which work is still being carried on. At Mount Lovett, the parent claim, a battery is in course of erection, which will shortly definitely settle the question as to the payable or other character of the deposits. Should the stone be found valuable, the benefit to the coastal districts would be very great, inasmuch as the abundance of water, which can he used for motive power, and the proximity of the field to the railways, would ensure the payment of dividends from a 5 dwt. return.
OTHER MINERALS.
We have already noticed that the colony has the advantage of possessing minerals other than gold in great abundance, most of which will some day be profitably worked. The history of copper mining takes us back into the early days of the colony, since in 1848 the rich copper and lead mines of Northampton were discovered. These were profitably worked for a number of years, but the gold rush to Victoria in 1851-6, and subsequently the fall in the price of copper, led to their practical abandonment. The lodes follow a belt of country about 110 miles long, stretching from the Irwin River in the south to the Murchison River in the north. The lead occurs in the form of cesunite and galena, from which 83 per cent. of smelting ore can be dressed with very little labour. The proportion of silver is, however, extremely small. The copper lodes are almost equally rich, and occur in the forms of azurite and malachite near the surface, which at depths are changed for chalco pyrites, covelline, and copper glance. At Kimberley, Mount Barren (on the northern coast, about 120 miles east of Albany), at Wongan Hills (near Newcastle), at Cape Naturaliste (near Bunbury), throughout the Darling Ranges, and at Mount Negri (near Roebourne), as well as at Coolgardie, Kalgoorlie, and various other places on the gold fields have copper and lead been found, but in none of the places mentioned has any work been done, or any attempt been made to properly exploit the ores. Alluvial tin is found, and is being exported from the Greenbushes, a tinfield covering twenty-five square miles, and situated about fifty-two miles south-east from Bunbury. A railway now runs to Bridgetown, which is situated ten miles from the scene of operations. Up to the end of 1894 1,270 tons of tin had been exported from this field. Alluvial tin has also been discovered on the Princess Park Estate, about thirty miles east of Bunbury, and on the Shaw River, Pilbarra Goldfield. Coal is found at the Collie River, about thirty miles north-east of Bunbury. A large number of bores have been put down by the Government, the result of whose operations has been to prove the existence of several large seams of coal, which compare very favourably by analysis with samples from New South Wales and Victoria, the Collie material occupying a parity as regards quality between the two. Coal is also found at the Irwin River, near Geraldton; at Fly Brook, near Cape Leeuwin, near Wyndham (Kimberley); while lignite occurs along the south coast, on the Fitzgerald and Phillips Rivers, and as already mentioned, at Coolgardie. None of these last are of any commercial value. Iron is everywhere abundant in enormous quantities, it being probable that Western Australia possesses more of this valuable mineral than any other country on the surface of the globe. The Roebourne district contains some excellent lodes of stibnite (sulphide of antimony), and auriferous antimony is also found on the Murchison Goldfield. Zinc, in the form of blende, assaying 75 per cent., is found at Northampton, and in the form of franklinite along the Darling Ranges. Manganese is plentiful all over the colony, but none of the lodes have ever been worked. Mica occurs at Bindoon, in the south-western district, and at Londonderry, near Coolgardie. Asbestos is common in the south-west of the colony, at Londonderry and Gibraltar, and at Goongarrie. Graphite exists in large quantities on the goldfields, in the Geraldton district, near the head waters of the Donnelly River, at Kendinup, on the Great Southern Railway, and elsewhere, but with the exception of the Kendinup deposit, none of it has ever been worked. Kaolin is abundant, both in the coastal districts and on the goldfields. Precious stones, especially of the inferior kinds, are frequently met with. Small diamonds have recently been found on the Pilbarra Goldfields, while garnets, opals, &c., are of usual occurrence on the southern goldfields. No stones of a payable character have, however, yet been discovered.
MINING MACHINERY.
Very few new developments have taken place on the Western Australian goldfields in the matter of the machinery used for haulage, and the extraction of gold. It was thought that the scarcity of water would have led to the introduction of a large number of oil engines to take the place of the ordinary steam boiler. Yet we find that according to the official statistics published at the close of 1896 there were only sixteen oil engines employed, as against 376 steam engines of various kinds. The reasons for this condition of affairs seem to be that oil engines have not yet been brought to the pitch of perfection necessary for their employment in the development of large motive powers, added to which is the difficulty arising from dust. Storms of wind frequently raise immense dust clouds on the arid plains of the interior, and one of these, by clogging the delicate machinery of an oil engine, is sufficient to incapacitate it. Another idea which has been to a great extent proved fallacious was that dry crushing plants would take the place of the old stumper batteries. Expectations in this direction also have not been realised. The number of dry crushing mills in the colony at the conclusion of 1896 was only twenty-one, as against 1,349 head of stamps, ten Huntingdon mills, and four of the Otis patent. In almost every instance where dry-roller plants have been employed, they have proved failures, the larger proportion of the ores treated being too argillaceous in nature to be suitable for such treatment. Despite the statements so frequently, and very often erroneously, made to the effect that the ores of Western Australia differ from those of any other country, ordinary amalgamation is still the favourite method of extraction, while the few applications of the cyanide process have not been conspicuously successful. As against the 1,349 stamps before mentioned, there are only ten cyanide plants, while no such thing as a chlorination apparatus exists within the colony. The obstacles to the successful application of cyanide seem to be the ready formation of slimes in the pulverised ore, and the frequent presence of minerals in the gangue, which are not amenable to cyanidation. Concentration is not pursued to any great extent, though it probably might be with very considerable advantage. At the date before mentioned, there were 103 concentrators of various types at work, of which seven were Frue Vanners and seventy-four Berdans. The tellurium discoveries have led to very considerable exports of the richer classes of ore to South Australia, where they are treated by smelting. This process, however, is costly and somewhat unsatisfactory, and it is
