CHAPTER XCVII 

 WILLIAM BOWDEN, 1892-1901 



TAKES PART IN DISCOVERY OF BOWDEN MINERAL FIELD. WOLFRAM WORKED. FIELD 

 PROCLAIMED, 1907. TAKES PART IN DISCOVERY OF ALLUVIAL GOLD ON RUNNING 

 STARCKE RIVER, 1890. PROSPECTING FOR GOLD ON PHILP AND MOREHEAD RIVERS, 

 1901. 



THE PASCOE RIVER, at the mouth of which the majority of 

 Kennedy's ill-fated party were left to die, was named 

 in honour of Lieutenant Pascoe,the officer in command of 

 the Marines who arrived at Somerset in 1863. (SEE 

 MAPS C AND B.) 



The course of the river is somewhat remarkable. It takes its 

 rise among the highest summits of the Janet Range and courses 

 for 1 6 miles S. by E. Next it runs W. by N. for 22 miles, dividing 

 the Janet and Mcllwraith Ranges. It then runs N. for 17 miles 

 till it receives Canoe Creek on its right bank, when it turns to the 

 NE. and reaches the ocean in 28 miles more. Its mouth is within 

 1 6 miles of its head. 



The area which was proclaimed in 1907 as the BOWDEN MINERAL 

 FIELD forms the " peninsula " lying between the Pascoe River 

 and Canoe Creek (the latter named by me in 1880). To this 

 district came in 1892 the prospectors, WILLIAM BOWDEN, JOHN 

 DICKIE and WILLIAM LAKELAND,* who had left Bairdsville in 

 December in search of gold. Their DISCOVERY OF WOLFRAM at 

 this date was, unfortunately for them, premature, as the metal, 

 which has since risen to a high price owing to warlike demands, 

 was then almost unsaleable. Having failed in the principal object 

 of their search, the party returned to Bairdsville and eventually 

 left for Croydon. In 1900, " BOWDEN, with two mates, paid a 

 visit to the locality, but only finding one small lode, it was con- 

 demned as being too small." 2 In 1904 a party of miners went 

 out from Coen, located a lode and pegged out a prospecting claim. 

 Their names are given by Dick as WILLIAMSON, EVENNETT, ENRIGHT, 

 STAIT and G. BROWN. " Six other lodes," says the Warden, 

 " were shortly found," and for a few months there was quite a 

 lot of activity at this place, with about fifteen or sixteen miners in 

 the camp. Most of them were obliged to go to Coen for rations, 



1 Dick's Mineral Resources of the Cook District, p. 27, and Warden O. E. Power's 

 Report in Annual Report, Department of Mines, for 1911, p. 62. 

 a Warden Power's Report. 



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