1 3/6 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



348,704 ounces. In Queensland the mines are in the Herberton and Ravenswood Districts, 

 and are worked in the usual way in conjunction with lead and galena ore, the yield for 

 1886 being 1,631 tons of silver and lead combined. Silver was found at Talisker, in 

 South Australia, prior to the great discoveries in 1885 on the New South Wales side 

 of the border, but the workings were discontinued. Tasmania contains silver lodes near 

 Mount Zeehaen which have lately been tested, with results that have been indicated 

 when dealing with that colony. In New Zealand silver in fair quantities has been 

 found mixed with gold at the Thames, Coromandel and Te Aroha, and in 1885 upwards 

 of sixteen thousand ounces were exported. 



Iron is distributed largely throughout New South Wales. The chief deposits are at 

 Lithgow, Wallerawang, Rylstone, Rydal, Mudgee, Denison, Mount Lambie, Mount Tomah, 

 Berrima, Mittagong, Picton, Mount Keira and Jervis Bay, in the coal range of the Clarence, 

 at Blayney, Lyndhurst, Narrandera, Port Stephens, and in the Bogan River Valley. 

 Works for the manufacture of the ore are situated at Eskbank, near Lithgow, but until 

 recently the smelting of the iron ores of the colony has been found a difficult and costly 

 process, so that the steel and iron imported is almost thirty times greater than the amount 

 turned out of the Eskbank works. The Bessemer process has been introduced to remedy 

 this drawback. The 'value of iron obtained from ore in New South Wales in 1888 was 

 ,23,721. The deposits of iron in the other colonies are comparatively unimportant, because 

 it is only in proximity to coal that iron possesses any commercial value. 



Next to that of gold, the coal-mining industry is the most valuable to Australia. The 

 first official mention of the annual output dates from 1829, when the amount was stated at 

 eight hundred tons. Three years prior to that date the newly-formed Australian Agricul- 

 tural Company received from the Government a grant of one million acres of land, together 

 with a coal monopoly for the Newcastle District extending over a term of twenty years. 

 That wealthy corporation devoted some attention to the development of the mineral resources 

 thus placed at their sole disposal ; several workings were begun and a certain profit made. 

 The yield quoted above for 1829 may be regarded as the first tangible profit of this enter- 

 prise. In 1847, the Company's monopoly ran out ; year by year the importance of the 

 industry was more and more recognized, and, as soon as the field was thrown open to 

 private enterprise, the real value of the coal deposits began to make itself encouragingly 

 apparent. This increase of interest is shown by the figures. In 1847, tne ^ ast year of the 

 monopoly, the coal yield of the Newcastle District amounted to 40,732 tons, worth .13,750 

 sterling. W 7 ithin five years from that date this output doubled itself, and the colliery opera- 

 tions have been advancing in magnitude ever since, the foreign export as well as the local 

 demand steadily increasing. The latest official returns for the year 1890 showed an output 

 for that year of 3,060,876 tons, worth i, 279,088 sterling. The chief seat of the coal- 

 mining industry in Australia is the .Hunter River or Newcastle District. The operations 

 here are carried out by forty-nine mines, worked by colliery companies, some of them being 

 the property of English capitalists, though the greater part are owned in the colony. 



There are several thousand miners at work in the district, which in many characteristic 

 respects bears a striking resemblance both in appearance, and, of course, in the character of 

 its population, to the coal country in the north of England. The tastes and pursuits of the 

 men are much the same here as at Home. Their life of toil in the pits underground is 



