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1865 Dicker's Mining Rec. (Melbourne) 19 Sept. 145/1 The ground on the east of No. 3 monkey shaft has been taken out... At No. 4 monkey shaft, seven faces are working in washdirt.

1869 R. B. Smyth Gold Field & Minerals Districts 616 Monkey-shaft is a shaft rising from a lower to a higher level (as a rule perpendicularly) and differs from a blind-shaft only in that the latter is sunk from a higher to a lower level.

1871 Austral. Town & Country Jrnl. 8 Apr. 440/4 Grainger in moving about fell down a monkey shaft, a depth of fifty feet.

1880 G. Sutherland Tales of Goldfields 69 They began to think they might be already too deep for it, and a small ‘monkey’-shaft was therefore driven upwards from the end of the tunnel.

1941 S. J. Baker N.Z. Slang iv. 28 Gold-fields brought [to New Zealand] the reefer, the deep lead, the gutter, the monkey shaft.

1997 F. R. Allchin in F. R. Allchin & D. K. Chakrabarti Sourcebk. Indian Archaeol. II. ii. xxi. 485 Old workings were reached at 380 ft.; two others reached them at depths of 240 ft. and 1 36 ft., and another small Monkey shaft at 82 ft.