55(1
THE CHRONICLES OF EARLY
MELBOURNE.
i foot 8 inches. The middle and most important of these strata was represented as consisting of excellent coal. H e also estimated that if coal could then be supplied reasonably in Melbourne, a consumption of 20,000 tons annually might be reckoned upon for steam engines, foundries, etc., which quantity might be increased to 30,000 by consumption in private dwellings. It was supposed that a company could supply the town at the rate of 16s. per ton, which was 14s. less than the price of coal brought from the River Hunter. T h e amount of preliminary cash required was put down at ^ 7 0 0 , of which ^ 5 0 0 was subscribed in the room. Mr. Frederick Cooper, a Collins Street chemist, was nominated Treasurer, pro tern. It was agreed to appoint, from subscribers of ^ 1 0 and more, a Committee of twelve to direct and supervise an efficient search party. Eighteen candidates offered themselves for election, and from them the following were chosen :—Messrs. Henry Moor, J. R. Murphy, F. Cooper, G. W . Cole, A. H . Knight, C. H . Ebden, William Highett, Henry Langlands, W . U . Tripp, Captain Stanley Carr, with the Mayors of Melbourne and Geelong. This dozen of individuals represented every important interestmercantile, monetary, manufacturing, squatting, and a dash of the legal element thrown in. It possessed shrewdness, practical sagacity, and good sense, yet notwithstanding, the affair proved a complete take in. T h e exploring party went, and so did the Preliminary Fund, and, though the former returned, the latter was non est. It all ended in fizzle. N o progress report ever turned up, and so far from anything in the shape of a coal deposit being forthcoming, not even a cinder remained as a memento of the expedition.
LIGHT.
Oil and tallow for several years contributed the nightly radiance, in whose flickering, sputtering glare the colonists were content to live, and breathe, and have their being. They could not have had very enlightened times of it; but as they could obtain no better substitute they had to make the most of things as they came, and comfortably and contentedly they did so. T h e original lamp was composed of wick and tallow, seething in something like a shallow tin dipper; until oil stepped in to help and improve; and these blinking burners were mostly affected by the butchers and the hotel bars and kitchens. T h e only out-of-door street lighting was the compulsory lamp which every licensed victualler was by law obliged to keep burning over or near the tavern's principal doorway, and such </z/tf.y/-luminaries were oftener stone blind than otherwise. Tallow candles performed all the household and most of the shop duty until wax-lights appeared. At concerts, public entertainments, and other evening gatherings, candles were stuck in tin sconces nailed to wall or partition, and occasionally something would be attempted by swinging a chandelier from the ceiling and manning it with waxes. Slowly gradual improvements crept in ; more taste was displayed in the "get-up" of chandeliers, lamps, and sconces; the tallow lights began to wane, and oil and candles of superior quality were introduced. T h e old Queen Street Theatre had a good deal to do in making matters better,forits proprietor (Mr. J. T. Smith) was endowed with an energy which he was never loth to employ for his o w n and (incidentally) for the public convenience. H e was the forerunner of street lamp lighting, as he applied the proceeds of a Theatrical Benefit to the erection of half-a-dozen lamps in Queen Street, which so shamed the Melbourne Corporation that, through its agency, general street lighting was not long in following. GAS.
What an amusing incident that Collingwood, which was destined to become the grand entrepot for the production of political gas, should be the place whence emanated the first notion of supplying Melbourne with gas-light. Yet such was once indubitably the case. Towards the close of 1844, a sturdy blacksmith named George South established his forge in a small house in what was then known as the Western Road boundary of Newtown, at its junction with William Street—places n o w designated respectively, Nicholson and Moor Streets in the City of Fitzroy. South's place was the n o w Dr. Hewlett's corner. H e was a m a n of some education, had a smattering of chemistry, and, being of an active turn'of mind, his smithy was more of a laboratory than anything else. H e practised experiments in carburetted hydrogen, and the idea flashed upon his mind that he should be the "gas-lighter" of Melbourne.
