preface

D.V. Rogers

It has been almost five years since I removed the Earthquake Simulator from the former Earth Exchange Museum. Back then I decided that I would approach the recommissioning of this unique machine as an exercise not only in endurance, but the development of a skill base that could be applied in the future to a series of works in both an arts related context and maybe some realworld use. I do not see my work with the earthquake simulator as some ground breaking re-invention that could change or save lives, merely a system of tools representing and mappingour current state of shifting tectonics and digital information networks.

The control for the earthquake simulator has been developed under Linux and the release for this installation is Seismonitor v0.9. Why version 0.9? It merely signifies a starting point, a reference to a beginning and certainly not an end. Much more is to be done, the future is near and how far away is a stable v2.0? First there are the DVA tests, the exploration of a QDDS data feed, the turntable and more collaborative science. Science has had to continually redefine its conception of the world. So has art?

Importantly there are several people who have been the greatest supporters of this work. To Richard Gracie, thank you for your continual support from the beginning with technical and conceptual concerns, your hard labour and your enthusiasm and ideas are always gratefully received. To Des Devlin for pushing me in the direction of Linux, your encouragement, your Linux support, your hacking of smio.c and your skills with Perl, thank you! Richard and Des some day, somehow I hope you will be rewarded.

Ben Blakebrough and Miles Van Dorsen thanks for the attitude, the bits and pieces, the time and for being who you are. Thanks also to Dr Warren Jasper for developing the driver for DIO48H, Curt Wuollet for the correspondence, smio.c and pointers and to the Open Source Community in general. Andrew Michael of the USGS, thank you for the score and recordings of his Earthquake Quartet #1 and the musicians who performed for the opening. Thank you John Conomos for the essay. Thanks Garry Manson for the loan of the compressor. Thanks Denis Beaubois for cameras, listening and sub-patronage and to the late HGStenbo for the CAD work. Tjeerd Van Dyk, thank you for the transport, and Rentcorp for the forklift. Denis Ritchie, thank you for developing the C language in the first place.

Thank you to the Australia Council for the Arts, New Media Fund for keeping me out of a real job for the past twelve months. Thanks to Amanda McDonald Crowley from her ANAT days and to Nicholas Tsoutas for approaching me twelve months ago and seeking my interest in showing at Artspace - it would not be happening otherwise!

Lastly and most importantly thanks to Victoria - my love, my partner and mother of our two children, my greatest supporter!

D.V. Rogers
January 2002

 

A tender for removal

D.V. Rogers

During November 1995 while driving a taxi on the streets of Sydney, listening to the radio was among other distractions, a common activity to pass the drudgery of a shift. The actual date is now unclear to me, and was not documented, but while listening to ABC 2BL Radio (702am), my attention was taken by the then director of The Earth Exchange Museum who was announcing the closure of the museum. The director was describing the various exhibits at the museum which had at that point not found a home. An earthquake simulator was one of these exhibits.

Calling the museum I made a general enquiry about the simulator, requesting the possibility of a visit and an inspection of the machine. Visiting the museum I was taken by the size of this readymade machine and the components consisting of a high delivery air compressor, hydraulic powerpack, hydraulic actuators, solenoids and programmable logic controller. I was informed that the simulator would be scrapped if a new site was not found.

Logistically it would be difficult to remove! Suspended on the second floor of the museum in Hickson Road on four vertical steel columns. To remove the machine it had to be cut into sections to get it out. Having only recently been befriended by Ben Blakebrough in setting up a workshop in Leichhardt, and now with space available to locate it, the decision was made to offer the museum a tender for removal. My offer was to remove the simulator at no cost and that the simulator would over time be re-commissioned and in some way in the future directed towards some kind of 'creative' outcome. The tender for removal was approved two days later.

The original simulator design was for a completely pneumatic system which a Sydney based company, Latitudes, did the design work for. This pneumatic system did not generate enough movement quickly enough throughout the platform. Consulting engineers Gardener Willis and Associates then modified the design of a pneumatic system to run almost exclusively by hydraulic actuation. Tysci Industries became involved in completing the work in implementing the hydraulics for the simulator.

Familiarising myself with the machine I spent as much time as possible at the museum during February and March of 1996, the unit was tagged and a plan was conceived in how it would be removed. Systematically I slowly stripped it down, removing the rubber floor covering, lifting the floor pieces out, removing all hydraulic actuators and valve banks. A crane was hired to lift out the hydraulic powerpack and air compressor. Reluctantly the compressor was sold soon after to subsidise costs of the removal.

The last thing removed was the sub-frame of the simulator. It was decided where this structural frame would be cut, and Ben did the oxy work. Block and tackles were used to swing these pieces out of the floor cavity over a couple of days without injury. The simulator was now cut up into sixteen pieces, squeezed into a lift, craned onto a five ton truck, then dropped in the yard at the Leichhardt workshop. This was now April 1996 and here it stayed almost untouched for most of the next two years.

With very little engineering skills I set about planning how I would re-use the simulator components and contemplated whether I would recommission the device or re-engineer a new machine. The argument was fairly straight forward in that I had acquired this unique machine which at the time of removal was a going concern and the most likely outcome was to use it as a tool for the development and learning of skills that in most cases would be very difficult to have access to otherwise. The decision was made to return the simulator to its original state of operation with the new design being a modular configuration enabling the simulator to be moved and installed in various possible future locations.

What exactly and how the simulator would be used in an installation / performance context since the removal of the simulator remained a secondary concern. The primary focus of the work in front of me was to treat it as a learning and research tool enabling for a solid base for future works and collaborations that might attempt to re-direct the tools, techniques, and tenets of science and industry away from their typical manifestations in practicality or production.

Recomissioning of the earthquake simulator finally began around April 1998. A small development grant was received from the Australia Council For The Arts and subsequently followed up in 1999 by a "Scientific Serendipity Research Grant" from the Australian Network For Art And Technology (ANAT). Culminating in close to 3000hrs to recommission the simulator, the following work was finally completed in March 2000:

* Redesign of 3-Phase start up unit for the hydraulic powerpack * Laying out a working model to test all hydraulic rams and solenoid valve actuators * Reconfigure Festo Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC) and eliminate existing hardware problems * Learn to operate Festo Software Tools (FST) operating system * Redesign driver board unit, eliminating malfunctional relays communicating to solenoid valves * Design for a new modular structural sub frame and a modified top frame. * Actual engineering fabrication of the design was implemented and realised

From the outset in taking on such a large work I believed that eventually the conceptual concerns of the project would likely explore notions of presence and absence in researching the future possibility of remote automation using minimal bandwidth data transmission, and widely available, low cost components enabling for the remote switching of the earthquake simulator by means of globally monitored seismic activity.

I was fortunate to receive further funding from the Australia Council For The Arts, New Media Board in October 2000. This new work grant was towards the research, design and implementation of a real time control system, enabling the earthquake simulator to interpret and conceptually output the variable effects of globally monitored earthquakes by means of near real time, remote data transmission.

The original Festo Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) that controlled the hydraulic and pneumatic solenoids of the simulator has been replaced by a standard PC with a Computerboards CIO-DIO48H digital I/O card and a 48-channel solid-state relay rack. The proprietary software that controlled the PLC stepped through a series of sequences within a closed environment. Seismonitor v0.9 has been written to both move the system into an open (Linux) operating environment and introduce a near-real-time, IP-based interactivity to the system.

dvr@allshookup.org
December 2001

Venerated RELIC of the Museum:  The earthquake simulator machine in its new home.

(Re-promoted as artwork: "Manmade earthquake simulator with no humam emotions")

 

EARTHQUAKE QUARTET #1
Quartet for Voice, Trombone, Cello, and Seismograms
Composer Andrew Michael
http://quake.usgs.gov/~michael/

Earthquake Quartet #1 is a concept piece that attempts to express two ideas about earthquakes. In its initial section, we hear a musical description of the earthquake cycle. In this cycle the motion of tectonic plates slowly builds up strain in the earth's crust and this strain is then suddenly released during earthquakes. The latter part of the piece is based on the idea that society and culture, including music, takes place with the earthquakes as an often-ignored backdrop. However, geologic processes are an intrinsic part of our existence and ignoring the slow cycle described in the initial section will have its consequences.

I composed this two-minute piece during November and December, 1999, following the devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Taiwan. It had its premiere at a lecture titled The Music of Earthquakes on December 16 at Moscone Hall in San Francisco as part of the annual Fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. The musicians at the premiere were: soprano and USGS Geophysicist Stephanie Ross, cellist and Stanford University Geophysics Graduate Student David Schaff, and myself, USGS Geophysicist Andrew Michael, on trombone. The seismograms are audible because we have sped them up 80- to 100-fold so that the frequencies are now in our hearing range.

The unusual mix of instrumentation is based on the birth of this work, which is an outgrowth of The Music of Earthquakes lecture that I have been giving since 1997. This lecture mixes performance and lecture, music and science, acoustic instruments and computer-generated sounds. A musician controls the source of the sound and the path it travels through their instrument in order to make sound waves that we hear as music. An earthquake is the source of waves that travel along a path through the earth until reaching us as shaking. It is almost as if the earth is a musician and people, including seismologists, are the audience who must try to understand what the music means. By listening to both music and the audio playbacks of the earth shaking, we explore this analogy and find new ways to learn about the earth, earthquakes, musical instruments and music. Several times, members of the audience pointed out that I was using music to help explain scientific principles but had not included the seismic sounds in any of the music. The quartet closes this loop and has allowed me to use our scientific data, as a musician, in order to express my feelings, as a seismologist, about the relationship of society to earthquakes.

The earthquakes are the 1992 magnitude 7.3 Landers earthquake in southern California as recorded at Parkfield, California This is the large rumble heard near the beginning. The repetitive four beat pattern is made up of two earthquakes both of which occurred at Parkfield. On beats 1 and 3 you hear a magnitude 2 earthquake recorded on two stations only a couple of kilometres away. On beats 2 and 4 you hear a magnitude 5.1 event recorded about 10 kilometres away and 120 kilometres away near Hollister, California. Here, the fourth beat is the slower moving S wave while the pickup to the fourth beat is the faster moving P wave. Listeners, especially cellists and/or trombonists, may recognize that one theme from the second section is a rhythmically distorted quote from the Allemande of Bach's second suite for solo Cello which is then further inverted and modified.

Some Playing Instructions

In the opening section the musicians are instructed to stop playing when large earthquakes occur. Once the earthquakes become rhythmic, the musicians are to take the rhythmic character from the quakes and the challenge is to maintain the inflexible tempo set by the audio track rather than the usual ebb and flow that is possible when playing with other musicians. At the end, the musicians are told once again to stop when the large earthquake occurs but their parts do not actually show them when this happens. It is supposed to be a surprise.

Andy Michael, Seismologist, USGS

Download mp3 File of Actual Performance Recording (5975mb)

Andrew Michael's Earthquake Quartet #1 was performed for the opening of Seismonitor on the 10th January, 2002, by Sydney based musicians Inga Liljestrom(vocals), Natasha Rumiz (Viola), Michael Lira (Double Bass) and Simon Bartlett (Trombone). The score was slightly adapted for this performance as the Cello part was replaced by Viola and Double Bass.

 

Terrai Electronca
John Conomos

"Every day the urge grows stronger to get hold of an object at very close range by way of its likeness, its reproduction"
(Walter Benjamin 1936)

D.V. Rogers' enthralling new installation, Seismonitor, is a fine instance of the artist's underlying belief that contemporary artists who wish to transcend the traditional realm of cultural representation need to expand their definition of art materials and contexts.

Seismonitior is a multifaceted, imaginative installation - an apocalyptic machine in its large contours of telematic art, engineering and interface design - mapping out the earth's breathing terrain of spatio-temporality, of moving tectonics and global digital information networks. Rogers has persuasively succeeded in creating a hypnotic, kinetic, telematic work which addresses his inventive manifold interests in exploring the complex and poetic interface between art, science and technology.

Seismonitor's museological origins as an earthquake simulator at the now defunct minerals and mining museum, The Earth Exchange, need to be mentioned in order to appreciate its rich cultural and technological significance. As a recording tele-technological device of data information and measurement, Seismonitior came about as a direct result of the 1989 Newcastle earthquake. In the museum, the simulator became an entertainment device, where the public would stand on it experiencing a 5.7 magnitude earthquake - similar to the one in Newcastle.

Essentially, Seismonitor not only vividly highlights its intricate links to late-capitalist culture's "entertainment - industrial - technological" complex, but it also functions as a vital and witty Duchampian found object in that the artist retrieved the earthquake simulator from the museum in 1996 and reconfigured it as telematic art. It is, therefore, an intriguing open-ended installation that investigates telepistemological questions about access, knowledge, perception and agency at a distance. Seismonitor, in the context of our most influential tele-technologies like the telescope, the telephone, television, and more recently,the Internet and telerobots, is concerned with the techno-cultural-epistemological quest to study knowledge at a distance. In this case, to interpret and output the variable effects and performance of globally monitored earthquakes by means of real-time remote data transmission.

Crucially, Seismonitor 's overall thematic, formal and sculptural configurations vividly suggest Rogers' cross-disciplinary approach to his work as being that (to evoke the legacy of Russian Constructivism to the new media arts) of an "artist-engineer." Specifically, the installation represents a major investigation towards articulating, in the artist's own words, "a machine control (automaton) arising from live representation (mirror) of a remote physical environment (earth)". Seismonitor is a bold exploration of certain critical principles of control and means of control salient to engineering, seismology and information database retrieval.

Moreover, the installation's stimulating inter-disciplinary concerns of art, science and technology reflect the genre's own complex artistic practices: Fluxus, Earth art, video art, Minimalism, Performance art, Conceptual art and Process art. Given the installation's own apt gallery context, it is also significant to note that installation art and alternative art spaces developed together since the 1960s. Consequently, Seismonitor reflects in its own engaging interactive mode of spectatorial participation, the archetypal issues raised by installation art: site specificity, institutional critique, temporality and ephemerality.

Seismonitor also manifests, in its kinetic mis-en-scene of concerns and techniques of re-presentation, the influential work and writings of Robert Smithson and his ideas of site and non-site. For Smithson, Earth art represented a deconstruction of modernism and its idealist ideology of landscape of deserts, mountains, and storms at sea and the romantic sublime. Smithson's notions of "site" and "non-site" refer to the transfer of material from outside an art gallery to an indoor space.

Cognitive entropy, for Smithson, was the main focus of his work; it represented the postmodern condition and it had to be overcome. Smithson in his famous 1966 Artforum essay "Entropy and the New Monuments" praised Minimalist art's "monumental inaction" and regarded it as an ultimate realism that necessitated an imaginative response. Hence, Smithson's earthworks of "entropic" sites.

In a critical sense, Seismonitor is a pun-encrusted installation given its heritage of the Duchampian tradition of 'post-object' art and Earth art, especially since it was 'found' at Sydney's The Earth Exchange Museum and that it is an earthquake simulator. On the latter, Seismonitor is rich in its popular cultural connotations: earthquakes belong to the disaster movie genre , and most significantly, are relevant to Roberto Rossellini's "neo-realist" art cinema in the related form of volcanoes. The two Rossellini movies that need to be singled out here are Stromboli (1949) and Voyage to Italy (1953).The volcano in Stromboli represents the absolute, nature as indifferent and cruel, whilst in Voyage to Italy, the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79 captures in time (as in a photograph) the eerie contours of the embraced bodies of a couple in the earth itself. This is a traumatic scene which concretises for the movie's unsettled female protagonist (Ingrid Bergman) the existential realisation that "life's so short".

On a certain metaphorical plane, Seismonitor as an installation recording the earth's movements (breathing), suggests telematic art (art in general) as a creative activity that suggests ideas, intuition and techne being (re)animated by human presence. We breath life into art as an ongoing form of ontological self-affirmation in the flux of life. The ancient Greek concept of pnuema (breath) has a particular aesthetic and technological resonance for Seismonitor.

If installations have became the postmodern artform of the late twentieth century, then Seismonitor is a classical instance of a firmly established and flourishing genre that captures, in terms of Anne-Marie Duguet's definition of installation art, the idea of an installation as a "performance-inducing 'apparatus' (dispositif)" 1. Seismonitor's conceptual and formal architecture suggest, in the light of Duguet's view of installations, a multi-layered work with various modes of enunciation that produce certain effects of perception, pleasure, awareness and representation.

Seismonitor's telepistemological sigificance suggests that we need to be imaginative, tenacious and sceptical in creating new forms of human-machine communication. Rogers clearly strives to create a poetical view of telematic art: customizing the human-computer interface in order to see what 'vibrates' beyond our horizons: geographical and personal. Seismonitor is a work that is 'earthed' (so to speak) in that it simulates an earthquake, but moreover, it avoids the more specious forms of techno-utopias which posit a wired world of universal intelligence and access - a cyberspace world which fails to recognize its elitist, ahistorical and Platonic/rationalist limitations reconfiguring the corporate cyborg as the collective norm. Instead, Seismonitor is rich in its techno-cultural pluralism, a work which suggests an utopian realism, a work which is directed towards the future, possessing the quality of (what Ernst Bloch calls) "the -not-yet-known."

1 Anne-Marie Duguet, "Does Interactivity Lead to New Definitions in Art?" in Hans Peter Schwarz and Jeffrey Shaw (eds), Media Art Perspectives, Edition ZKM, Cantz Verlag, 1995; 148.

( http://allshookup.org/artspace/conomos.htm )

The poster announcing the opening of the exhibition of the re-commissioned man-made earthquake simulator

 

Simulator goes to California - Parkfield Interventional EQ Fieldwork (2008)

Photo:  D.V. Rogers, 2008 - http://pieqf.allshookup.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/06ext_pieqf_0808.jpg

 

REF: http://pieqf.allshookup.org by D.V.Rogers
31st January 2009

"""""""""

On the 16th November 2008 the Parkfield Interventional EQ Fieldwork (PIEQF) completed a 91 day cycle of continuous and autonomous machine connectivity with the seismic landscape of California.  This conceptual and No trace 21st Century Earthwork could be found at; 35 53′58.40″N 120 26′01.08″W.

Two years in planning, culminating in 77 days to assemble and 8 days to dismantle, the only relics left onsite will remain buried beneath what is the now closed PIEQF site. If you were to visit the remote township of Parkfield, Central Califonia today you would find little physical evidence this machine earthwork actually took place. Unlike the permanent and Monumental Earthworks scattered within the landscape of West Coast USA, PIEQF will now assume a life and identity as a collection of bits and bytes of data.  Editioned photographic prints and limited release PIEQF video works will be available in the  future.

During the one quarter year period between 18th August 02008 - 16th November 2008 PIEQF was triggered by 4000 + / - 4500 Californian seismic events. Individual event IDS were allocated and have been archived by USGS databases. 43000 WebCam frames were disseminated Live via the internet during the 91 days of intervention. 7,862,400 seconds of analogue VCR recording will now assume a process of digitization.  A selection of low resolution photographs can be found here within the PIEQF Image Archive. A twitter feed is archived HERE.

"""""""""

D.V.Rogers wrote at http://pieqf.allshookup.org/ that he would spend most part of 2009 compiling the "vast collection of documentation produced".  He was seeking commissions and funding from institutions, art collectors, philanthropists and publishers.  He had a book/DVD, and a Virtual 3d LIDAR based model in mind.  The software engine sources that interfaced PIEQF to geological time it was stated will eventually be made public.   He noted at that time that a "10,000 words" version for the record was also being written.

 

 

OTHER GEOLOGICAL AND MINING MUSEUMS

The Geological and Mining Museum of Sydney is now only a memory, but others like it live on in the world.

Here are some examples.

1) Geological and Mining Museum
MINERALS AND GEOSCIENCE DEPARTMENT MALAYSIA
Jalan Sultan Azlan Shah,
http://www.jmg.gov.my/english/knowledge_museum_prk.htm

The museum is located within the JMG Malaysia building complex which is about 5 km to the east of the Ipoh City along Jalan Sultan Azlan Shah, and faces opposite Sekolah Tuanku Abdul Rahman

The museum exhibits a wide array of specimens related to the field of geoscience and mining activities in Malaysia, besides introducing to the public to the various activities carried out by the Department.

 

MUSEUMS WITH STRONG MINERAL COLLECTIONS

Directory of mineralogy museums grouped by country in alphabetical order

 

RESTORATION OR PRESERVATION PROJECTS

GRAVITY SLOPE COLLIERY

The Gravity Slope Colliery, Archbald

The Gravity Slope Colliery was built on the eastern side of the Delaware and Hudson tracks in the Dark Valley section of town. It was a huge red structure constructed in 1911-12 and stood for over thirty years. It used the chance cone method of separating coal and much of the culm from the White Oak Colliery refuse bank was processed there.  At one time there were 1700 men employed there and 3 full shifts worked day and night. There were 120 mules in use and it was a sight every morning to see the boys driving the mules from the white oak mule barn down the tracks to the mines at gravity slope. The main slope, named Gravity Slope No. 3, was opened in 1911.  However the processing plant or "Breaker" was dismantled in the 1940s.  Mining at the colliery continued till 1955. This ended the Delaware and Hudson comany mining in Archbald, one hundred and ten years after its first mine opened in 1845.

Archbald Borough has received a $200,000 grant from the National Park Service (NPS) “Save America’s Treasures” program to help restore the Gravity Slope Colliery’s four remaining buildings. This grant was secured through the office of Rep. Donald Sherwood, and requires a 50/50 match. More money, however, will probably be needed to complete the project.   Archbald Borough also received a $35,000 grant from the Lackawanna Heritage Valley Authority (LHVA)  to complete a structural assessment of the property. They have applied for additional LHVA funding to augment NPS money for further restoration efforts.  Archbald Borough, using $45,000 in borough funds, purchased the fan house and surrounding land, from Mary Anna Dubas on March 8, 2005.

The plan is for an interpretive site in Archbald at the Gravity Slope Colliery’s remaining structures.  Interpretation would have an industrial theme, with visitors learning about the complexities of the anthracite industry, including labor history. Included in the display would be a section about local mining disasters. The displays would stress the enormity and encompassing nature of the anthracite industry, and how it affected, and still affects, the life of the region.

The Gravity Slope Restoration Committee, with over twenty five members, is very involved in the renovation of this historic site. Comprised of members from all walks of life and areas of expertise including contractors, mechanics, teachers, the environmental community, engineers, college educators, and nurses, to name just a few. The committee meets frequently.

 

HOMESTAKE MINE, BLACK HILLS

The Homestake-Adams Research Center; Black Hills Natural History and Culture Center, Deadwood, SD.

After gold was discovered there was no practical way found to stop a gold rush to the area.   The government instead of withdrawing the military as agreed by treaty dispatched several units to forts in the surrounding area to try to keep people from entering the Black Hills.  Soon demands were made to open up the Black Hills to white settlement.  In the same year as the discovery, later in 1874, a party of white prospectors (the Gordon Party) reached French Creek and built a stockade there.  Prospectors began to  flow into the area from every direction, beyond the Army's capacity to expell them.   The government soon gave up trying to stop the encroachment and by the end of 1875 there was and estimated 4,000 prospectors and settlers already in the Black Hills.

Initial prospecting centered in and around French Creek where gold had been found by Custer's party. By late 1875 mining had spread north to Whitewood Creek near the later town of Deadwood.  On April 9,1876, Moses and Fred Manuel located the Homestake claim, near the current town of Lead.  This soon proved to be the richest find of gold in the area. They sank a shaft in the side of a draw; built a crude mill and took out $5,000 worth of gold that spring. The city of Lead was named for that discovery, referred to as a lead ("leed").   George Hearst sent L.D. Kellogg to investigate reports from the Black Hills.  In  June of 1877, Kellogg for Hearst optioned on the Homestake and Golden Star claims.  This was an area of about 10 acres total.  Hearst and his partners incorporated as The Homestake Mining Company in California on November 5, 1877. 

George Hearst arrived at the mine in October 1877, and took active control of the property.  The mine had to bring all equipment by wagons from the nearest railhead at Sidney, Nebraska.  Yet despite the remote location, an 80-stamp mill began crushing Homestake ore in July 1878.  The partners sold shares in the Homestake Mining Company, and listed it on the New York Stock Exchange  in 1879. The Homestake would become one of the longest-listed stocks in the history of the exchange.  

Hearst gradually consolidated and enlarged the Homestake property - said to be by both fair and foul means. He bought out some adjacent claims, and secured others in the courts.  A Hearst employee once killed a man who refused to sell his claim, but was acquitted in court after all the witnesses disappeared.  Hearst purchased newspapers in Deadwood and used them to to influence public opinion.  An opposing newspaper editor was beaten up on a Deadwood street.  Hearst himself feared he could be on the receiving end of violence, and wrote instructions to provide for his family should he be murdered.  In the end, however, Hearst was the one who walked out alive, and very rich.

The gold ore mined at Homestake was always low grade (less than one ounce per ton), but very large. Through to 1965, the mine produced 28 million ounces (870 t) of gold and 6 million ounces (190 t) of silver.

Homestake mine, Lead, South Dakota

Timbering in the Homestake mine (date uncertain).

Homestake mine 1889 

By 1880 the richer placer deposits were all but depleted and hard rock mining was progressing around the towns of Lead and Deadwood.  Most of the early mines had closed by the early 1900s as high grade near surface ore was exhausted.

Only the Homestake Mine in Lead continued to operate.  It lasted almost 126 years until it too began cessation in 2001 and was closed by 2002.   On December 14, 2001, the Homestake Gold Mine officially shut down after more than 125 years of continuous operation. That day the Homestake Mining Company itself was merged into Barrick Gold Corporation.  The Homestake Gold Mine by 2001 was the oldest, largest and deepest mine operating in the Western Hemisphere.  It reached more than 8000 feet below the town of Lead and in the end it encompassed not the original ca. 10 acres but approximately 8,000 acres of patented mineral claims.  The mine produced 40 Million ounces of gold from 1876 to 2001.

The Barrick Gold Corporation (which had merged with the Homestake Mining Company in mid-2001) agreed in early 2002 to keep dewatering the mine as negotiations for use as a Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory (DUSEL) proceeded.  Progress was slow and maintaining the pumps and ventilation was costing $250,000 per month.  Eventually they were switched off on June 10, 2003.   It was not till July 10, 2007, that the mine was finally confirmed by the National Science Foundation as as the location for DUSEL.   When completed, the DUSEL facility will be the world's deepest laboratory for ultra-low-background experiments on dark matter and neutrinos , as well as providing a site for biology, geology, and mining research.

The mine's gold may be gone, but a vast deposit of researchers’ gold remains in the form of varied and voluminous data about the Homestake site. The data include information about the history, mining practices, microbial research in mineral processing and waste treatment, and engineering activities.   The archive holds a tremendous literature on the mining properties, distribution of geologic units, and economic potential. Production of over 42 million ounces of gold during the 126 year lifetime of the mine meant that generations of talented geologists and engineers studied all manner of things at and around the mine.  Topics in geoscience ranged from environments of deposition of the host rocks of the mineralization, the mineralization itself, regional metamorphism experienced by the Precambrian host rocks, and the subsequent effects of a host of younger intrustions of Tertiary age.

In May 2005 the Homestake Mining Company donated its amassed collection of over 10,000 cubic feet of operational and maintenance records related to the Homestake Mine to the Adams Museum and House facility in Deadwood.  The collection includes thousands of historic photographs and glass negatives, architectural drawings, maps of the mine and area, blueprints and patents, geological records of the Black Hills, original correspondence, daily journals, Homestake operation and production records, original artwork, an extensive geological specimen collection, equipment manuals, and scientific records.

The Adams Museum and House  received a five-year, $100,000 per year commitment from the Adams-Mastrovich Family Foundation to help support the relocation, inventorying, cataloguing, and provision of digital access for the records, thus  establishing the Homestake-Adams Research Center.

In 2005, Homestake Mining Company transferred ownership of the archive of drill cores taken by the company over many years of operation; about 91 km of core.  The South Dakota Geological Survey is archiving the core.

The primary portal for the Homestake materials collaboration is now http://www.lbl.gov/nsd/homestake. This site contains much information and many links for communication with the members of the Homestake Scientific Collaboration as well as providing a location for storage of previous presentations, meetings, and news.

As one 2007 report noted all this:

""""""""

2007 - Homestake Archives Finds New Home

The Adams Museum & House (AM&H) has the opportunity to protect and make accessible for the first time ever the history of the Homestake Mining Company, thanks to Barrick Gold Corporation’s generous donation of the archival materials.

 The AM&H’s 10,000 cubic foot Homestake Mining Company archival collection is of national significance. While there are many aspects that make the Homestake Mining Company unique, it is also representative of an industry of iconic proportions that dominated and helped settle much of Western America. Mining deeds, land claims, mineral surveys, annual reports, exploration and production records, photographs, assay ledgers, timber contracts and a plethora of other mining-related documents, dating from 1876 to 2002, detail the company’s 126-year history in Lead, South Dakota, and far beyond.

The contents of the collection are rich and wide-ranging in scope. Over 25,000 historic photographs, slides, videotapes, film and glass plate negatives provide visual documentation of the mine’s business activities. Architectural drawings and plans reveal the design, style and planning that went into the structures at the mine and homes and buildings in the city of Lead as well as in surrounding towns. The geologic specimen collection of James A. Noble, chief geologist at the mine from 1931-1947, explicitly details the unique and varied mineralogy of the region. While the mine was physically located in Lead, South Dakota, the company’s headquarters were in San Francisco, California. Due to the 1906 earthquake and subsequent fire that destroyed much of San Francisco, any pre-1906 company records will be found only in this collection.

The Homestake collection will be the core component of the Black Hills Natural History and Culture Center, located in Deadwood, South Dakota. In addition to functioning as an archive repository, the Center will be a sight for hosting scientific and historical lectures, classes and seminars. Relying heavily on materials from the Homestake collection, the Center will also feature exhibits that explain and demonstrate the cultural, environmental, commercial, scientific and technical characteristics of the business of mining. The AM&H is committed to universal access and interpretation of the Homestake collection through digitization with images available on the AM&H’s Internet website and open on-site visitation to the Center.

The City of Deadwood committed over $1.5 M to purchase and retrofit a building to serve as a climate-controlled and secure research center that will be operated by the non-profit AM&H and open to the general public. 

""""""""

 

GEOLOGICAL SITE MUSEUMS

MAMMOTH SITE, HOT SPRINGS, SD

Discovered in 1974 when Phil and Elenora Anderson began excavation for housing project construction, this is now a major scientific attraction:  "Travel back to the time when Ice Age mammoth, camel, and giant short-faced bear roamed the Great Plains of North America. Imagine a sudden collapse of a 60 foot deep karst sinkhole.  Bubbling from the bottom, a warm spring percolates through the layers of limestone, now creating a large steep-sided pond. Picture thirsty animals venturing down to the water below...then, after drinking, animals unable to gain a foothold to escape. The sinkhole was a deathtrap."

“The Mammoth Site is not just a window into the past—it’s as close to being a true time machine as you’ll find, with some of the best ice-age fossils on the planet on permanent display.”  Ross MacPhee, Division of Vertebrate Zoology, American Museum of Natural History, New York City.

Mammoth Site, Hot Springs, South Dakota

On 22 July 2008 at Mammoth Site, uncovering mammoth No. 57.  On 23 July 2008 the count

rose to 58, based on tusk count.   To date at the site has yielded 58 mammoths  (55

Columbian and 3 woolly),  as well as 85 other species of animals, plants,

 and several unidentified insects. 

Mammoth bones dwelling.  Reconstruction, Mammoth Site, Hot Springs, South Dakota.

(Museum display - "the walk-in mammoth bone hut")

Thank you for making known the cool past of elephantkind.   A random sample of modern elephant opinion.

Mammoth Site in Hot Springs is an ongoing geological excavation where a sink hole existed, preserving the remains of numerous species of animals in addition to the mammoth.  It is now completely enclosed, and the above view is of one of the areas being excavated.

Over 26,000 years ago, large Columbian and woolly mammoths were trapped and died in a spring-fed pond near what is now the southwest edge of Hot Springs, South Dakota. The pond was formed from a sixty-foot deep sinkhole that filled with warm artesian spring water. As animals came to drink, they could not escape from the steep-sided watering hole, and for over 700 years their remains collected with layer upon layer of preserving silt and sediments.

Mammoth Site is the world's largest Columbian mammoth exhibit and research center for Pleistocene studies. Dr. Larry Agenbroad is the site Director.  It is the only place that woolly mammoth and Columbian mammoth remains have been found together. The Columbian variety is believed to have roamed what is now the United States from around 130,000 to 11,000 years ago.   As at 2008, the remains of  fifty-eight mammoths have so far been exposed.

This region of South Dakota is composed of Spearfish Shale overlying Minnelusa limestone. Approximately 26,000 years ago, a cavern in the limestone collapsed as well as the shale at the surface. This allowed a vertical shaft, or breccia pipe, to form. The resulting sixty-foot deep sinkhole, 120 by 150 feet across, was produced and subsequently filled with warm artesian spring water percolating up through the limestone.

Mammoths go down slippery slope to water, but are unable to return up it.

As the animals were trapped and died, the silt and mud preserved some of their remains from decay, but petrification did not occur, resulting in fragile preservation of the bone.  As time passed, the hardened mud plug became a hill as the surrounding soft red Spearfish Shale eroded away.

Will the mammoth be brought back ever?   Not from the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs SD, but maybe in permafrost areas DNA will be found adequate for so trying.   As with the project with the Australian Museum etc. to bring back the Marsupial wolf or thylacine, opinions are mixed as to whether man should even try to rebirth a mammoth look-alike.  But simply because this is now conceivable to try there will be scientists who will try to bring mammoths back to the world of the living.  And if enough trying is done it does seem rather inevitable that they will eventually do it.

REFERENCES:

Anonymous(?)  - The Garden Palace, entry in the Australian Encyclopaedia (3rd Edition) Vol. 3 pp. 134-135

John Paul Gries; Roadside Geology of South Dakota; 2003; http://mountain-press.com/item_detail.php?item_key=46

The Mammoth Site of Hot Springs, South Dakota; http://www.mammothsite.com/

South Dakota: Mammoth Site; http://www.trailsandgrasslands.org/mammoth.html

South Dakota: Mammoth Site - Field Guide; http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_n9_v106/ai_20135607

Will Mammoths Walk Again?; http://www.exn.ca/mammoth/Cloning.cfm

Cloning A Mammoth; http://robby.nstemp.com/custom3.html

Dr. Larry D. Agenbroad, Resurrecting Extinct Megafauna; http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotech/agenbroad.html

What Killed The Mammoths?; http://sciencebulletins.amnh.org/biobulletin/biobulletin/story981.html

South Dakota Ice Age Mammals; http://www.northern.edu/natsource/EARTH/Iceage1.htm

Badlands National Park; http://www.nps.gov/archive/badl/exp/home.htm

 

GRAY FOSSIL SITE, TN

"The ETSU and General Shale Brick Natural History Museum and Visitor Center at the Gray Fossil Site is dedicated to understanding, preserving, and interpreting biodiversity of the Southern Appalachians through time, using an interdisciplinary approach."

Near Daniel Boone High School in Gray.

The Gray Fossil Site is nearly five acres in size and 100 feet deep. 

East Tennesse State University and General Shale Brick Natural History Museum

and Visitor Center at the Gray Fossil Site in northeast Tennessee.

The Gray Fossil Site is a Late Miocene assemblage located near the town of Gray in Tennessee.  The site was discovered by geologists in May 2000.  They were investigating unusual clay deposits exposed during widening of Route 75 south of its intersection with Interstate 26.

A museum and research center were opened at the site in August 2007.

The site is interpreted as a semi-circular sinkhole that harbored a pond environment over a long period of time.   Among the many vertebrate remains found are those of frogs, turtles and tapirs. 

The site is regarded as the world's prime tapir fossil find and it is also yielding new and rare discoveries such as the most complete skeleton of Teleoceras (an ancient rhinoceros) yet found in eastern North America, the tooth of a new species of red panda that marks only the second record of this animal in North America, and a newly identified species of an ancient plant eating badger.

Discovery:

Crews widening Tennesse Highway 75 in 2000 reported differentiation in the clay they were excavating near Daniel Boone High School in Gray.  Harry Moore, manager of the Tennessee Department of Transportation’s geotechnical engineering office in Knoxville was called on May 15, 2000, by a construction field officer with news that the highway construction’s contractor, Summers Taylor Inc., was having excavation difficulties caused by a soft clay deposit in the new roadway new path near Fulkerson Road. 

Moore dispatched office geologist Larry Bolt to examine the the problem on May 17, and the officials later discussed how to resolve the issues, deciding that the contractor should undercut the clay some five feet below the roadbed grade and backfill with chunks of limestone.   When Bolt returned to the site May 31 to inspect the undercutting process and examine the clay with three geologists from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, they noticed small fragments of dark brown material in the excavated clay.  These fragments turned out to be bone, of tapir fossils of Miocene age.

 To new road would have to be diverted to save the fossil site.  Moore later wrote:  “With a shudder, I thought what might have happened if the Tennessee governor had had no interest in geology or fossils.  We might well have lost one of the major scientific finds of the last 50 years.”   Not only did the State of Tennessee divert a road and save the site but it later helped gain a federal grant of $8 million towards a museum at the Gray site.

 

SOME UNUSUAL MUSEUMS

PETRIFIED WOOD PARK AND MUSEUM, LEMMON, SD

   

Petrified wood park and museum, Lemmon SD ( http://www.lemmonsd.com/petrefied.html ).

Billed as the "World's largest petrified wood park and museum" this feature was built in 1930-1932 by men from the town of Lemmon under the command of visionary Ole S. Quammen.

"Thirty to forty otherwise unemployed men received sustenance during this period," explains a sign at the site. Quammen, an amateur geologist, had the men scavenge rocks and fossils and haul them back to Lemmon. Their labors yielded a castle, a wishing well, a waterfall, the Lemmon Pioneer Museum, and hundreds of pile sculptures - all made mostly of petrified wood.

The park became public property in 1954 when it was donated by Quammen's heirs to the town council.

A plaque honors Ole S. Quammen (father of Mrs. Harry C. Olson as  "the creator and donor of this, the world’s largest petrified wood park of its kind."   In 2002, extensive repairs and renovations restored the park to its Depression Era glory.  

A hundred conical sculptures are spread around the park at sizes up to 20ft. tall.  Some are made from petrified wood and others from spherical "cannonball" concretions, brought from North Dakota's Cannonball River.  The "trees" are decorated with Christmas lights for an annual holiday "Fantasyland" display.

A building referred to as "the Castle" was crafted from a variety of petrified wood and thousands of pounds of petrified dinosaur and mammoth bones.  Inside a room with a gate and spires, dinosaur bones are set into the interior walls.

Visitor comments:

1)    Best kept secret in S.Dakota.  We heard about it for years and also saw it in the South Dakota Magazine. - Tom & Ruth, Canistota, SD

2)    Incredible!  - Paula, Stacy, Nick & Alex, Rhindander, WI

3)    We have stopped every time we go through for the past 20 years.   - Curt & Sarah, Kalispell, MT

4)    Thank you for preserving these points of interest.  -  Carl, Deb & Matt, Aberdeen, SD

5)    Very interesting!!! - Marvin & Betty, Winter Haven, FL

6)    Beautifully created.- Aarey, Queen Creek AZ

7)    It is very cool and unlike anything we have at home. -  Sam, Philadelphia, PA

8)    Coolest thing in South Dakota so far!!  - Christian, Roseville, MN

9)    Absolutely wonderful! Really wanted to see it again. - Pat & Mike, Toronto Ontario, Canada

10)  Nice to see the family things. - Sara & Krista, Coon Rapids

11)  WOW - Amazing  - Sue & Mike, Chippewa Falls, WI

12)  There is nothing to compare.  TOO Cool!!  - David, Fort Pierre, SD

13)  Excellent. Best we've ever seen. - Vern & Laura, Fallon, NV

14)  Wonderful - Glad we didn't miss this.  - Dave & Diane, Vancouver, B.C.

15)  Incredible, Amazing for sure. - Bart & Lieven, Hombeek, Belgium

16)  Most amazing museum we've ever visited.  Thank You!  - Kenny & Naomi, Madison, WI

 

 

SOME ASSORTED LINKS AND INFORMATION

 

Other Museums of field sites:

Age of Fishes museum, Canowindra
http://www.ageoffishes.org.au/

Lightening Ridge Opal and Fossil Centre
http://www.wj.com.au/opalfossil/index.html

Wellington Caves

http://www.visitwellington.com.au/bwWebsite/followon.aspx?PageID=4664

 

Outer Barcoo Interpretation Centre

http://www.isisford.qld.gov.au/visitors/OBIC.shtml

Lark Quarry Conservation Park – Winton Trackway

http://www.epa.qld.gov.au/projects/park/index.cgi?parkid=186

 

Australian Museum Resources

http://www.austmus.gov.au/geoscience/index.htm

http://www.austmus.gov.au/chapman/index.htm

More links come come from the Australian Museum website

http://www.austmus.gov.au/geoscience/resources/links.htm

 

Online resource directories

• Australian Museum Online Explore: Geology
  http://www.amonline.net.au/explore/geology.htm
• University of Oxford Department of Earth Sciences: General Earth Science WWW Resources
  http://www.earth.ox.ac.uk/~davewa/geores.html
• University of Dayton: Mineralogy and Petrology Research on the Web - a list of journals, databases, researchers and other useful research links
  http://homepages.udayton.edu/~koziol/resminpet.html
• New Scientist Weblinks: Earth Science - includes reviews of each site listed
  http://www.newscientist.com/weblinks/categories/earth1.jsp

 

Museums with geological collections: Australia

• Museum Victoria:
  Research - Mineralogy and Petrology
  http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/collections/sciences/mineralogy.asp
  Collections: Geology
  http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/collections/sciences/natrocks.asp
• Western Australian Museum: minerals and rocks
  http://www.museum.wa.gov.au/default.asp?et=3&ei=133&styleSheet=perth.css
• South Australian Museum: minerals and rocks
  http://www.samuseum.sa.gov.au/earthsc.htm#mmi
• Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart
  http://www.tmag.tas.gov.au
• West Coast Pioneers Memorial Museum, Zeehan
  http://www.tased.edu.au/tasonline/zeemus
• Mining Hall of Fame, Kalgoorlie
  http://www.mininghall.com
• Crystal Kingdom Mineral Museum, Coonabarabran: minerals of the Warrumbungles
  http://www.crystalkingdom.com.au/
• Queensland Museum: Geology Section
  http://www.qmuseum.qld.gov.au/organisation/sections/PalaeontologyGeology/index.asp

 

Museums with geological collections: worldwide

• The Natural History Museum, United Kingdom: Department of Mineralogy
  http://www.nhm.ac.uk/mineralogy/index.html
• Smithsonian Department of Mineral Sciences
  http://www.nmnh.si.edu/minsci/
• Los Angeles County Museum: Mineral Sciences
  http://www.nhm.org/research/minsci
• Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago: Geology
  http://www.fmnh.org/research_collections/geology
• School of Mines, Paris, Museum of Mineralogy
  http://www.musee.ensmp.fr
• Pierre & Marie Curie University of Paris, Museum of Mineralogy
  http://www-ext.lmcp.jussieu.fr/mineraux
• Museum of Natural History, Paris: Geology Department
  http://www.mnhn.fr/mnhn/geo
• Royal Ontario Museum: Gallery of Earth Sciences
  http://www.rom.on.ca/earth
• Museum of Natural History, Vienna
  http://www.nhm-wien.ac.at/d/engvorschau.html

 

 

ASSORTED LINKS

 

Online databases

• Australian Museum - Albert Chapman Mineral Collection
  http://www.amonline.net.au/chapman/
• Oxford University Museum of Natural History - Mineralogy: includes images of some specimens
  http://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/onlinedb/minerals/minintro.htm
• Oxford University Museum of Natural History - Petrology
  http://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/petdata.htm
• School of Mines, Paris: Mineralogy Collection
  http://www.musee.snsmp.fr/mineral/catalogue.html

 

Gold in Australia

• Sovereign Hill: Frequently Asked Questions
  http://www.sovereignhill.com.au/education/faq.shtml
• Department of Mineral Resources Minfacts category: history of mining in New South Wales, including gold
  http://www.minerals.nsw.gov.au/minfacts/hismin.htm
• Australian National Maritime Museum: Gold 150 - Celebrating 150 Years of Australian Gold-rush History
  http://www.anmm.gov.au/gold150/gold150.htm
• Victorian Cultural Collaboration: SBS Gold!
  http://www.sbs.com.au/gold/#

 

Minerals and mining: various fact sheets

• Department of Mineral Resources Minfacts: fact sheets containing easy-to-read information about minerals, exploration and mining in New South Wales
  http://www.minerals.nsw.gov.au/mapspubs/minfacts.htm
• Minerals Council of Australia: Mineral Fact Sheets
  http://www.minerals.org.au/education_program/mineral_fact_sheets.htm?section=
  education_program&menu=21&submenu=&ub=f&subpage=Mineral+Fact+Sheets

 

Geology and landforms: maps

• Geoscience Australia: online mapping
  http://www.agso.gov.au/map/
• Geoscience Australia: National Mapping - Aerial Photography - Flight Line Diagrams
  http://www.agso.gov.au/nmd/products/photos/photo.jsp
• Geological Survey of New South Wales: maps and digital data
  http://www.minerals.nsw.gov.au/geosurvey/products/mapsdata.htm

 

Geological time scale

• Australia's Lost Kingdoms: Geological Time
  http://www.lostkingdoms.com/snapshots/geological_time.htm
• University of California Museum of Palaeontology: Web Geological Time Machine
  http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/help/timeform.html

 

Plate tectonics and continental drift

• Monash University Palaeontology Lab: Common questions: Gondwana and continental drift
  http://www.earth.monash.edu.au/dinodream/faq/faqgond.htm
• United States Geological Survey (USGS): This Dynamic Earth: the story of plate tectonics
  http://pubs.usgs.gov/publications/text/dynamic.html
• University of California Geology: Plate Tectonics: The Mechanism
  http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/geology/tecmech.html

 

Meteorites and Impact Sites

• Smithsonian Institution Department of Mineral Sciences: Division of Meteorites
  http://www.nmnh.si.edu/minsci/meteor.htm
• Natural History Museum, London: meteorite collection
  http://www.nhm.ac.uk/mineralogy/collections/meteor.htm
• The Meteoritical Society
  http://www.meteoriticalsociety.org
• Earth Impact Database
  http://www.unb.ca/passc/ImpactDatabase

 

Earth Science news and events

• Earth Science Week: yearly event promoted by Geological Society of Australia
  http://www.gsa.org.au/education/scienceweek.htm
• GeologyLink: Geology in the news
  http://college.hmco.com/geology/resources/geologylink/news.html

 

Geological Societies

• Geological Society of Australia
  http://www.gsa.org.au
• The Geological Society
  http://www.geolsoc.org.uk
• Geological Society of America
  http://www.geosociety.org
• Geological Society of South Africa
  http://www.gssa.org.za/index.php

 

Mineralogical Associations/Societies

• International Mineralogical Association (IMA)
  http://wwwobs.univ-bpclermont.fr/ima/
• The Mineralogical Society
  http://www.minersoc.org
• Mineralogical Association of Canada
  http://www.mineralogicalassociation.ca
• Mineralogical Society of America
  http://www.minsocam.org/
• The Russell Society
  http://www.russellsoc.org
• The Geological Society of Australia Specialist Group in Geochemistry, Mineralogy and Petrology
  http://www.sggmp.gsa.org.au/
• Rock and Mineral Societies of the World
  http://www.geonord.org/org/clubs/world.html

 

Economic Geology Societies

• Society of Economic Geologists (SEG)
  http://www.segweb.org/
• Society for Geology Applied to Mineral Deposits (SGA)
  http://www.e-sga.org/

 

Australian Geological Surveys

• Geological Survey of New South Wales
  http://www.minerals.nsw.gov.au/geosurvey/
• Geoscience Australia
  http://www.ga.gov.au
• Geological Survey of Queensland
  http://www.nrm.qld.gov.au/science/geoscience
• Geological Survey of Tasmania
  http://www.mrt.tas.gov.au
• Geological Survey of the Northern Territory
  http://www.dme.nt.gov.au/ntgs/
• Geological Survey of South Australia
  http://www.pir.sa.gov.au/sector5.shtml
• Geological survey of western australia
  http://www.doir.wa.gov.au/GSWA/index.asp
• Geological Survey of Victoria: Minerals and Petroleum
  http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/index.htm

 

Mineralogy

• Links for Mineralogists
  http://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/mineralogie/links
• Athena Mineralogy
  http://www.un2sg4.unige.ch/athena/mineral/mineral.html

 

Mineral Collecting in Australia

• Steve Sorells Crocoite.com
  http://www.crocoite.com
• The Australian Mineral Collector
  http://www.home.gil.com.au/~mineral/

 

Gemstones

• Grant Boxers diamond exploration pages
  http://members.iinet.net.au/~boxer/index.html
• Gemmological Association of Australia
  http://www.gem.org.au
• Gem & Lapidary Council of New South Wales
  http://www.home.gil.com.au
• Gem Wire
  http://www.gemstone.or
• National Council of Jewellery Valuers
  http://www.ncjv.com.au
• Gemstone information and cutting properties
  http://www.faceters.com/properties/index.shtml
• Gateway to Gemstone Designs on the Internet
  http://www.rockhounds.com/rockshop/gem_designs/design_index.shtml

 

Limestone Caves

• Jenolan Caves Reserve Trust
  http://www.jenolancaves.org.au
• Jenolan Caves
  http://www.members.ozemail.com.au/~rawhyte
• Speleonics
  http://www.speleonics.com.au
• Australian Speleological Federation
  http://www.caves.org.au

 

Known University Museums (links not yet checked for)

Earth Sciences Museum
MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY , NSW

Earth Sciences, Singleton Museum of
UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE , VIC

Fossil Collection, Plant
UNIVERSITY OF TASMANIA

Geological Collection
UNIVERSITY OF TASMANIA

Geological Collection
UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY , SYDNEY , NSW

Geological Collection
UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG , NSW

Geology and Geophysics Collections
UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY, NSW

Geology Collection
DEAKIN UNIVERSITY

Geology Collection
ROYAL MELBOURNE INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, VIC

Geology Collection
UNIVERSITY OF NEW ENGLAND , NSW

Geology Museum
AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY , ACT

Geology Museum
JAMES COOK UNIVERSITY , QLD

Geology Museum
UNIVERSITY OF CANBERRA , ACT

Geology Museum
UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND

Geological Museum
UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Geology Research and Teaching Collection
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN QUEENSLAND

Geology, Rock & Mineral Museum
CURTIN UNIVERSITY , WA

Geology, Tate Museum of
UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE , SA

Natural Sciences Collection
MONASH UNIVERSITY , VIC

Palaeobotany Collection
UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE , SA

Seismogram Collection
UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND

 

REREFENCES

Broadbent, J. and Guthrie, J., 1992.  Changes in the Public Sector: A Review of Recent “Alternative” Accounting Research, Accounting Auditing & Accountability, 5(2), pp.3-31.

Burton, Christine, 2006.   Here to stay.  The role of value creation, capture and exchange in limiting the liability of newness for new entrant museums.  Ph.D. thesis, University of Technology, Sydney.

 

Garner, B., 1982.  Economic Strategy for the Mining Museum   (Minute Paper, 2 July 1982).  Earth Exchange Papers, AK520, Box 5.  NSW State Records (Archives).

 

Tropman & Tropman Architects, 1996.  Conservation Assessment Report of The Former Mining Museum & Chemical Laboratory, 36-64 George Street, The Rocks.