The Three Colonies of Australia/Part 2/Chapter 26
CHAPTER XXVI.
MINES OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA.
UP to 1850 South Australia was considered the mineral district, par excellence, of Australia. In the old colony of New South Wales indications of copper mines had been discovered many years previously, but the reservation of minerals by the crown prevented purchasers and grantees from pursuing discoveries which might only lead to the disturbance of their freeholds by some stranger under official patronage. The South Australian colonists had influence enough in the home Parliament to obtain a concession of the "rights of the crown." The discovery of the Burra Burra gave a vivid impulse to mineral exploration, and in 1850 not less than thirty-nine South Australian mining adventures were before the colonial and British public, in various stages of progress, most of which depended on English capital for their working. Nearly all, according to the reports of the promoters, "only needed the expenditure of a little more capital to become most flourishing investments." Not one, with the exception of the Burra Burra, had ever paid a public dividend; and when the gold discoveries brought them all to a stand-still by the abstraction of labour, several "most respectable colonists" were engaged in preferring new schemes for the benefit of English capitalists. At that time the following mines, in addition to nearly sixty other schemes which had never gone beyond a prospectus, were in the market at a discount.
The Wheal Gawler silver lead was the first mine discovered in the province; opened in 1841; abandoned, and re-opened by a company without success; nevertheless the directors in 1850 boasted their good prospects. The Adelaide Mining Company, near Montacute, "with a capital of £1,000; the Australian Mining Company, with an English capital of £400,000, and a special survey of Reedy Creek, forty-six miles from Adelaide, other lots at Tungkillo and at Kapunda" founded in 1845—the outlay has been enormous—no dividends; the Barossa Mining Company, with a capital of £30,000, formed in England, with a view of prosecuting mineral explorations on the property of G. T. Angas, Esq.; the Glen Ormond, another English company, with a capital of £30,000, founded in 1845; the Port Lincoln, with a capital of £10,000; the Mount Remarkable, with a capital of £25,000 in 1846; the North Kapunda, a capital of £22,200, in 1846; the Paringa, capital £20,000, in 1845; the Port Lincoln, capital £4,000, in 1848; the Princess Royal, capital £20,000, in 1845: this was the unlucky half of the Burra.
There were two gold companies established in 1846, the workings of one of which were suspended in 1850, "pending an anticipated sale of the sett in England."
Two conclusions may be drawn from an examination of the reports of these mines first, that South Australia is extremely rich in minerals; and secondly, that parties who do not understand mining should be cautious in taking the advice of South Australian friends as to mining investments.
In Cornwall there are always a number of mines manufactured for the benefit of green strangers. It was the same in South Australia. For this reason the gold crisis, which destroyed the fictitious credit and bubble mining adventures of South Australia, will in the end do good, by directing the attention of the South Australians to labor instead of puffery for the development of the true wealth of their noble province.
THE BURRA BURRA.
The following statement of the results of the Burra Burra mine will show that the South Australians have some reasonable excuse for the gambling mining spirit with which they are afflicted, and which succeeded to the town-lot roulette of 1839-40:—
The Burra proprietary divided their purchase into 2,464 shares of £5 each, with liberty to increase their capital to £20,000, which they have since done.
In the first year, from 29th September, 1845, to 29th September, 1846, at a cost of £16,624, they raised 7,200 tons of ore. As the depth of the workings increased a great improvement in the quality of the ore took place; instead of the blue carbonate, the red oxide, malachite, and the richest description of ore became predominant. The highest price realised for the first 800 tons was £31 9s., and the lowest £10 16s. per ten. At a considerable distance from the principal workings eighty tons of blue and green carbonate of copper were raised in the month of March, 1847.
In the months of June and July, 1847> the first and second dividends of fifty shillings each per share were paid to the shareholders. These dividends were paid out of the net proceeds of 2,959 tons of ore, amounting to £35,678, out of which also were paid the expenses of the association, including the cost of producing the 2,959 tons of ore, amounting to £15,926, leaving an undivided balance of £7,584. During the six months ending 30th September, 1847, 7,264 tons were raised within that period of a superior quality. During the six months ending the 31st March, 1848, 6,068 tons were raised. The large raising of the whole year, amounting to 13,533 tons, was produced from within the limits of the twenty-fathom level. All the ore discovered below that to the thirty fathoms was left for future raising, there being plenty of good ore-ground above the twenty-fathom level to employ the miners for some time to come.
The wages and cost of working the mine, including timber, fixed machinery, tools, &c., amounted to £74,030, and the cartage of the ore to £44,803.
In this year £83,106 was realised, out of which the expenses of working the mine and carting the ore were paid, but three further dividends were declared. By March, 1848, the original £5 shares had advanced up to £150; a sixth and seventh dividend of £10 each, in June and September, raised the prices to £200 and £210 for cash. A fall afterwards took place in consequence of the depreciation of the value of copper in Europe. But an important discovery was made of a valuable lode in the thirty-fathom level leading from Kingston to Graham's shaft. The lode was cut four fathoms below the water level, was solid, and from ten to eleven feet wide, composed of a compact green carbonate or malachite, producing upwards of 40 per cent, of copper. The lode was described as clearly defined, in easy working order, and dipping well into the mine.
In the half year ending the 30th September, 1848, 10,163 tons were raised, making a sum total for the ore raised during the first three years' working of the mine of 33,386 tons, equal to upwards of 10,000 tons of fine copper ore (at £70 per ton), £700,000. The cost of the mine for the year ending the 30th of September, 1848, was £81,491; of the cartage of ore, £31,445.
In the latter part of 1848 the miners struck for higher wages. The workings of the mine were suspended from November until February, 1849. In March the miners resumed work.
Further important discoveries were made—one of a lode in the thirty-fathom level, south-west from Graham's shaft, consisting of red oxide and malachite in great abundance; and the other of a lode two fathoms wide, yielding malachite of high produce. Only two pitches were set on these lodes, and twelve men produced in the first week eighty tons of the richest ores.
On the 5th of September, 1849, an eighth dividend of £5 per share was declared. In the year 1850 the £10 quarterly dividends were regularly paid. Two steam-engines of thirty-five horse power each, one for crushing the ore and the other for drawing from the shafts, arrived; and the directors ordered seventy fathoms of fifteen-inch pumps to replace the eleven-inch lifts then in work, and a pumping-engine of three-hundred-horse power.
The quantity of ore raised in the year ending September, 1850, was 18,692 tons. Since that period the returns have experienced a check from the emigration to the gold-diggings, and shares have fluctuated in value, but of the ultimate value of this property there can be no question.
SUMMARY OF WORKINGS AND PROFITS.
The workings of the mines at the close of the year 1850 consisted of the following shafts, winzes and levels—viz., 45 whim shafts, of an aggregate depth of 812 fathoms; seven trial shafts, of an aggregate depth of 34 fathoms; 35 winzes and ladder roads, of an aggregate depth of 270 fathoms; 3,876 fathoms of levels, equal in length to four and one-third British miles. The whole of the transactions of the company, from its formation to the 29th September, 1849, embracing four years and a half, were, in the year 1850, finally balanced, and the profits during that period were found to amount to £229,535, of which £221,760 were divided among the shareholders in twelve dividends, the twelfth dividend of £10 having been paid on the 1st September, 1850. The ore raised during this period was 37,736 tons, at a cost of £309,825 3s. 6d., or £8 4s. 3d. per ton, and produced in the province, free of freight and charges, £536,486 13s. 4d., or £14 4s. 4d. per ton, leaving a profit of £226,661 6s. 10d., or £6 0s. 1d. per ton. During the year 1850, the company, however, incurred the following expenses:
| £ | s. | d. | ||
| Wages | 72,715 | 9 | 10 | |
| Stores, candles, timber | 20,006 | 19 | 9 | |
| Horses and fodder | 3,074 | 18 | 7 | |
| Machinery | 5,096 | 7 | 6 | |
| Buildings at the Burra | 13,043 | 13 | 4 | |
| Cartage of copper | 2,394 | 16 | 6 | |
| Cartage of ore | 14,344 | 1 | 0 | |
| Purchases of land | 15,458 | 5 | 3 |
Making, with other expenses, a sum total of £169,611 2s. 5d. After deducting these expenses from the estimated value of ore on hand, the directors notified that £52,000 was applicable to dividends, and a £10 dividend was accordingly paid in December, 1850, and in March, 1851.
A DRIVE TO THE BURRA BURRA.
The Burra Burra Mine is distant about a hundred miles from Adelaide, and reached by a road which, although low and dusty, is good in the summer months. The transit was recently performed by the mail, an open four-horse omnibus, at a charge of £l, in fifteen hours' travelling, halting for the night on the road. "A party is frequently conveyed to the Burra in a spring cart, driven tandem fashion, and supplied with fresh horses from the stations along the road, belonging to Mr. Chambers. A trip of this sort, to and from the Burra mine, costs about £12 or £13. The road from Adelaide to Gawler Town traverses a flat open country along the coast line of St. Vincent's Gulf. On each side of the road the country is subdivided into small farms reaching on one side to the gulf, and on the other extending to the long range of hills which intersects the province of South Australia. The country in February last presented a brown parched appearance owing to a long and unprecedented drought. Very few objects of interest are met on the road, being limited to the teams of the German farmers, and the bullock drays, laden with bars of refined copper, en route from the smelting works to Adelaide. At Gawler Town—a rapidly improving township—there are two large inns with excellent accommodation. About thirty miles from Gawler Town you reach the Kapunda, the property of Captain Bagot, M.L.C., and some proprietors in England. The North Kapunda and the South Kapunda mines adjoin the Kapunda. They are mineral sections of land which were purchased in the expectation of their containing a continuation of the rich lodes found in the Kapunda; but although much had in 1851 been done with the scrip of the North Kapunda and South Kapunda Companies, but little profit or success had attended the working of the mines themselves. The road from the Kapunda passes through an undulating park-like country and an extensive plain, across which, in the distance, the mirage is often plainly distinguishable. About eight miles before arriving at the Burra the country becomes remarkably barren and hilly, and the eye is at once attracted by the peculiar appearance of ridges which run north and south along the ground at what seem to be regular intervals of distance, suggesting the natural inference of lodes of some kind or other. This inference is fortified by the multitudinous out-croppings of lime and other descriptions of stone which appear at the base and along the brow of the hills. As you approach towards the Burra, a tall white chimney, rising from the summit of one of the hills before you, announces that the mine is not far off, and then your eye fixes upon a congeries of bald rounded hills towards the north, looking like so many tents crowded together upon raised ground.
"The Burra Hotel, situated at the commencement of the Burra Burra township, is a fine spacious stone building, furnishing every accommodation to visitors, and unsurpassed by any house of the kind, either in the province or New South Wales. The township of Kooringa is well laid out, comprising several very handsome stone buildings, and contained, in 1851, a population of 5,000 inhabitants. Five years ago the whole of this place was a barren wilderness: now stores, and shops, and offices line the High-street. Several ministers of religion are located here. Excellent accommodation is afforded to the wives and families of miners, and workmen belonging to the smelting-works, in several well laid out squares of comfortable cottages, chiefly built of stone, and let at low rents. The whole of the township is the freehold of the Burra Company, who have let some of the properties—such, for instance, as the Burra Hotel, on long improving leases.
"Leaving the Burra Hotel, you pass down the High-street, and proceed along a road, which on one side winds round the base of a large hill, and on the other side is skirted by a creek that exhibits a very singular coup d'œil. Along the channel of the creek runs a thin stream of water, and on each bank is a line of little detached cottages or sheds, each of which has been excavated out of the sides of the creek, and faced with weather boards. The inside of each house has a fire-place and a chimney or flue, which, making its exit out of the surface ground, is then capped, either by a small beer barrel or mound of earth with a hole in the centre, as a substitute for the ordinary chimney-pot. In these strange dwelling-places, which take up two miles of the creek on each side, the great bulk of the miners and their families reside, being permitted by the Burra Company to do so rent free.[1] A busy hum pervades the creek—swarms of children are at every door—here and there a knot of gossips is collected—and every now and then the scene is diversified by the chatter of a tame magpie, the barking of quarrelsome curs, the grunting of swine, the neighing of horses stabled alongside the huts, or the fluttering of red shirts and other apparel drying in the open air. Two minutes' walk brings you to the mine. Turning from the creek, and looking towards the low but gently-rising ground that lies between three hills, you observe an area of from eighty to one hundred acres, crowded with stone buildings, covered shafts leading under ground, machinery and engine works, engine-houses, storehouses, tanks, and dams of water, innumerable sheds of all sizes, and countless piles of copper ore of various assorted qualities, in different stages of dressing, lying almost in every direction. If you arrive after six in the evening expecting to find all quiet and the business of the day over, great will be your surprise at the bustling animated appearance of the place. The first striking object is the gigantic white chimney towering from the summit of the middle hill, and carrying the smoke from the different engine-flues which run under the surface of the ground towards the middle hill. At the summit of this same hill, also, you observe a large well-finished stone warehouse, used as a powder magazine. The eye is next caught by a fine lofty stone building, situate about the centre of the ground—the three-storied pumping engine-house, with the great beam in front, steadily working up and down. Ascending the road, you pass the weigh-bridge, and an extensive square of stone-built offices and stores adjoining a spacious yard, enclosed by a stone wall. These premises are used as depots for building timber, iron, workmen's tools, and various engineering stores. In the back ground, on the brow of the hill, is a row of well-built stone cottages—two of them the residences of Captain Roach and another mine captain, and the third comprising the consultation room, the changing rooms, and the office of the company's accountant and his clerk.
"On the right of these cottages is another similar range, the residences of the other captains of the mine and their families. Still further to the right is a pretty detached cottage, occupied by Dr. Chambers, the principal surgeon at the mine. On the brow of the right hill is a long line of stabling and sheds for carts, with adjoining yards and barns. The stalls are roomy, floored with small stones, and capable of receiving upwards of one hundred horses. Near the stabling is a substantial and capacious shed, used as a timber-store and saw-pit, and close by a similar one was in the course of erection for the further accommodation of the carpenters. About eleven whims were at work at the shafts. Most of these whims, as well as the great pumping engine, are at work day and night, which accounts for the busy scene presented to the eye, although long past six o'clock. The whims are situate each of them close to a shaft which communicates with one or other of the different levels under ground. Connected with the pumping engine shaft is a series of long wooden spouting, elevated upon and supported by stands. The spouts which receive the water drawn up from the mine run backward in several directions, and feed various tanks, and dams, and other places, where the operations of cleansing and dressing the ore are carried on. The refuse water is conducted to the head of the Burra Creek, down which it makes its way for seven miles, reaching the Princess Royal Mine, and ultimately running into the Murray flats. Near each shaft where the whim is at work are ranges of sheds, in which parties of men and boys are busily engaged in crushing and reducing lumps of ore from one size to another, and so facilitating the washing and separation of the copper ore from the earth and foreign matter with which it is mixed.
"There are other sheds set apart for tanks and various contrivances, by which parties of men and boys wash and sift the copper ore, until prepared for sampling. Collected near the sheds are numberless square and oblong heaps of ore, about six feet long, four feet broad, and two to three feet deep. These heaps are composed of copper ore of various qualities, and in different stages of dressing. When it is remembered, that in addition to the large heaps of ore which cover the ground near these sheds, and near the dams and tanks for washing, there are innumerable piles of ore ready for the samplers and smelters, gathered together in every available quarter of this eighty-acre area, some faint idea may be formed of the enormous masses of mineral wealth thus collected at the Burra. A pleasing aspect is imparted to them by the rich deep blue of the carbonate, and by the greenish hues which characterise the malachite ore, affording a striking contrast to the sombre appearance of the red oxide. The offices of the clerk of the works, and of the assayers, and of the samplers, form another range of buildings. The workshops of the engineers and the different mechanics engaged on the ground are of course pretty numerous, but still each place is so situate, and all the works are proceeding in such a manner, as to impress even a superficial spectator with the conviction that the most thorough order and method is the principle of the establishment throughout. A stone engine-house has been completed, and fitted up with an engine of forty-five horse power, from the Perran Foundry, Cornwall, intended for crushing the ore, and so dispensing with a large amount of expensive manual labour. A stamping machine, for extracting the leavings from the refuse copper ore which has hitherto been thrown on one side, is also very near completion. Workmen were also engaged upon a new engine-house, in which a winding-engine of thirty-five horse power, already at the mine, is to be placed. When the deeper levels of the mine are reached, this winding-engine will be connected with the ropes and iron buckets now worked by the horse-Whims, and thus save a large expenditure, which is now necessary at the several shafts. Of the extent of the operations going on at the surface of the mine, some notion may be obtained from the number of men who are employed by the Burra Company at surface work. Most of the buildings and engineering works are erected by contract, and, reckoning exclusively of the men working for the contractors, and also of the officers of the mine, 383 men and 111 boys are employed by the Burra Company as ore dressers, and labourers, and similar descriptions of surface work; 27 men are employed as carters and stablemen, and 85 men as carpenters, masons, smiths, painters, plasterers, engineers, and boiler-makers—total, 600."SMELTING WORKS.
The copper ore raised in the South Australian mines has been principally sent to Swansea. As there is a considerable demand for copper in India and China, it became an object to refine the ore in South Australia. With this view an immense capital has been sunk in establishing several copper-smelting companies, but hitherto with moderate success, in consequence of the scarcity of fuel. Coal has not yet been discovered, therefore the smelters were dependent on wood or imported coal. According to experience in Norway, a large forest is soon consumed by the demands of a smelting establishment. The most extensive smelting works, late the property of Messrs. Schneider, have unfortunately been planted close to the Burra mine, where wood is scarce, and where four tons of coal must be carted up for every ton of ore. The proper site would have been at or near a port.
The necessity of transporting coal imported from England, or from the Newcastle of New South Wales, has called into use Port Wakefield, a creek at the head of St. Vincent's Gulf, forming the embouchure of the River Wakefield. The intervening country between the Burra and Port Wakefield, a distance of about thirty miles, is composed partly of undulating hills and partly over flat land well adapted for heavy carriage. No doubt had the smelting works continued in full operation, a tramway would have been attempted over this line.
Mining, agriculture, and pastoral pursuits have been the principal investments of the South Australian colonists. The number of sheep grazing was about one-sixth of that of the Port Phillip district. Fat cattle are driven over from Portland Bay to Rivoli Bay for South Australian consumption.
South Australia is at present under a cloud, but the depression can only be temporary. A genial sun, a fertile soil, a healthy climate, with sheep, cattle, English colonists, and a Burra Burra mine, cannot but produce good fruits, although the dreams of empire of newly-fledged legislators may scarcely be realised.
- ↑ Since this description was written a flood has destroyed these dwellings, drowning some of the inhabitants.