Red Flag gold area, Mount Margaret Goldfield, Laverton Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Red Flag gold area	Area
Mount Margaret Goldfield	Ore Field
Laverton Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

The Mindat co-ordinates are on the marked Red Flag Gold Mine on maps, which appears to be an active prospectors camp with sheds, machinery and vechiles. However over a wider area of several kilometres are scattered and isolated historic workings.

The Red Flag gold area is twenty kilometres south-west of Laverton, and is an area covering several square kilometres south of Hawkes Nest. Red Flag was an alluvial field discovered in the 1890's. Its exact location could not be confirmed, as several very small alluvial patches were discovered in the area. As a consequence there is a wide scattering of shallow historic shafts and minor modern prospecting pits.

Access is via a track which heads south south-east from Hawkes Nest. Many minor tracks wend their way through the thick mulga scrub to workings and getting lost is probable. Some of the older workings do not appear to have access tracks and remain hidden in the scrub.

Red Flag's character and history is almost identical to Hawkes Nest. Small alluvial patches, with small leaders below ground which soon gave way. It has always been the preserve of the prospector, who without capital could not afford water pumping equipment to sink far underground. Some leases had names, most P.A. numbers. A constant procession of prospectors came and went, usually with their dreams dashed. Many nuggets however have been found in the area, and activity has occurred intermittently until recent times.

The Hawkes Nest and Red Flag also share the fate of having their drinking water well polluted by a dead horse, although Red Flag was much later in 1948. As a public service exercise we would like to detail what can be done when one finds themselves with this situation ie.find another water source.

First the dead horse at the bottom of the well is blown to pieces by gelignite. The well is then baled dry and treated with chloride of lime (a mixture of calcium hypochlorite and alkaline calcium chloride) as a disinfectant. The well was baled dry again and the procedure repeated twice more. The authorities recommended boiling the water for several months after this.

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