00 



8 A'EJV SOUTH VrALES. 



depression or any otlicr cause ; for wliile in 1893 we manufactured 

 17,858 tons of coke, worth £20,000, in ISO^ we made 34,458 tons, 

 wortli £33,000. It is assumed to be only a matter of time when locallj- 

 manufactured coke will take command of the market, thus materially 

 reducing the cost to manufacturers. 



As regards the Colony's natural advantages for the development of 

 a flourishing iron industry the same hopeful tale is to be told. The 

 deposits of iron-bearing ores in their richest forms are widespread 

 through the Colony, being almost always found in the near neighbour- 

 hood of limestone and coal. No other Australasian Colony can com- 

 pare with New South Wales in this respect, and taking our coal and 

 iron together it is evident that nature sufficiently indicates what the 

 industrial and manufacturing future of the mother Colony must be. 

 The principal forms in which our iron occurs are magnetite, brown 

 hematite or goothite, limonite, and bog-iron, with chrome iron in less 

 quantities. The promise of these ores is specially attractive to the 

 ironworker. Our magnetite has been found to yield 72 per cent, of 

 available metallic iron, but of course this is exceptionally high ; but 

 at Brown's Creek, near Bathurst, and at Waller awang, samples have 

 been found yielding from 40"89 to 56*85 per cent, of metallic iron, and 

 the Wallerawang ore is specially commended by experts as being- 

 extremely well adapted for reduction in the blast furnace. Brown 

 hematite ores have been found in the mountain ranges and at Mitta- 

 gong, Picton, Berrima, Lithgow Valley, Wallerawang, Eylstone, and 

 Mudgee districts, and near Port Stephens, the analyses showing a 

 percentage of from 42-69 to 64*48 of metallic iron, the proportion in 

 most cases being- over 55 per cent. Hematite from Maitland has been 

 found to show 60*83 per cent., and samples from Mount Pleasant, near 

 Wollongong, gave 54*28 per cent. The neighbourhoods of Lithgow, 

 Eskbank, Bowenfels, the Hunter River, and Bulli, carry limonite rich 

 in metal and averaging over 50 per cent, of iron, while the Mittagong 

 bog-iron yields about 45 per cent. We have already extensive works 

 at Eskbank, originally built for the manufacture of pig-iron, though 

 that has been for the time being abandoned. At Mittag'ong gas-pipes 

 have been made from iron smelted from the ore and taken thence to 

 the mould without the intermediate processes of converting it into 

 pig-iron. The Fitzroy works have also discontinued this manufacture, 

 though samples of its output were of sufficiently good quality to gain 

 a first award at the recent London Mining Exhibition. The strano^er 

 may naturally ask why, with these exceptional natural facilities, we 

 have not already a flourishing iron industry in New South Wales ; and 

 attribute the fact to a lack of demand for iron and its products. 

 A very cursory examination of the figures available on the subject 

 will be sufficient to show that is very far indeed from being the real 

 state of the case. During the past four years the Australian colonies, 

 which New South Wales in the future must su.pply, imported over 

 £26,000,000 sterling worth of iron and iron manufactures, and of this 

 trade New South AVales itself was a customer to the extent of over 

 £10,000,000 sterling. We have imported as much as £3,500,000 

 worth in one year, while all the colonies together in that year bought 

 over £8,000,000 worth of iron goods abroad. Had we during those 

 four years made up our own raw material into the finished article, this 



