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Sunbeams from Cucumbers: Gold extraction from seawater 1906 at Broken Head
In 1906, Australian mining engineer Mr Alfred Argyles built an innovative engineering structure at the north end of Seven Mile Beach, located on rock shelves that abutted Broken Head.
Despite worldwide scepticism of the feasibility of this project, Mr Argyles invested £3500 of his own money into the building of an operational plant. It was a clever idea that involved a wave-activated motor pump system that transferred sea water to a canvas lined 70meter x 25 meter reservoir.
Capable of holding 10,000 cubic metres, the sea water would then be mixed with a solution of lime and iron oxide to make a sludge. This was then to be pumped via transfer pipes to a further cyanide treatment tank. The cyanide would then activate the sludge, settling out the dissolved gold ore.
Argyles calculated he could process up to 20,000 tons of seawater with the potential of extracting 20 ounces of gold, per day. Based on the gold prices in the 1900’s, $33 an ounce, his profit potential was enormous. Contemporary newspaper records noted that the engineer had lodged a patent on his unique processing method.
In 1905 Argyles took out a mining lease of 5 acres (2.5 ha) around his mining site, and he shipped more plant and equipment to the port in Byron Bay. It was reported that he was employing 9 to 10 men on the construction.
In 1906, newspapers recorded that the work was almost completed. However, after 1907 no records of the project can be found, so we can only assume that it had ceased, causes unknown.
It was reported that Mr Argyles redirected his energy from gold recovery from seawater to seeking gold from black sand mining on the beaches. Maybe he used some of his plant and equipment in this endeavour?
Mr Argyles’ family lived in the Byron Bay area until the mid 1950s, however we have no further record or knowledge of his endeavours in this project. Today, if you go to the south end of the Broken Head sea shelf, there are still remnants of some of the construction, concrete masonry, and pipework.
In the late 1890s and early 1900s, there were many attempts to extract gold from seawater, most of these led by charlatans. To give some credibility to Mr Argyles’ endeavours, at the time a Nobel Prize laureate and chemist, Mr William Ramsey, did support the possibility of gold extraction from seawater.
Unfortunately, the figures that he was quoting were incorrect. There is gold in seawater, but the volumes are so small the extraction process is not practical.
In 1907, English judge Darling likened the process of harvesting gold from seawater as analogous to “extracting sunshine from cucumbers”. This after adjudicating on a jury fraud case, relating to an attempt to extract gold at Hanley Island in Southern England.
He was referencing a book, Gulliver’s Travels, where the characters harvested sunbeams from cucumbers. These were to be placed in phials, and opened on cold and overcast days to keep you nice and cosy!
We can be thankful that the process of extracting gold from sea water did not come to fruition. Can you imagine the impact of cyanide extraction systems at the south end of Broken Head today on the ecology of our beautiful environment?
For more detail relating to the references in this article, I direct you to the report written by Mr BJ Stubbs for Australian Historical Archaeology, 26, 2008. A copy of this work can be found in the Byron Bay Historical Society website, and has detailed maps, engineering drawings, and photographs of this project.
A brief audio can be listened to by clicking on the audio link at the top of this page.