He He is the member for Menzies, the chief town of the North Coolgardie goldfield, and has represented this important goldfields constituency continuously for over 10 years. He is a minister who has held a portfolio longer than any other adviser of the Crown in the present Parliament of Western Australia. has the entire confidence of his party, and a strong majority of his constituency which consists of prospectors, small mine-owners and working miners. His knowledge of mining conditions, the laws of mining, etc., makes him a most capable administrator. ワー 30 1915 3 Stechert INTRODUCTORY. When one endeavors to look back, say, for the past decade, and contrast the conditions of that period with those prevailing at Kalgoorlie in 1910, it must be said that they are infinitely better in every way, and how much more so than they were in the early days of the Coolgardie Goldfields! Instead of the tent, or the open-air, with the heavens for a canopy, the place (Kalgoorlie) from whence the bulk of the gold of the State has been produced, the mainspring of the industry, is to-day an inland city, pulsating with life. and activity and that energy and perseverance which is characteristic of the Briton and his descendant, the Australian. Within gunshot of where these lines are being written the writer can hear the stamps dropping at Hannan's Reward mill--the original find in June, 1893, which led to the uncovering of wealth now aggregating nearly £50,000,000! Patrick Hannan is still alive, and it is needless to say that, like many of the other gallant blazers of the track, but a small moiety of the gold won from either his Reward lease, or the mines which for the past seventeen years have contributed so much to the general prosperity of the State, came his way. Indeed, so difficult did he find it to get a living a year or two ago at dryblowing that he is now a pensioner of the State! Parliament voted him a small annuity of £150. His mate, Flanagan, has passed away. This reference to the prospectors, of Kalgoorlie's group of mines, which have probably done more to advertise Western Australia as an Eldorado than anything else in its Golden Era, would be incomplete if a word or two was not said just here for Bayley and Ford, who about nine months before reported at Southern Cross, in 1892, the discovery of: gold at Coolgardie, which ground is still being operated and, like Hannan's Find, is named after the man who announced to the world a discovery which thrilled the breasts of the gold seekers who flocked in thousands from all parts of Australasia and practically laid the foundations for the progress and prosperity that Western Australia has enjoyed ever since, for it cannot be denied that it was Coolgardie and the marvellous development that ensued. that gave it the fillip it had waited so long for. And for that reason the Government of the day should keep ever before them the importance of State encouragement to the miner and the people who depend upon his ability to win from Mother Earth her hidden riches. The writer in the review elsewhere of the "birth and progress of gold mining" in this country, has to acknowledge his indebtedness to various authorities, including the excellent 70th anniversary number of the Mining Journal (London) for many facts dealing with the early days of mining in Western Australia. That Western Australia's gold resources are just as great as ever they were no well informed person doubts for a moment. According to statistics some 600 odd tons, valued at over 92 millions sterling, have been won from the ground since 1886, but it is just as certain that a treasure quite as valuable, if not more so, remains to be unearthed. In fact, it would not be over stretching the truth to say that notwithstanding the enormous quantity that has been extracted to date the sources of supply have been little more than scratched. There has been a great deal of superficial prospecting done and a lot of deep development in spots and patches, but large auriferous belts of country remain which are almost or wholly virgin to the prospector's pick. It is these undeveloped areas that require testing in a systematic and scientific manner. At present the "fly in the ointment" is that the gold is not being won in quantities commensurate with the enormous extent of the deposits, but this is not the fault of nature. The blame, it may be said, rests on the shoulders of successive Administrations, who have not risen to the occasion in the matter of fostering the industry and stimulating mining enterprise. It is, without a doubt, this neglect that is retarding gold production in Western Australia, and will if persisted in bring about sooner or later what is inevitable with every mining camp. Between 1903 and 1908 the annual gold yield declined from 2,064,801 fine oz. to 1,648,505 fine oz.—a drop of not far short of half a million ounces. Now the Statist has recently furnished us with depressing evidence of a still further falling off in the returns and the figures prove that during the year that has just ended the total production showed a further decline of 53,242 ounces. To the pessimists these returns would offer strong proof that our gold resources have been largely exhausted and are gradually becoming extinct. But most of us know that such is not the case and that the serious shrinkage that has taken place during the past five or six years is due not to any real exhaustion of the metal that is the standard of exchange, but to other causes. It is, however, of paramount, and one might say national, importance that the progress of this artificial decline should be arrested, and the interesting question is How can it be done? The tyro in mining economics knows full well that every mine is a wasting asset. of The days the richest gold producing property ever discovered is numbered like mostly everything else in the world. It may last many years perhaps hundreds of years-or it may, on the other hand, suddenly alroop and die at any time. Hence comes the urgent need of fresh discoveries, to take the place of mines that have either become worked out or are in process of depletion, and this need is all the more imperative in a country like Western Australia, where the future of the gold industry so largely depends on the early discovery of new mines. Without them gold mining in this country must sooner or later -may be in a few short years-find itself in Queer Street with positive extinction round the first turning. Very clearly then we must "be up and doing," as the industry will not flourish for ever on what has already been taken out of the ground, which cannot be extracted twice that is a fact of importance which must not be overlooked. After producing about 47 millions sterling to the end of last December, of which over £20,000,000 had been returned to shareholders, there were blocked out in the workings of eleven of the principal mines ore to the value of a little under £12,000,000. The gold industry of this State is indeed fortunate in having such a substantial prop. Still, the loss of the great Oroya chute, and the impoverishment of other famous ore bodies at Kalgoorlie, and elsewhere in deep ground, sounds a shrill note of warning that new mines are badly needed to step into any breach that may be made in the ranks of present day producers. If gold mining is carried on on broad lines, if the frenzied efforts to give Capital the cold shoulder cease, if less is done in the direction of preventing investment by the passing of pin-pricking harassing legislation, and if the growing disposition to display a callous indifference as to the future of the industry comes to a full stop the accomplishments of the past in the matter of production will for almost a certainty be nothing to the results which the future will show. We can therefore only rely upon the future to be as kind to this Cinderella State of Australia as it has been in the years that have rolled by since that memorable day when Bayley walked into the warden's office at Southern Cross and lodged an application for ground which led to the discovery of Coolgardie and gave to the world those millions in gold just referred to. THE GOLD INDUSTRY: ITS BIRTH, GROWTH AND PROGRESS. By H. V. COURTAYNE* State is engaged in the construction of a railway from Port Hedland to Marble Bar to open up the gold, tin, copper, asbestos, and antimony mines. But to keep to my story. Nuggets of gold up to 30 oz. and one of 127 oz. entitled Pilbarra to be regarded by diggers as a field for distinction for coarse gold. The Government rewarded the dis coverers: J. H. Wells N. W. Cooke J. Withnell £500 250 each 100 To the discoverer of Yilgarn Hills, Mr. Anstey, £500 was awarded; to J. D. Colreavy and Huggins, who found Golden Valley, £250 each was paid by the State. Colreavy is still chasing the "elusive weight" and only the other day returned to civilization from a quest for auriferous country in the mulga. The records of Western Australia show that in 1835 there were two little camps of men, with a few women and children, who constituted the British settlement on the Swan River, one of these camps being at Fremantle as the port, and the other at Perth as the seat of government, where authority under the Crown was represented by a military officer and a few soliders; and those centres had in five years been shaped into towns as from the first landing of the settlers. In its first twenty years the population had only increased to 7,000, notwithstanding the liberal terms offered for immigrants from England to take up the land—for every £3 spent in the young colony on public or private objects they could claim 40 acres of land, and for every servant whose passage they paid 200 acres could be claimed; the chief condition was that a due proportion of such land had to be improved or revert to the Crown. That the local authorities of those days were not insensible to the benefits which the finding of minerals would bring-even though no systematic search was organised by the Government or the community-is shown by the fact that a grant of 2,500 acres of land was offered in 1847 to anyone who found coal in Western Australia. In 1862, Mr. Edward Hargreaves, a Californiap miner, who had discovered gold at Truron, near Bathurst, New: South Wales, was engaged by the Government to make..output of tin. an examination of the coastal country: from. Albany to Northam, and report as to its possibilities for con taining the precious metal. As no auriferous discover ies of any real value have yet come to high in the country which Hargreaves traversed, his dictum as.to.ichness among the mining community and, what is it being non-auriferous, therefore, remains unchallenged. The year before, 1861, a sum of £2,500 was subscribed by citizens, which the Government supplemented by offering 2,500 acres of land for the discovery of a payable goldfield within 150 miles of Perth. Eight years later £5,000 was offered for the discovery of a goldfield, within 300 miles of any port, which should produce 5,000 oz. gold from quartz or alluvial. A further attempt to locate gold in Western Australia was made by bringing sixteen miners from Ballarat and finding them with equipment, food and 25s. per week while prospecting the ranges near the coast. In 1885, the geologist of Western Australia, Mr. E. T. Hardman. found colors of gold in gravels at the far distant Old Elvire and Panton Rivers, in the Far North, or Kimberley Division, and this fact having been published, the Government agreed to equip a prospecting expedition to examine the region. This probably led in the following year to the advent of a party of prospectors from the adjoining Northern Territory of South Australia, who revealed the longhidden secret by discovering the Kimberley goldfield. For this find Hall and Slattery and party were awarded £500. Melbourne and Adelaide formed syndicates, and machinery reached the field without much delay. To protect the State's rights as the over lord of all minerals, more particularly gold and silver, the Legislature passed mining laws and the State jumped into a place of great importance for the Eastern States and as a result several thousand prospectors "rushed " to the Western State and marched inland to the untrodden wilderness armed with the will to do something or-die in the attempt. This "Kimberley Rush" led to more rushes, as in 1888 gold finds were made at Yilgarn Hill, Golden Valley and Southern Cross, resulting in the opening of a district which to-day. gives prospects of coming again. About 1,000 miles. away to the north, in the territory now known as the Pilbarra and West Pilbarra goldfields, rich alluvial gold was discovered. At the time of this writing the In the same year, 1888, tin was discovered at Greenbushes, in the South-West, by a Mr. Stanton, who by mere chance found stanniferous prospects in long settled coastal country, where payable gold had been unsuccessfully sought for. He was paid £250 for the discovery of this tinfield, which it may be rentacked is still a large contributor to the State's output of tin. Next year the prospectors claimed the alluvial deposits of the Ashburton-the country is sandwiched between the Pilbarra and the which Peak Hill goldfields-and the North-West, already well-known for copper, acquired a good name for equally important, inspired a firm faith that better fields might be found in other parts of this immense territory. The lodes, too, promised well and in the face of great transport difficulties in getting machinery, and want of water, batteries were erected at Southern Cross and in the North-West. While this development of the Yilgarn and the Pilbarra fields was in progress the Murchison was being opened up and giving promise of greater richness than any of these earlier goldfields. It was proclaimed a goldfield on September 24, 1891. Discovery of Coolgardie. In 1892 Bayley and Ford, two prospectors, who went out alone and unassisted, found Coolgardie, which, according to the official data of the records of the Hampton Plains Co., must have been sighted, if not passed over, as the location of Bayley's Find is only a few miles to the west of the boundary of the company's freehold estate, one of the biggest concessions granted by the Crown for settlement purposes, but which to-day is only occupied by timber cutters to supply mining timber and firewood to the Kalgoorlie mines and some desultory mining has been carried on. This, the furthest east outpost for mining in the interior of Western Australia formed a lodestone which attracted and caused the biggest rush in Australia since the days of Ballarat and Bendigo. Thousands of ounces of gold. brought in was tangible proof of the richness of the discovery. This was convincing enough for even the "doubting Thomases." The enterprising spirit of speculators in the Eastern States was fired to such an extent by the telegrams which emanated from the fields that they did not hesitate to maintain a steady stream of prospectors and keep work going on somehow till the Government-only two years or so autonomous-caught up with the men who had blazed the track. And right here let me say the Government, according to the official records which I have before *Editor of The West Australian Mining Building and Engineering Journal. me, were somewhat in the rear perhaps, were in perfect accord and energetically working with men sinking wells, clearing scrubs and making dams for conserving the scanty rainfall in this Eldorado. The soaks it may be said had been uncovered ages ago by the aboriginals and now the State's workmen shortened the dry stages of the road for teams and pedestrians. This work opened the way for railway construction east from Northam to Yilgarn-and Sir John Forrest, the "Emperor of the West," as a Sydney publication delighted in dubbing him, backed up the Eastern States capitalists by lavish expenditure on public works. The State awoke from its long sleep. Western Australia entered upon her heritage, she took her place among the States of Australia, and from this time forward has never stood still, if the year which Mr. Daglish as leader of a Labor Ministry be omitted and his declaration of a policy of "mark time." These pioneers of the golden era of Western Australia were marvellously successful in what may be tersely described as generalship, for no Australian State can point to the same admirable record of work done in such a brief space of time to advance the mining industry. This was emphasised, too, by the knowledge that many Victorian fields were exhibiting signs of decreptitude and towns were in consequence being deserted. In that State it should be remembered the Government did little to conserve water, for the digger came, worked and departed before a single dam was made at public cost to conserve even drinking water. It is on record that such dams as now supply towns, and cities, like Ballarat, were first made by diggers seeking a supply for batteries and sluices. As to mining laws the Westralians made it feasible to sell and buy transfers of claims and rights to mines on partnership on the shortest notice. The smallest kind of mine and the loosest kind of organisation among miners, so long as it complied with the labor covenant was on the same footing as a company of the large kind. "A partner may refuse to pay his liabilities; or death intervene―the State, however, looks after the interests of the survivors well and faithfully." An easy method of effecting transfers for mining properties was of the utmost value to prospectors. Titles were definite and secure against liquidation on the score of non-compliance with mere technical verbiage. A dispute over what constituted an alluvial mine at Kalgoorlie-the Ivanhoe Venture lease, caused a lot of bother and noise for a time and the then Minister for Mines (Sir Edward Wittenoom) decreed that all gold below 10 ft. could be claimed by the leaseholder as against the alluvialist who wished to go and win it by the primitive method of dry-blowing. The decision, however, led to riots and disorderly demonstrations against the Government and it was ultimately reversed. What was remarkable in this development of the “Cinderella State" was the fact that explorers had time after time gone out into the desert from 1863 but they came back without seeing specks of gold or golden quartz, although it is stated on good authority their feet touched some famous surface deposits several times. Among the men who led these expeditions were Hunt, Gregory (afterwards Sir A. C. Gregory), Giles, Lefroy, Austin, Alexander Forrest, and Sir John Forrest, all of whom traversed the Eastern fields in succeeding years. Hunt travelled round the famous Wealth of Nations outcrop, and around Coolgardie and the Londonderry outcrop (found by Dunne), spending time in making a well near the Hampton Plains Co.'s estate and known to-day as Hunt's Slate Well." It therefore reads strangely when it is remembered that in 1863 Mr. Maxwell Lefroy is reported as picturing Hampton Plains as a great agricultural area! Projected Railway almost hits Bayley's Reward. Here is another curious fact. A railway is marked upon maps of this period. It was projected to reach Perth from Eucla, and its line on paper is very nearly the same as the actual line taken; and it, too, crosses Hunt, the explorer's, tracks at Coolgardie, tapping Hampton Plains. If the surveyors of Hampton Plains had carried their pegs just two miles or so further westward they would have enclosed Bayley and Ford's reward claim at Coolgardie! It is hardly necessary for one to say that in those circumstances the fortunes of the Hampton Plains Estate, Ltd., a Londor company which up to the present has had many bids for fortune and is still bidding for it, would have been very bright. And in that case I suppose the company's freehold rights of the auriferous country would have been bought up by the State or at any rate they would have been compensated for the surrender of the land to the Crown. Any miner would have been fascinated with the abundance of quartz outcrops ir all this Eastern Goldfields country, barrer as many quartz outcrops undoubtedly are, but what is equally true is that no Australian gold prospector had ever passed over any of these fields until the days of the " rushes" set in. Copper Found in 1842. A review of the history of such mining operations as were carried on at long intervals from 1842, and not far from the settled coastal districts, will show that there was not much, if any at all, encouragement given or offered there for a handful of poor colonists to explore mines. Copper ore was discovered in 1842; it was not, however, mined from this place in sufficient quantities to ship to market till 1856, when a company owned the Wanerenooka and realised £27 13s. 6d. per ton for ore sold in London. It is, however, of interest to record here that copper ore was first shipped from Western Australia in 1845, when ore from mines which contained copper and lead in the Northampton district was exported to London. The Murchison River copper and lead ores were reported on in 1848 by the late Mr. A. C. Gregory, the explorer (who subsequently went to Queensland and after long service in that State was the recipient of a knighthood). He reported that the bed of the Murchison River showed much galena. In 1849 a block of 640 acres of the land enclosing the copper and lead deposits was put up for sale on behalf of the State. This led to a company being formed with a capital of £640, when some mining on a small scale was done and some ore produced. The following year saw a new venture organised with a capital of £6,400, the old company surrendering their rights to the new concern for £1,600. The mine was worked for several years, but at what profit to the owners the official records are silent. A good deal of Melbourne money found its way into the State to be expended on timber (jarrah) and mining and several managers and parties. of miners, etc., were engaged for this work from Ballarat. In 1872 what is described as a good find of copper was reported at Roebourne. lode the Whim Well-which was found about 50 miles east of that town yielded 700 tons of ore, which were shipped in the year 1890 and the following year. Lead Mines at Northampton. A More recently, when Mr. C. Kaufman, the controlling director of the Golden Horseshoe Estates, Ltd., found that the sulpho telluride gold-bearing ores required smelting to get the closest extraction, he decided to rail the ore from the mine at Boulder to the coast and he erected at Robbs' Jetty near Fremantle, large smelting works, and many of the large old copper and lead mines in the Northampton arose Phoenix-like under the stimulus of the Fremantle |