Map - Mount Franklin (Victoria) (Mount Franklin)

Mount Franklin  (Mount Franklin)
Mount Franklin (Djadjawurrung: Lalgambook) is an extinct volcano about 10 km north of Daylesford and 4.6 km south east of Franklinford in Victoria, Australia. A road spirals round the outside slopes covered with pine trees, into a flat 50 acre caldera, now used as a camping ground, and onto the rim which hosts a fire lookout, parking area and picnic ground.

Being a prominent local landmark within Hepburn Shire, the mountain is included within the boundaries of the Mount Franklin Reserve managed by Parks Victoria.

The mountain was created by a volcanic eruption about 470,000 years ago. It is fine example of a breached scoria cone. The breach in the south eastern rim (through which the road now enters) is thought to have been caused by lava flow breaking through the rim. The caldera is one of the deepest in the central highlands area. It is not active. Earlier flows extend to the north and west. The coarse ejecta exposed around the summit includes red and green olivine and megacrysts of high-temperature (some of the largest known Victorian examples) and orthoclase (to 7 cm long) and augite (over 9 cm long). Lumps of Ordovician sedimentary and granitic bedrock also occur in the ejecta and small basalt blocks contain cores of crazed quartz. On the western slope is the parasitic scoria mound known as "Lady Franklin".

The volcanic eruptions may have been witnessed by members of the Dja Dja Wurrung native Aboriginal tribe who called this country the ‘smoking grounds’. The clan that occupied the country around Mount Franklin were the Gunangara Gundidj who called it Lalgambook. Mount Franklin and the surrounding area appears to have been a place of considerable religious significance to Aboriginal people. Both ethnographical and archaeological evidence indicates that frequent large ceremonial gatherings took place in the area. Lava from Mount Franklin and other volcanoes in the area filled valleys and buried the gold bearing streams that became the renowned ‘deep leads’ of the gold mining era.

The country around Mount Franklin was described in 1855 as "thickly timbered with box and stringbark". Reports of fertile land waiting to be claimed prompted a minor rush by squatters who called the mount "Jim Crow Hill". Charles Joseph La Trobe, superintendent of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales named the mountain after Sir John Franklin after they climbed the hill together in December 1843.

In 1840, in response to concerns about the treatment of Aboriginal people by the settlers, the government took over Mount Franklin and the surrounding area for the Loddon Aboriginal Protectorate Station. The Protectorate Station was rife with mistreatment of local Aboriginal people.

In 1852, as part of the Victorian gold rush, gold was discovered in the immediate area. This placed additional pressures on the protectorate station and it was reduced and finally relocated.

Around 1865 the presence of a deep lead in Mount Franklin was established. Deep lead mining was initially unsuccessful, and it was not until the late 1870s that the Franklinford Gold Mining Company mined at Mount Franklin on a significant scale. A few years later the Mount Franklin Estate Gold Mining Company also struck gold, followed by the Shakespeare and Great Western companies in the mid-1880s. By the late 1880s, however, deep lead mining had ceased in the area.

As the alluvial gold was worked out, miners turned their attention to the gold-bearing leads deep beneath the earth’s surface. This gold was created by lava flows during the Newer Volcanic period, were mined intensively during the nineteenth century. One such company operated a mining lease at the eastern foot of Mount Franklin.

In 1866, the crater of Mount Franklin was set aside as a recreation reserve, and the remainder reserved as State forest. Owing to the high demand for land in the district, two areas of the reserve were excised and sold for agricultural settlement. This galvanised popular support for the permanent reservation of Mount Franklin. 
Map - Mount Franklin  (Mount Franklin)
Country - Australia
Flag of Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of 7617930 km2, Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east, and mountain ranges in the south-east.

The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south east Asia approximately 65,000 years ago, during the last ice age. Arriving by sea, they settled the continent and had formed approximately 250 distinct language groups by the time of European settlement, maintaining some of the longest known continuing artistic and religious traditions in the world. Australia's written history commenced with the European maritime exploration of Australia. The Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon was the first known European to reach Australia, in 1606. In 1770, the British explorer James Cook mapped and claimed the east coast of Australia for Great Britain, and the First Fleet of British ships arrived at Sydney in 1788 to establish the penal colony of New South Wales. The European population grew in subsequent decades, and by the end of the 1850s gold rush, most of the continent had been explored by European settlers and an additional five self-governing British colonies established. Democratic parliaments were gradually established through the 19th century, culminating with a vote for the federation of the six colonies and foundation of the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901. Australia has since maintained a stable liberal democratic political system and wealthy market economy.
Map - AustraliaAustralia_location_map%28no_borders%29.png
Australia_location_m...
2000x1797
freemapviewer.org
Map - AustraliaAustralia_satellite_plane.jpg
Australia_satellite_...
5250x4320
freemapviewer.org
Map - AustraliaAustralia_Present_Vegetation_Map.png
Australia_Present_Ve...
2228x1988
freemapviewer.org
Map - Australia2000px-Australia_regions_map.jpg
2000px-Australia_reg...
2000x1807
freemapviewer.org
Map - Australiaaustralia.jpg
australia.jpg
1033x1138
freemapviewer.org
Currency / Language  
ISO Currency Symbol Significant figures
AUD Australian dollar $ 2
ISO Language
EN English language
Neighbourhood - Country