PASSING OF MT. MORGAN

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5233, 1 February 1928, Page 3

PASSING OF MT. MORGAN

A ROMANTIC HISTORY.

On/ New Year’s Eve thqre was written one of the most important obituaries of the year

At midnight, Mount Morgan, which w'as once Australia’s and the world’s greatest single gold mine, which afterwards became one of the greatest of copper -mines,, closed down finally, after 40 years .of existence.

- It .produced £20,000,000 worth of gold in its time, aijd half that value of copper. Its history was extraordinary. Its 640 acres -were originally sold for £1 ( per acre to the Morgans, who sold it in turn to a company for £40,000. It was an extinct volcano, the sfgns of whose former activity were present in,quantities of rainbow-tinted “peacock stone.”

Except for small quantities of alluvial gold, ther'e have been no finds in the immediate neighbourhood of the mountain the richness of which was all the more remarkable because, its product was all “full value gold,” worth at all : times £4 to' £4 ,5s per ounce, against the £2 12s payable ftfi’ the Cleirmnot product, and £2 10's for the Edie Creek yield.

The three leaders of the syndicate which bought Mount Morgan from the Morgans died millionaires, instead 'of respectively,, solicitor, ban(k manager, and tradesman. ’ The memory of one of. them and his wife is perpetuated ill one of the greatest educational endowments of Australia,' tKe Walter and Eliza Hall Trust. The wealth of another, Mr Darcy, founded the Anglo-Persian Oil Ob., which to-day makes the British Navy possible as an oil-burning fleet.

Tlie huge bank smash of 1891 in Queensland was in large part due to the speculative, advances made on booming Mount Morgan shaires. Other incidents in its history included the great Du Rush—the last rush comparable in size with those of the early days, which topk place seven miles from the town in September, 1903.

A romantic discovery in the same year revealed that the company had been allowing millions of tons of copper, easily recoverable, to flow away down thei river bed.