CHAPTER XCVI 

 WILLIAM LAKELAND, 1876-1910 



PROSPECTING IN PENINSULA SINCE 1876. TOOK PART IN DISCOVERY OF BOWDEX MINERAL 

 FIELD. To BAIRDSVILLE, 1892. DISCOVERED ALLUVIAL GOLD AT ROCKY RTVER, 

 1893. SMALL RUSH. ALLUVIAL GOLD EXHAUSTED. AURIFEROUS REEFS DIS- 

 COVERED. ROCKY GOLDFIELD PROCLAIMED, 1897. WATER-POWER MlLL, 1896- 



1910. HAMILTON AND CLAUDIE RIVERS. 



I AM unable to discover a scrap of writing by William Lakeland 

 himself, although it is well known that he has been one of 

 the earliest and most assiduous prospectors of the Cape 



York Peninsula. His best-known achievement is the DIS- 

 COVERY OF THE ROCKY GOLDFIELD. 



Explorations in the Peninsula by Lakeland in 1876 are 

 incidentally referred to by James Dick in his pamphlet entitled 

 A Geological and Prospecting Expedition which filled many Blank 

 Spaces (1913), but no localities or results are mentioned. 

 Lakeland was one of the party (the others being William Bowden 

 and John Dickie) who located WOLFRAM on the BOWDEN MINERAL 

 FIELD between the PASCOE RIVER and CANOE CREEK, about 1887. 

 Shortly thereafter he left for Croydon. He was known to have 

 been prospecting in the Peninsula before he discovered the Rocky 

 Goldfield, and an old tree bearing his initials seen by the Dickie, 

 Dick and Sheffield party in 1910 near the head of SEFTON CREEK 

 justifies the conclusion that he visited the MC!LWRAITH RANGE. 



Lakeland was one of the first on the Batavia River rush (Bairds- 

 ville) in 1892. 



In 1893 or 1894, he discovered ALLUVIAL GOLD at the ROCKY. 

 With the assistance of some 300 diggers who rushed to the spot in 

 spite of the forbidding nature of the country, the alluvial gold was 

 soon exhausted. Lakeland then searched for and discovered AURI- 

 FEROUS REEFS. The field was proclaimed in 1897. Writing in 

 1896, Warden F. J. Cherry described the situation of the reefs as 

 being on Neville Creek, about 2,000 feet above the sea. (SEE MAP 

 C.) He added that the stone was crushed by a water-power mill ; 

 that there were ROADS TO THE COEN AND to the mouth of the 

 CHESTER RIVER ; that supplies were brought by NATIVE CARRIERS 

 from the CHESTER ; and that goods and passengers from the field 

 went by boat from the Chester to join the mail steamers at CLARE- 

 MONT ISLAND LIGHTSHIP. Dick, writing in 1910, states that Lake- 



ii 25 729 



