Whilst
exact dates remain uncertain, everything appears to
have moved along as Merlin had planned. Some time in
1870, with the Victorian interests of "A. & A." in
the hands of a very young but capable assistant, and
one whom he had personally trained, Merlin set forth
for that wider field which he had so long envisaged.
We pause to wonder whether he could have had any anticipation
of just what lay in store for him-a bare three years
of life-span, but three years of crowded activity and
of positive achievement. He could have had little inkling
that his work in New South Wales would establish him
as perhaps one of the greatest documentary photographers
of all time.
The
Sydney directories of 1871-1872 provide us with some
information, listing the American & Australasian
Photographic Company as being in business at 324 George
Street, at 377 Riley St., and also at 11 Barrack St.
Apart from that there is internal evidence to show
that during portions of 1870-1871 he was carrying on
with his outdoor photography in Sydney. Of special
interest is the picture of the General Post Office,
showing the building just completed, the scaffolding
having been removed - this would be in 1870. Other
photographs depict familiar harbour scenes, some of
them most pleasantly 'pictorial' in their treatment,
while others show the arrival and docking of sailing
vessels.
But
even as Merlin was setting up his 10" x 12" wet-plate
camera along the quiet foreshores and on harbour vantage
points, the tenor of life was destined to be disturbed.
The cry was once again Gold! Exactly twenty years after
those first eager rushes to the Ophir and the Turon,
the tempo was again quickening all through the area.
And then there was the new field at Gulgong, appearing
even more promising.
The
principal gold-bearing areas of the day in N.S.W.
lay approximately within (or around) the triangle
Bathurst-Orange-Mudgee, the first-named place being
about one hundred and fifty miles west of Sydney.
Though he must have had many predecessors, the credit
for the first discovery of gold goes to Edward Hammond
Hargraves, who found payable gold in a creck (which
locality he subsequently named Ophir) about nine
miles from Orange. The Turon area is to the north
of Bathurst, the principal centres being Sofala,
Hill End and Tambaroora. Gulgong lies further north,
some sixteen miles beyond Mudgee.
Photographers,
like everyone else, must live, and it is not surprising
to learn that Merlin's caravan was soon carrying his
cameras and equipment along that well-worn road that
runs westward across the Blue Mountains. Let us pause
a moment as we travel this same route at fifty miles
an hour by car or air-conditioned express, to think
back to the days of horse travel. Beyond the rail-heads,
of course, an efficient service was offered by famous
coaching companies; by changing horses every ten or
fourteen miles, some fifty or sixty miles a day could
be covered according to the terrain. For the private
traveller and the teamster it was a quite different
proposition.
Normally
he had but the one set of animals and these had to
be properly cared for at intervals
during the day and at nightfall; he was, therefore,
fortunate if he was able to maintain an average of
twenty miles a day or thereabouts. There was a substantial
degree of expense involved too. As today, those who
provided food and drink and accommodation for man
and beast had to be reimbursed. Special services might
be required as well-harness to be repaired, swingle
trees to be replaced and horseshoes to be re-nailed.
Merlin's
first picture-making stop appears to have been at
Hartley on the Cox River, across the mountains.
Of that Hartley series just two are reproduced, but
those two are more than sufficient for the realisation
of his outstanding photographic ability. Everything
was grist that came to Merlin's mill; every scene
was a subject for him. Normally there had to be human
beings
in the field of view; then, as to-day, people were
possessed with a deep appreciation of their personal
likenesses and Merlin's posing ability was always
gentle, persuasive, artistic and confident. His sitters,
despite
the necessity for a 'hold it' of some five or ten
seconds, were always naturally grouped with little
sense of
strain. So much for the demands of business; in addition,
there were many which were obviously taken solely
for his own artistic pleasure.
And
now on to Gulgong. just why he selected this new field
instead of one
or the other of the more
obvious
three Turon towns is not quite clear; he was perhaps
deterred by the latter's comparative inaccessibility.
Coming as he did from the established cities of
Melbourne and Sydney, Gulgong must have made a great
impact
on his ever-susceptible 'documentary' outlook.
The town
was indeed a strange one and we to-day, as we study
Merlin's photographs, can share something of his
reactions. The Gulgong of 1871 was veritably
an American gold-fields
town.
"Gulgong
was certainly a rough place when I visited it, but
not quite so rough as I had expected. There
was an hotel there, at which I got a bedroo-
to myself, though but a small one, and made only
ofslabs. But
a gorgeously grand edifice was being built
over our heads at the time, the old inn being still
kept
on
while the new inn was being built on the same
site. The inhabited part of the town consisted of
two streets
at right angles to each other, in each of which
every habitation and shop had probably required but
a few
days for its erection. The fronts of the shops
were covered with large advertisements - the names
and praises
of the traders - as is customary now with all
newfitngled marts: but the place looked more like a
fair
than a town - perhaps like one of those fairs which
used to
be temporary towns and to be continued for
weeks - such as some of us have seen at Amsterdam and
at Leipsic.
But with this difference-that in the cities
named the old houses are seen at the back of the new
booths,
whereas at a gold rush there is nothing behind.
Everything
needful, however, seemed to be at hand. There
were bakers, butchers, grocers and dealers in soft
goods.
There were public - houses and
banks in abundance. There was an
auctioneer's
establisLment, at which
I attended
the sale of horses and carts."
(Australia
and New Zealand, by Anthony Trollope.
Chapman & Hall,
London, 1873.)
Those
were the days when the miners and those who catered
for their economic needs followed the gold strikes
around the world; as the Australian fields came into
the news at the very time when the Californian fields
were slackening, the direction in which world interest
turned is obvious. Clearly there was many a skilful
carpenter aboard those Pacific ships and soon those
tradesmen were busily at work.
For
the main part their would
care to work the wet-plate process in the field the
year round, through burning summers and piercing
winters. Merlin possessed, of course, that necessary
asset,
a wet-plate coating caravan; in fact, at one stage
he appears to have had at least two (perhaps three).
One was constructed on a light buggy "chassis," while
the other was a two-horse vehicle of more substantial
build. Both had permanent false roofs which permitted
a current of air to pass between the roof and the
coating chamber-a most desirable precaution. And,
of course,
Merlin was not working single-handed in his enterprise.
He had a driver for the caravan - we see him in many
of the photographs, standing by with a spare dark
slide
in his hands. Later on, he had at least two assistants;
their services would be needed for studio operating,
plate-coating and for floating and printing the large
sheets of albumen paper.
Merlin's
sphere of activities also covered the smaller satellite
villages that
had grown up at the various
mining fields around Gulgong. Where for generations
cattle had grazed peacefully, there was now a population
larger perhaps than that of the Adelaide of its
day, and it dwelt in what we to-day would call "shanty
towns"-but let us not be'deceived-those people
lived in homes of bark because no other building
materials were available. Most of these settlements
took their
names from the rich alluvial leads near which they
grew up. Such were Black Lead just northeast of
the town, and Home Rule and Canadian Lead about
six miles
to the south-east. And there were many others.
All of these were visited in due course and photographs
obtained of dwellings, hotels and business premises
of every description.
Nor
did he fail to visit the diamond fields on
the Cudgegong River (five miles to the west of
Gulgong)
and first-rate, even by today's standards, were
the pictures he brought back from there. He photographed
by the hundreds mining shafts and their miners,
hopeful
or successful as the case might be; and the results
appeared to sell very well. That we know for
certain for the precise Merlin has left us his sales
records,
these being carefully marked on a slip of paper
glued to each and every negative. Of the mining
subjects,
perhaps the most valuable for its record value
and news interest is one of the two which we
have reproduced,
for it shows the happenings regularly associated
with a new "strike." Other photographs
show, in actual operation, a variety of types
of almost forgotten
mining equipment as, for instance, the various
devices for ventilating-a definite necessity,
for many of these
shafts descended hundreds of feet into the earth.
"Of
course, having come to Gulgong, I had to see the
mines, and I went down the shaft of one, 150 feet deep,
with my foot in the noose of a rope. Having
offered to descend, I did not like to go back from
my word
when the moment came; but as the light of
the
day faded from my descending eyes, and as I remembered
that I
was being lowered by the operations of a
horse who might take it into his brutish head to lower
me
at
any rate he pleased - or not to lower me
at all, but to keep me suspended in that dark abyss-I
own that
my heart gave way, and that wished I had
been
less courageous. But I went down, and I came up again
- and I found six or seven men work! It the bottom
of the
hole. I afterwards saw the alluvial dirt
brought up from some other hole, puddled and ing hed
and the
gold
extracted. When extracted it was carried
away in a tin pannikin-which I thought was detracted
much from the splendour of the result.
"Of
the men around me some were miners working for
wages, and some were shareholders, each probably
with a
large stake in the concern. I could
not in the least tell
which was which. They were all dressed alike, and there in
was nothing of the master and the man in the tone
of their
conversation.
Among those present at the washing up, there were two Italians,
an American, a German, and a Scotchman, who I learned
were partners in the property. The important task
of conducting the last wash, of throwing away for
ever
the stones and dirt from which the gold had sunk,
was on this occasion confided to the hands of the
American.
The gold was carried away in a parmikin by the
German."
(Australia
and New Zealand, by Anthony Trollope-Chapman & Hall,
London, 1873.)
Towards
the end of the year a most novel assignment came his
way. He had always been recognised
as one of Australia's leading outdoor photographers (in
those days there were not very many of them), and, in
consequence, when the New South Wales Government of the
day required a photographer for The Victorian-New South
Wales Eclipse Expedition of 1871, it did not hesitate
to select Merlin for the job. This was the total eclipse
of the sun of December 12th, the occasion being Australia's
first great effort in that branch of scientific enterprise.
The
site chosen for the observation was Cape Sidmouth,
in Northern Queensland - half - way between Cape York
and Cape Flattery. It was midsummer and the temperatures
were unexpectedly high. It was 140 degrees in the dark
tent; at noon the sun was vertically overhead and no
shade could be found for the tent, while on every side
there was glare from the dazzling coral strand. No
wonder
that, on many occasions, Merlin's plates dried out
before he could get them into their processing solutions.
As
for the eclipse, rain clouds obscured it for the whole
of its totality excepting a tantalising second or two.
However, Merlin brought back some interesting locality
pictures, including one of the Queensland coast that
he obtained from the expedition steamer; the latter
was satisfactory enough to lead Merlin to place before
the
Victorian Government some eminently practical (bilt
long ahead of their time) suggestions for the use of
photography
in coastal survey work.