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If you try to rehabilitate a criminal through education what you end up with is an educated criminal.

How times have changed. Way back in the fifties the publican at Hebel had to collect his bottled beer by driving to Dubbo to collect it. One year, with floodwaters cutting the southern roads, he managed to get to Dubbo by a circuitous northern route. He collected a load of beer but on his...

Student suspended by Head.

Hi, You have been given some excellent leads, all of which I endorse. I would, however, offer an extra piece of advice. Sometimes gold will be found in clay or in heavy black sand and it would be a very skillful, or lucky panner, who could recover every tiny spec in only one panning. When you...

When in doubt, pass your specimen round in a bar full of experienced fossickers. If you get it back it is not gold.

Seeing this word triggered a memory from long ago. I am referring to those potholes in soft rock that are caused by the grinding action of harder rocks as they are twisted by the action of flowing water. It was in the Adelong region of NSW. I spotted a substantial pothole about 35 centimetres...

On this day in 1605 Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament. It has been said that he is the only man to ever appoach parliament with common sense.

Way back in the fifties, a Stock and Station Agent called us into his office at Millmerran on the Darling downs to show us a cactus specimen someone had brought in . He said it was called Harrisia Cactus. It looked like a sausage and had needle- sharp spikes sticking out all round it. The spikes...

It looks like you have the riffles held down by a nut and bolt at each end. If you dispense with the bottom bolt and fit a bracket that will hold the bottom of the riffles firmly in place then, at the clean-up, you will have only one nut to undo. It also looks as if the riffles are held in place...

There is a device that can identify diamonds with a single touch. It is about the size of a ball-point pen and contains a battery which can heat the tip to red heat.A diamond, being pure carbon, is a heat sink and when the hot tip of the instrument is applied, the heat is immediately drained...

Some of those old metalurgists were unbelieveably skillful. In India there is a centuries old iron pillar that never rusts. Modern science can't explain why. The Saracen leader Saladin was said to have a blade so sharp that he could throw a silk handkerchief up in the air and cut it in two as...

I too have heard about those Harleys. They are said to be covered in grease and stored in a tunnel the entrance to which was blasted, sealing them in. But that is nothing compared to the Spitfire that is said to be buried beneath an old airstrip at Oakey on the Darling Downs. Grey Panner

Further comment. I just found from the Net that Heinz began using the 57 Varieties advertisement in 1896.So, Coin Hunter, you may have an artifact of considerable historic appeal. Grey Panner

The 57 refers to the variety of Heinz products. If a dog was of various breeds, a bitzer, it used to be referred to as a Heinz dog indicating that its parentage was complex. I seem to remember the 57 Heinz varieties being advertised on the radio as far back as the 1940s but I am not certain of...

In the fifties, when war-surplus ammunition was freely available, bulk purchases of 303 rounds would often contain a few with black projectiles. As has already been stated, these were armour piercing rounds. Very occasionally someone would encounter a tracer but this was rare and I can't...

I agree.Being rimless it is not .303 ammunition. Being of WW2 vintage it could be from the US Garand semi-automatic rifle. I think the BAR (Browning Automaic Rifle) may have used rimless 30 calibre rounds as well. Were US troops stationed in that area during the war? Grey Panner.

I'm with Jazza. I can run two substantial bilge pumps all day using small 12 volt batteries fed by a solar panel. Each pump runs a separate circuit, one spraying the paydirt from above and one keeping a constant flood running down the bed of the sluice box. I hand sieve the dirt to reduce the...

Reminds me of a story from an old India hand. A British colonel was walking in his garden when he came face-to-face with a large Bengal tiger. He turned and ran back to the bungalow. The tiger came after him, gathered itself to leap, slipped and fell,in a heap allowing the colonel to gain...

What we all need to realise is that the wild animals in the bush are just that-wild. Many people try to tame them. Every time I see children playing with a "tame" kangaroo I worry that sooner or later it is going to grip them by the shoulders, rock back on its tail, wind up its back legs and...

I couldn't agree more.It also helps to have a GPS so that you know where you are. Until the National Mapping agency closed down I always obtained contour maps of the areas I wished to work in so that, even in strange country, I always knew what I was up against. In addition, I always made sure...