I spent several days at and about Waratah. One day was filled up with a stroll over Mount Bischoff. This is a hill about half a mile away from Waratah, which, so far as examinations have yet gone, appears to be made up of yellow and red earth, through which blocks and grains of tin are disseminated. The mine is simply a huge yellow-coloured, quarry-like excavation in the side of this hill. Running through the hill there are one or two lodes. To test these lodes, but more with the object of testing the nature of the hill, shafts have been sunk and levels have been driven.
In many places hundreds of tons of pure tin-stone may be picked out. The bulk of the earthy material which goes to the dressing-floors contains about two or three per cent. of the ore. At the dressing-works this is stamped and washed, until it contains from seventy-two to seventy-five per cent. of the ore, when it is put up in bags and sent to Launceston to be smelted.
At the dressing-floors the warm material is stamped, and then classified according to size. The fine materials and the coarse materials are then treated separately upon machines called jiggers, when the rich ore is separated from the poor material. The poor material then passes through buddles and over revolving tables, where it undergoes concentration, and more rich material is obtained. To describe the different machines, and the order in which the material passes over them, would require the assistance of Mr. Kaiser, the talented director of these works, who constructed them. To me they appeared to be the most perfect dressing-works I saw in the colonies.
The last evening that I spent at Waratah, my hostess, who was entertaining a few visitors, insisted on my learning the game of euchre. Euchre, nap and cribbage are the games of the colonies. I was very stupid at learning, but when it came to me to deal I accidentally obtained for myself Ace, King, the right and left Bower, and the Joker. For the rest of the evening I felt that I was regarded as a doubtful character.
On my way back to Emu Bay, I had the company of a reverend Catholic Father. I found him a good-natured, amusing gentleman.
‘Do you object to smoking, sir?’ said I, shortly after I was seated.
‘Do I object to smoking? faith, give me one of your cigarettes and I’ll show you how much I object,’ was the reply.
The result of all this was that we smoked and talked until we reached our journey’s end. He told me a great deal about the land, and the difficulties which settlers had to contend against. All about here the only animal which gives trouble is the tiger-cat. This is more foxy in its face than feline. It has a trick of breaking through the sides and roofs of buildings in search of hams and other provisions. After this I heard a great deal about large gum trees, and the sassafras, an infusion from the bark of which yields a valuable tonic, and other things which I have now forgotten. When we parted, we did so with the hope of again meeting, if not on earth, at least in heaven. This is how my companion put it.
At Emu Bay I fell in with a young engineer who was superintending the building of a pier, to accommodate the steamers and other boats which occasionally ply between Emu Bay and Melbourne. Talking of steamers, not long ago I had a conversation with an engineering friend who had just started in his profession in London. Knowing how difficult it is for an engineer to make headway in these days of competition, I asked him how he was ‘getting on.’
‘Oh, splendidly, splendidly,’ said he; ‘working on a pier 200 feet long.’ This was a capital beginning I thought, and offered congratulations on such a successful commencement in the great city. ‘Ah, yes,’ continued he, ‘I’m—well, I’m putting twenty feet on to the end of it.’