414 NORTHMOST AUSTRALIA 



of his discovery he may ultimately secure the standing reward, 

 but he will do so at the cost of giving away his valuable secret, and 

 will soon be surrounded by a crowd of diggers who will peg out 

 claims and thus confine him to a limited area. If he can escape 

 detection, he may make more in a week than the reward is worth. 

 At any time, however, he may be tracked or accidentally detected 

 in the act of amassing wealth, and in that case other gold seekers 

 will deprive him of elbow-room, and may forestall him in applying 

 for the reward. The successful prospector is thus always on the 

 horns of a dilemma : to work on in secret and risk it, or to report 

 payable gold. 



After the discovery of payable gold on the Palmer had been 

 publicly announced by Mulligan, other prospectors put forward 

 their claims to the honour, in some instances giving accounts of 

 their travels and doings. Such accounts, however, were for the 

 most part contributed to the daily or weekly newspapers of the 

 " seventies," in some cases to newspapers now defunct. Such 

 publications rank as " fugitive literature," which no man may 

 hope to marshal in evidence after the lapse of forty years. Mulligan's 

 first explorations on the Palmer (1873-4) were no exception. His 

 reports were contributed to the Queenslander newspaper, and would 

 have shared the oblivion which has overtaken the reports of his 

 contemporaries and rivals but for the circumstance that they were 

 collected and reprinted in a Guide Book l in 1875. This guide 

 book is very rare at the present day, but fortunately a copy has 

 been preserved in the Mitchell Library, Sydney, and to this I am 

 indebted for the text of the notes which follow. 



GEORGETOWN, the centre of the ETHERIDGE GOLDFIELD, was, 

 in 1873, connected with Firth's Station, MOUNT SURPRISE, by a 

 road, about 85 miles in length. (SEE MAP K.) Mulligan covered 

 this journey (eastward) in four days, arriving at Mount Surprise on 

 ytb June, 1873. His route from MOUNT SURPRISE via FOSSIL 

 BROOK to its junction with the LYND diverged but little from that 

 of Hann. Nearly on the footprints of both LEiCHHARDTand HANN, 

 he followed the LYND down to about the infall of EMU CREEK. 



On iqtb June, he first broke new ground, leaving the Lynd and 

 keeping a north-east course, and camped (CAMP 3) on a large creek, 

 a tributary of the Tate, no doubt what is now known as the 

 ROCKY TATE, and probably about the infall of BULLOCK CREEK. 

 He struck the TATE itself in about 8 miles to the north-east, and 

 followed it down 5 miles westward to the junction of the Rocky 

 Tate and camped 4 miles further down the river. CAMP 5, 2ist 



1 Guide to the Palmer River and Normanby Goldfields, North Queensland, showing 

 the Different Roads to and from the Etheridge River, Cleveland Bay and Cooktown, with 

 Map of the Palmer and A djacent Goldfields and Journal of Explorations by James V. 

 Mulligan, Discoverer of the Palmer River Goldfields, and to whose Party the Government 

 reward was awarded. Brisbane, George Slater & Co. ; Sydney, Gordon & Gotch ; Mel- 

 bourne, George Robertson, 1875. 



