Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/544

 5i8 Ai:)i:i.AII)K AND VICINITY Mr. Charles Rasp YOl^NG mining towns supply magnificent examples of the irresistible energy of man. Anyone visiting Broken Hill to-day finds it difficult to believe that only 17 years ago there were not a dozen regular residents in all the district. At that time its mineral area was the site of a remote and not particularly remunerative sheep station. To-day great mines ha'e been opened, countless tons of precious metal have been won, a pretentious city has been built, and many thousands of people have taken up their residence on the one time lonely sheep-run. One of the most prominent of the men connected with the early development of Broken Hill is Mr. Rasp, who has the credit of having been the first discoverer of mineral on the site of the present world-famed Broken Hill Proprietary silver mine. Charles Rasp was born in Germany in 1846, and in 1869 took up his residence in the colony of Victoria. After being engaged in agricultural operations for a couple of years, he became associated with pastoral pursuits in New South Wales. Good fortune eventually attracted him to the Mount Gipps Station, on the Barrier Ranges, which embraced Bond ^ Co., Photo jhe country since become so wealthy and thickly populated owing lo the opening u]) of the Broken Hill mines. While engaged on station work there, discoveries of silver were made at Silverton and Day Dream, not far distant ; a fact that led every station hand in the neighborhood to carefully scrutinise the country for indications of the metal. In 1883, while thus employed, Mr. Ras]i found that on the rising ground of the station were outcropping argentiferous indications. He was thus the founder of the famous mines. Losing no time, he, in conjunction with -Messrs. David James and James Poole, pegged out four blocks in this locality, in one of which was the celebrated Proprietary Mine. As the original metal was believed to be tin, the leases were taken out for silver, tin, and lead. Some time later three more blocks were