468 NORTHMOST AUSTRALIA 



Working, in most cases, entirely " on their own," and in others 

 assisted by the Government or by local associations, the prospectors 

 of the past furnished, as a rule, very meagre reports, which were 

 " given to the newspapers," to be referred to in a few paragraphs 

 among the news of the day, or published in full or in abstract at 

 the discretion of editors. 



Generally, when prospectors had received Government 

 assistance, the Annual Reports of the Department of Mines gave 

 a short statement of their itinerary and noted their success or 

 failure. With this exception, the records of prospecting expedi- 

 tions are only to be found in what is classed as " fugitive literature " 

 such as literary and scientific workers consider themselves at liberty 

 to ignore. Nevertheless, I have made it my business to explore 

 as much of this literature as was accessible to me, and have been 

 rewarded by discoveries of some value. In this connection I 

 desire to record my indebtedness to the facilities afforded by the 

 courtesy of the officers of the Mitchell and Parliamentary Libraries, 

 Sydney, and the Public Library, Melbourne. 



Full allowance must be made for the difficulties of the pros- 

 pector. He must, in the first place, surround his wanderings with 

 a certain amount of mystery, lest some other should reap what he 

 has sown. Should he be fortunate in his quest, his first care is to 

 secure everything that can be legally acquired by way of reward 

 claim, but he must manoeuvre to be left alone until he has satisfied 

 himself that he has really located the best part of his discovery. 

 It is only then that he is ready to make full disclosure of his success, 

 with the natural object of claiming the honour of the discovery and 

 the chance of the substantial bonus which the law allows after a 

 certain number of men have been settled on a new industry. 

 If only partially successful ; if, for example, he notes the presence 

 of an ore say, wolfram, or an ore of tin too low in price at the 

 time to be payable, he says to himself, " It will keep." Or if he 

 detects rich alluvial gold in a position where water is unavailable, 

 he marks it for future exploitation when the season is more favour- 

 able. With such after-thoughts in his mind, he is strongly tempted 

 to withhold any information which might lead others to reap the 

 benefit of his work, and even to frame his report so as to throw 

 others off his track. When it is considered, moreover, that many 

 prospectors trust more to their own bushmanship than to maps, 

 and content themselves with identifying creeks, or giving names to 

 creeks which may have been named and charted already, it will 

 be understood that the contributions of some excellent prospectors 

 are of no great value for geographical purposes. 



Many of the circumstances recorded in connection with the 

 prospecting of the Peninsula were more or less within my own 

 knowledge, but, whenever it is possible to do so, I prefer to cite 

 another authority. 



