DISCOVERY OF THE BURRA BURRA. 217 on land the property of absentees, many more as tenants not paying any rent, whom the landlords were glad to retain in order to keep their land in condition. The tenants of the South Australian Company were in this state. Looking back at the condition of South Australia after it had ceased to attract the importation of capital, there can be no doubt that if it had been as far from the old ports of the colonies as Swan River, and out of reach of the expeditions of overlanders, it would have sunk even to a lower ebb than Western Australia. When land-jobbing had been exhausted, and all the schemes hatched in England for employing capital had been tried and found wanting, an accident revealed to the colonists the existence of a treasure which even the sanguine and poetical promoters of the colony had never suspected or suggested. They had placed coals, marble, slate, and precious stones among the probable exports; but copper and lead had not entered into their calculations. In 1841 a little lead ore was discovered and sent to England. In 1843 Mr. Dutton, the brother of a gentleman of some means, but who had himself been compelled by the general depression to accept the situation of sheep overseer, accidently discovered, and, in partnership with Captain Bagot, became the purchaser of, the eighty-acre section which included. the Kapunda mine. Other mines were subsequently discovered, to which, wherever of any importance, a description will be given in the chapter devoted to the present resources of the colony; but the great event, the turning-point of the fortunes of South Australia, was the discovery of the Burra Burra mine, which has alone furnished for the last five years more than four-fifths of South Australian exports. The discovery of the Kapunda set all the colony hunting for mineral outcrops; the residue of the land-jobbers took up the geologist's hammer; but, by a singular fortune, the investigations of Mr. Mengs, a practised geologist, were fruitless, while a mine of wealth was turned up by the wheel of a bullock-dray. In 1845 the existence of a remarkable and promising outcrop on the Burra hills, became well known in the colony: rumours on the subject had been afloat in 1840. In order to secure the whole district without the unlimited competition, application was made to the governor for a special survey of 20,000 acres. At the same time a party of speculators arrived from Sydney, intent on securing the great prize if possible. The survey was ordered; a day and hour were fixed for the payment of the £20,000; the governor decided not to accept bills of the local bank, or anything but cash. Cash in 1845 was a very scarce commodity in Adelaide, although corn was plentiful, and pride as rampant, and with as little reason, as in any decayed watering-place in England. The retailers, and all not within a certain indescribable line, were dubbed the snobs; the officials and selfelected aristocracy the nobs. To raise the £20,000, a union between the nobs and snobs became indispensable; but even that was not enough, for there was scarcely so much gold in the possession of all the colonists, and the Sydney speculators were waiting ready to bear off the prize. On the last day for payment a hunt for gold was commenced by half a dozen men of good credit. Cash-boxes in hand, they traversed the streets and suburbs of Adelaide, offering with ample security, a handsome premium for sovereigns. On that day many secret hoards were dug out, husbands learned that prudent wives had unknown stores, and old women were even tempted to draw their £1 or £2 from the recesses of old stockings. Almost at the last minute the money was collected, counted, and paid, and the richest copper-mine in the world rewarded the long suffering of the South Australians, and awakened all their old gambling spirit. The purchase effected, the class spirit which forms so absurd an element in the English character, broke out, and a division of the 20,000 acres was decided on. The toss up of a coin gave the "snobs" the first choice: they took 10,000 acres, which they gave a native name, the Burra Burra. The nobs named their 10,000 acres the Princess Royal. The outcroppings on the hills of the Princess Royal were magnificent; nevertheless in 1850 their £50 scrip was not saleable at £12. The history of this mine is the history of the commercial progress of South Australia. Farms, land sales, emigration, wharves, warehouses, projected railways, imports, rents, wages, have all rested on the yield of the Burra Burra. The government was vested in the governor and commander-inchief, assisted by an executive and legislative council, composed of the governor, the colonial secretary, the advocate-general, the surveyorgeneral, and the assistant commissioner, to whom were subsequently added four nominees from among the non-official colonists. Of the progress of South Australia since the discovery of mines and the dissolution of the South Australian Company, we shall speak in our descriptive chapter. |