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 CHAPTER XXVI.

P to 1850 South Australia was considered the mineral district, par excellence, of Australia. In the old colony of New South Wales indications of copper mines had been discovered many years previously, but the reservation of minerals by the crown prevented purchasers and grantees from pursuing discoveries which might only lead to the disturbance of their freeholds by some stranger under official patronage. The South Australian colonists had influence enough in the home Parliament to obtain a concession of the "rights of the crown." The discovery of the Burra Burra gave a vivid impulse to mineral exploration, and in 1850 not less than thirty-nine South Australian mining adventures were before the colonial and British public, in various stages of progress, most of which depended on English capital for their working. Nearly all, according to the reports of the promoters, "only needed the expenditure of a little more capital to become most flourishing investments." Not one, with the exception of the Burra Burra, had ever paid a public dividend; and when the gold discoveries brought them all to a stand-still by the abstraction of labour, several "most respectable colonists" were engaged in preferring new schemes for the benefit of English capitalists. At that time the following mines, in addition to nearly sixty other schemes which had never gone beyond a prospectus, were in the market at a discount.

The Wheal Gawler silver lead was the first mine discovered in the province; opened in 1841; abandoned, and re-opened by a company without success; nevertheless the directors in 1850 boasted their good prospects. The Adelaide Mining Company, near Montacute, "with a capital of £1,000; the Australian Mining Company, with an English capital of £400,000, and a special survey of Reedy Creek, forty-six miles from Adelaide, other lots at Tungkillo and at Kapunda" founded in 1845—the outlay has been enormous—no dividends; the Barossa Mining Company, with a capital of £30,000, formed in England, with a view of prosecuting mineral explorations on the property of G. T. Angas, Esq.; the Glen Ormond, another English company, with a capital of £30,000, founded in 1845; the Port Lincoln, with a capital of £10,000; the Mount Remarkable, with a capital of £25,000 in 1846; the North Kapunda, a capital of £22,200, in 1846; the Paringa,