EXTRAORDINARY COPPER FORMATION 93 



up in boiling. So extraordinary was the sight that it is 

 said many geologists came from Europe and America to 

 witness it, and none could give a satisfactory theory of so 

 strange a formation. 



Miners came from Cornwall, the copper was worked, 

 and for a few years the mines proved to be a very profitable 

 concern, but the lodes puzzled the miners. They had 

 never seen any like them before, and, indeed, declared that 

 they were wholly erratic, and if they existed for any 

 distance underground, were so deeply buried and hidden 

 that it would be mere waste of capital to search for them. 

 The surface copper was soon exhausted, and at the time 

 of the "gold rush" (about 1851-52), the miners deserted 

 almost in a body. Work was afterwards resumed at the 

 mines, but at the time of my visits (between 1892 and 

 1899), they seemed to be exhausted, and work had entirely 

 ceased. I had not the gratification of seeing one of the 

 remarkable bubbles which had attracted so much attention 

 from a former generation. 



Burra-Burra is the name of a district rather than that 

 of a town. Collectively it means the whole mining city of 

 the Burra-Burra creek or river; but each party of miners 

 had a township with a designation (usually national) of 

 their own. Thus the Scotsmen had an Aberdeen, the 

 native Australians resided at Kooringa, and so on, the 

 various townships being seldom separated by a greater 

 distance than a dozen or twenty yards. 



The country between Burra-Burra and Adelaide is now 

 the most populous in the colony, and also the most 

 prosperous, and consequently the larger animals and birds 

 have become comparatively scarce — killed by the gun and 

 net, or driven away by the rapid advance of the agriculturist, 

 for the land is being brought under culture, and the corn- 

 grower is fast superseding the wool-raiser. Profitable as 

 the latter business is, corn-growing is more so, and land 

 that was formerly thought to be desert waste is now known 

 to be excellent for grain crops. 



Nothing is more disturbing to the fauna of a country 

 than the operations of the cultivator, except actual 



