Mystery Object Revealed!

Hurstville Museum & Gallery’s newest exhibition Revealed! Treasures from the Hurstville City Library Museum & Gallery Collections features a number of quirky objects on rotational display. Those of you who have visited the exhibition in the past few weeks will have noticed a bizarre silver, pointy thingy that we have aptly called a ‘mystery object’. We have asked our visitors to draw on their memories or imaginations to write their own label for our mystery object. The guesses have been many and varied, but always interesting! Some of my favourites include a primitive iPad and a giant magnet!

But I can now reveal the identity of this first mystery object. Hurstville Museum & Gallery is proud to present (drum roll please)… a cream separator!

This cream separator was used on a dairy farm at Brays Creek, 20 miles from Murwillimbah, by Albie and Eileen Carter. Separator machines were invented in 1885, and made it possible to separate cream from milk faster and more easily without having to let the milk sit and risk turning sour.

The machine works by manually rotating a handle so that a separator bowl spins at thousands of revolutions per minute! When spun, the heavier milk is pulled outward against the walls of the separator and the cream, which is lighter, collects in the middle. The cream and milk then flow out of separate spouts.

Pretty cool hey!

Some of our visitors did actually guess correctly. Congratulations! I now challenge you to view and guess our next mystery object!