1372 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



Diemen's Land, and two years later a similar discovery was announced in New South 

 Wales. But it was in South Australia and Queensland that the richest deposits of this 

 mineral were afterwards to be obtained. In the former colony, copper traces were first 

 obtained by Messrs. Bagot and Dutton, at Kapunda, in 1843. They were able to send 

 ten loads of ore to Adelaide by the first of January in the following year, and its 

 arrival was hailed with the utmost satisfaction by those who saw in the event the first 

 substantial guarantee of ultimate prosperity the colony had yet received. The success of 

 Messrs. Bagot and Dutton incited others to go in search of similar fortune, and the 

 colony had to wait only another year before it was startled by the report of another 

 promising discovery this time at Burra Burra, on the igth of May, 1845. The work- 

 ing of the Burra Burra and Kapunda Mines was vigorously proceeded with, and the 

 yield from the former mine alone, during the next thirty years, was stated at -215,132 

 tons, worth over four millions sterling in value. In 1861, the Wallaroo Mine, Yorke's 

 Peninsula, was discovered by a shepherd on the " run " of a Mr. D. Hughes. Later 

 on, the Moonta Mine was opened, the discovery of copper there dating from 1861 ; 

 over 255,000 tons of ore were raised from these workings up to 1875, the ore 

 sold realized nearly three millions sterling, and share-holders were paid over ,900,000 

 in dividends. In the space of twenty-five years, upwards of two hundred and ninety 

 thousand tons of ore were taken from the workings, valued at ,4,500,000. In Queens- 

 land, in December, 1861, a man named John Mollard, who was more popularly known 

 by the name of " One-eyed Dick," discovered what afterwards became' the well-known 

 Peak Downs Copper Mine. A Mr. John Manton took up three eighty-acre blocks, and, 

 proceeding to Sydney, at once floated the Peak Downs Copper Mining Company, in 

 December, 1862. The first smelting took place in 1864, and in ten years the total 

 receipts amounted to ,268,000. In Western Australia also copper was discovered in small 

 quantities, in 1846. The most important copper workings in New South Wales are 

 situated at Cobar and Nymagee. The former is at present closed, but it will be re- 

 opened when the railway, now in course of construction, gives better means of transit. 

 The deepest shaft at Cobar measures 364 feet. The new Mount Hope and Great Central 

 Mines have given excellent indications of payable ore, but their distance from market and 

 the low price of copper of late years have militated against their complete development. 

 Deposits of copper ore have chiefly been found in the central division of the colony, 

 between the Bogan, Darling and Macquarie Rivers ; at Walcha, in the New England 

 District ; and in the neighbourhood of Burrowa and Carcoar. Up to the end of 1890, 

 the total value of copper raised in New South Wales and exported was stated at 

 .5, 818,338. For the year itself, the value reached ,275,034; but the highest value 

 obtained for any one year was reached in 1883, when the return was given at ,5/7,201. 

 The falling-off in the return since that time is clue, not by any means to the 

 exhaustion of the supply, but to the depreciation of the value in the world's market. 



The copper-workings were confined in 1886 to the mines in New South Wales, South 

 Australia and Queensland, but the whole industry in Australia shared in the discouragement 

 of low prices, so that the general yield was beneath that of 1885. Victoria has little 

 to show in the way of remunerative copper-workings. Up to the year 1889 the total 

 amount of copper raised in Victoria was valued at '191,107. The ore has been found 



