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 801 AUSTRALIA statistics] been found in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, and when associated with silver. In West Australia the lead occurs West Australia, the richest specimens being found in New in the form of sulphides and carbonates of great richness, but South Wales. Little, however, has been done to utilize the the quantity of silver mixed with it is very small. The lodes are deposits, the demands of the colonial markets being extremely most frequently of great size, containing huge masses of galena, limited. The ore generally occurs in the form of oxides, and so little gangue that the ore can very easily be dressed to 83 manganite, and pyrolusite, and contains a high percentage of or 84 per cent. The association of this metal with silver in the sesquioxide of manganese. Broken Hill mines of New South Wales adds very greatly to the Platinum and the allied compound metal Iridosmine have been value of the product. Up to the end of 1899 the quantity of lead found in New South Wales, but so far in inconsiderable quantities. in the ores raised is estimated to have been 523,000 tons. Iridosmine occurs commonly with gold or tin in alluvial drifts. Mercury is found in New South Wales and Queensland. In The noble metal Tellurium has been discovered in New South New South Wales, in the form of cinnabar, it has been discovered Wales at Bingara and other parts of the northern districts, as on the Cudgegong river, near Rylstone, and it also occurs at well as at Tarana, on the western line, though at present in Bingara, Solferino, Yulgilbar, and Cooma. In the last-named such minute quantities as would not repay the cost of working. place the assays of ore yielded 22 per cent, of mercury. At many of the mines at Kalgoorlie, West Australia, large Titanium, of the varieties known as octahedrite and brookite, is quantities of ores of telluride of gold have been found in the lode found in alluvial deposits in New South Wales, in conjunction formations. with diamonds. Wolfram (tungstate of iron and manganese) occurs in some of Lead is found in all the Australian states, but is worked only

the states, notably in New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland. Scheelite, another variety of tungsten, is also found in Queensland. Molybdenum, in the form of molybdenite (sulphide of molybdenum), is found in New South Wales and Victoria, associated in the former state with tin and bismuth in quartz reefs. Zinc ores, in the several varieties of carbonates, silicates, oxide, sulphide, and sulphate of zinc, have been found in several of the Australian states, but have attracted little attention. Nickel, so abundant in the island of New Caledonia, has up to the present been found in none of the Australian states except Queensland. Few attempts, however, have been made to prospect systematically for this valuable mineral. Cobalt occurs in New South Wales and Victoria, and efforts have been made in the former state to treat the ore, the metal having a high commercial value ; but the market is small, and no attempt has yet been made to produce it on any large scale. The manganese ores of the Bathurst district of New South Wales often contain a small percentage of cobalt, sufficient, indeed, to warrant further attempts to work them. In New South Wales chromium is found in the northern portion of the state, in the Clarence and Tamworth districts, and also near Gundagai. It is usually associated with serpentine. In the Gundagai district the industry

was rapidly becoming a valuable one, but the low price of chrome has greatly restricted the output. In 1899 the production was valued at £17,000. Arsenic, in its well-known and beautiful forms, orpiment and realgar, is found in New South Wales and Victoria. It usually occurs in association with other minerals in veins. The Australian states have been bountifully supplied with mineral fuel. Five distinct varieties of black coal, of wellcharacterized types, may be distinguished, and these, with the two extremes of brown coal or lignite and anthracite, form a perfectly continuous series. Brown coal, or lignite, occurs principally in Victoria. Attempts have frequently been made to use the mineral for ordinary fuel purposes, but its inferior quality has prevented its general use. Black coal forms one of the principal resources of New South Wales; and in the other states the deposits of this valuable mineral are being rapidly developed. Coal of a very fair description was discovered in the basin of the Irwin river, in West Australia, as far back as the year 1846. It has been ascertained from recent explorations that the area of carboniferous formation in that state extends from the Irwin northwards to the Gascoyne river, about 300 miles, and probably all the way to the Kimberley district. The most important discovery of coal in the state, so far, is that made in the bed of S. I. —IOI