MULLIGAN'S FIFTH EXPEDITION 447 



MOFFAT acquired an interest in it, and was instrumental in estab- 

 lishing tin-dressing machinery thereon. His activities in this 

 direction extended westward with the progress of the mineral 

 field, and he was prominently associated with the inception of 

 tin-dressing plants at Irvinebank, Montalbion, Glen Linedale and 

 California Creek, and with smelting works for lead, silver and 

 copper at Irvinebank, Montalbion, Glen Linedale and Chillagoe, 

 as well as at Mount Elliott (Cloncurry) and with the Chillagoe and 

 Etheridge railway system. In addition to his personal enterprise 

 he was a ready " backer " of any prospector who professed to be on 

 the trail of discoveries in tin, lead, silver, copper, bismuth, molyb- 

 denite or wolfram. He was frequently spoken of as the FATHER OF 

 TIN MINING in the north. Prior to his arrival at Herberton, he 

 had been engaged in alluvial tin mining at Stanthorpe since 1870, 

 and had erected the smelting works at Tent Hill on the New South 

 Wales side of the border. Born at Loudon, on the River Irvine, 

 Ayrshire, in 1840, he came to Queensland in 1862, and died at 

 Toowoomba on 28th June, 1919. l 



When MULLIGAN and his party finally started to follow the 

 WILD RIVER southward, on 7th June, 1875, Mulligan and Warner 

 inclined to the belief that it was the head of the Mitchell ; that is 

 to say, dominated by the idea that the Barron was the Mitchell, 

 they imagined that it first flowed southward, then eastward and 

 northward (the Barron), and finally westward to the Gulf of Car- 

 pentaria. The identity of the Wild River with the Herbert 

 was shortly to be ascertained, but not by Mulligan, if, indeed, it 

 was not already known to the " mute, inglorious " bullock-driving 

 pioneers, who by this time had marked a road from Cardwell to 

 the Palmer. 



Passing the site of HERBERTON about 3 miles below their 

 Moomin CAMP, No. 21, Mulligan traced the windings of the WILD 

 RIVER (now followed by the HERBERTON-TUMOULIN RAILWAY) for 

 12 miles, when he camped (CAMP 22) on a track and marked- 

 tree line, running 15 degrees west of north, which he believed to 

 be the ROAD FROM CARDWELL TO THE PALMER. This would be 

 about a couple of miles east of the (future) township of NEWELLTON. 



Another day's journey of 12 miles, to the south, down the 

 river, on 8tb June, brought the travellers to their last camp (CAMP 

 23) on the WILD RIVER. Here they saw some NATIVES, who fled, 

 leaving spears and nets behind. The camp was probably about 

 3 miles north of the junction of " THE MILLSTREAM " with the 

 river. 



Although Mulligan had avowed the intention to follow the 

 river " until we find out what water this is," he left the problem 

 unsolved, and finally turning his back on the Wild River on ytb June, 



1 For some of the above particulars, I am indebted to a biographical notice by Sir 

 Robert Philp. 



