Georgetown is on the left bank of the Etheridge River, so called after D. O. Etheridge, one of Mr. J. G. Macdonald’s drovers who came out to the Gulf with the first lot of cattle through this country. It is about one hundred and sixty miles west, in a straight line from Cardwell. The surrounding country is gold-bearing, and known as the Etheridge goldfield; silver, copper, tin, and lead are also among its mineral products. This was one of the first reefing districts opened in the North of Queensland, but owing to the expense of carrying on the mines on account of the cost of carriage, labour, and mining appliances, none but the best mines have been worked. The formation is granite, and pyrites with the stone has helped to increase the cost of working. The field is very extensive, and embraces a large number of small mining centres covering an enormous area of gold-bearing country. In the first days, alluvial gold was sought for over large portions of the field. A specimen nugget found in June, 1896, at Mount Macdonald, weighing 151 ounces was dollied and smelted, yielding 85 ounces of gold, valued at £3 5s. per ounce. Other large specimens were found recently in the same locality.
Cloncurry is the commercial centre of a district rich in various minerals. It is situated on the right bank of the Cloncurry River, a tributary of the Flinders, and is about 430 miles west-south-west, in a straight line from Townsville, and about 240 miles south from Normanton. The copper deposits are very extensive, the whole surrounding mountainous district being more or less copper-bearing. Lodes of gray ore and blue carbonates are numerous, and virgin copper and malleable ore have also been found. The difficulty and expense of carriage has prevented the field from taking that position as a mining centre to which it is entitled; other metals found are gold, silver, lead, iron, and bismuth. The Cloncurry goldfield includes a large tract of country, extending eastwards to the Williams River, and southwards to an equal extent. Reefing has been carried on of late, but not to any great extent. In the early days of gold discovery, alluvial sinking attracted a large population, and some splendid nuggets were found (mostly on Sharkey’s Flat), weighing from five to forty ounces, the gold being of the highest Mint value, £4 3s. 6d. per ounce. Gold is still produced at some of the outlying diggings, extending over to the Leichhardt River in the west, where the whole country is mineral-bearing. The Cloncurry Copper Company expended large sums of money in machinery and sinking shafts and prospecting in opening up some of the lodes of copper so abundant there, but owing to the depreciation in the value of the mineral and the great expense of mining and carriage to port, the operations had to be entirely suspended. The first to discover copper and make use of it was Mr. Ernest Henry, in 1865. Henry discovered lodes of copper on the Leichhardt and in several other places, and has distinguished himself not alone as an enterprising pioneer squatter and settler, but also as an early and most indefatigable prospector for minerals. In conjunction with Mr. R. K. Sheaffe, at one time member for the district, and subsequently Mayor of Sandgate, he helped to open much of the Gulf country, and has spent a fortune and a lifetime in pioneering in outside districts.
The Black Mountain is on the opposite side from the town across the river, and is, as its name denotes, a real black mountain. It is a most extensive outcrop of nearly pure metallic iron ore, and it is calculated the amount in sight is over thirteen millions of tons: great masses of the ore are lying all round the base of this enormous outcrop.
Clermont is situated on a tributary of the Nogoa River, about two hundred and twenty-seven miles distant by railway from Rockhampton, and well known for its mineral resources. Since 1862 large quantities of copper have been obtained, and the surrounding country is also auriferous, alluvial mining having been carried on with more or less success. Four miles from Clermont are the ruins of old Copperfield, a township prosperous from 1864 to 1870, in the palmy days of the Peak Downs Copper Company, which paid dividends of eighty per cent., and in 1867 sold copper to the amount of £120,000. Owing to a great fall in the value of copper, the property was sold for £3,000, and this mining enterprise collapsed.
CHAPTER IX.
INCIDENTS OF THE EARLY DAYS.
The early arrivals with stock in the Gulf country were obliged to obtain rations and supplies from Bowen, on the east coast, as that was the only port then opened in the North of Queensland. The distance was from five to seven hundred miles through the desert country and down the Flinders, and as the old-fashioned pole bullock-dray with only two wheels was then in vogue, no great quantity could be carried in one dray load. The opening of Burketown in 1865 as the second port after Bowen in North Queensland, enabled the early settlers to obtain supplies more easily, although the cost was still excessive. But the rations were fresher than those the overlanders had been used to. Some of the flour that had come out with the parties had been years on the road, and was very much the worse for the long journey. This flour could only be used after much sifting and airing; it was made into small thin cakes called Johnny cakes, which were cooked in the ashes and eaten hot; even then it was bitter and nearly brown in colour. The grubs and worms had long since left it, or died in it from old age. It was said that some flour from Bowen Downs that had left Sydney years before and come out to the Gulf stations just formed, being too strong to use, was thrown out, and the dingoes and crows were found lying dead round it. The sugar in those days was the dark, treacly kind, that left a stain on the floor like blood; it came in casks. However, people were not very particular as to the quality of the supplies, provided there was anything at all to eat. Pig weed (portulacca), boiled or roasted on a shovel was one of the changes open to travellers; tea was made from the marjoram bush; and very fair coffee was made from the scrapings of the burnt edges of dampers, and was called Scotch coffee. When Burketown was opened, the fresh supply of flour and stores was very welcome to the early settlers.