Oral tradition on the Island has it that labourers (originally Chinese) scraped and brushed the ore into baskets, which were then tipped into wheelbarrows or directly into skip railway hoppers.

Oral tradition suggests the phosphate was packed in drums at the upper level and rolled down the hill to the lower terrace.

This contrasts with more recently mined areas where machines have left a much more level surface and enough phosphate and soil to allow limited regrowth.

The current landscape of exposed limestone pinnacles and industrial remains is an uncommon and evocative reminder of the extent and efficiency and methodology of manual mining techniques.

[1] This Wikipedia article was originally based on Phosphate Hill Historic Area, entry number 105297 in the Australian Heritage Database published by the Commonwealth of Australia 2019 under CC-BY 4.0 licence, accessed on 15 May 2019.