A MOUNTAIN OF GOLD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17688, 28 July 1919, Page 6

A MOUNTAIN OF GOLD

ROMANCE OF MOUNT MORGAN. OWNERS WHO LOST MILLIONS. (By EL A. W., in Melbourne Argus.) Aa in the case with so many other Australian mines, there is an interest attaching to Mount Morgan apart from its mysterious origin and fabulous richness. In tho early days of settlement in Queensland it was remarked as a rough hill with dark metalliclooking boulders, 25 miles south-west of Rockhampton. It was within the boundaries of a selection upon which, a settler tried unsuccessfully to mako headway grazing cattle. Adventurous prospectors, spending their lives in a mora or less futilo search for precious metals, pottered aronnd the water-courses at its base and camped upon its crest, and not even their wildest dreams of dazzling finds encompassed such a store of wealth as that which lay so close at hand. THE ORIGINAL OWNERS. The story of this "mountain of gold"' begins back in the dawn of time, when Nature was forming the deposits, but wo take it up in 1872, the year when a family of Gordons, with two sons, Donald and "Sandy," sol-acted two areas of 640 acres each, known as " Calliungal." On one selection was a boulder-strewn bill that 'was to mako many fortunes and sustain a great population. With wealth untold' within his reach, Donald Gordon, who was working this selection, set industriously to make a living by raising cattle, but he met with very httle success. Year after year passed, and he found himself growing

poorer. Droughts were experienced, and his cattle died. Sometimes he stood on the rock hill, and, surveying his holding, wondered whether it was worth persevering wnth. Eventually he decided that it was not SOLD FOR £1 AN ACRE. Accounts differ as to the way the brothers Morgan were introduced to the "mountain of gold." One story_ is that while prospecting they spent a night in Gordon's hut, that that night there was heavy rain, and next mornipg they found the scouring had uncovered traces of gold. Another version is that Gordon went to Mount Wheeler to earn the living that his land denied him, and that, meeting the Morgans ,he told them one day of the peculiar hSI on his selection, arid revisited it -with them. Whatever happened, the brothers Morgan became intensely_ interested in the rocky eminence upon which Gordon had been trying to raise cattle. They made investigations on their own account, while the owner, we may bo sure, was watching the sunrise or otherwise engaged, and the brothers wero satisfied with the results. Gordon regarded them as philanthropists when t&ey offered him £1 an aero for the selection, and it is said that he waa not wholly at his ease until ho had ■ jlii n m o< ? in of the With, this windfall Gordon fades out of the story. TROUBLE IN FINANCING. T ¥, financill S of the proposition caused the Morgans some trouble. In one account fn ey^£n Sal ™ 0 W ,.<>ffered a half-interest for £aOOO. They applied for help to T S Hall who was managing the Rockhampton branch of the Queensland National Bank and W. K. D'Arcy, a solicitor in Rockhampton. By this time there were four Morgans in the transaction—E. F., Edwin, and .Thomas, and a nephew. They were the original owners. Retaining one-half tlicv sold the other half to Messrs W. K D'Arcv W Pattison, M.L.C., T. S. Hall,' and W' Hall. Later the Morgans divided their . half into five shares, and T. S. Hall became the possessor of one of these fifth shares E F. Morgan paid £10,000 for his brother iixlwin s share, and also acquired the other brothers share, so that with his son, who owned a share, he controlled three-tenths ot the whole mine. This interest he later sold for £62,000 to the purchasers of the original second half, and the same day the nurchasers disposed of one-tenth interest" in the mine to J. Ferguson, M.L.A., member for the district, for £26,000. Finally the original purchasers secured a further' onetenth interest for £31,000. A limited company was then formed with a capital of £1,000,000, and was registered on October 1, 1886. The capital was raised, states one account, m £l shares, which rose to nearlv £18 at the height of the boom. £9,000,000 IN DIVIDENDS. When the wealth of the field became apparent, attempts were made to "jump" areas. _ and enormous sums were SDont in litigation. The courts, however, upheld the original holders. Developments of the property at the outset proceeded slowly, but from small beginnings the mine grew' into ''one of the most efficient mining propositions in the world." It is estimated roughly that up to the end of 1918 the output liad been considerably above £20,000,000, the payments to shareholders more ' than £9,000,000, and the sum spent in wages more than £6,000,000. Three towns—Mount Morgan, Marmor and Calliungal,—with a population of about 13,000, are dependent on the mine. At the works at Mount Morgan 1700 persons are employed, and 700 others are engaged .n associated trades and occupations. The copper from the mino is refined at Port Kembla! whore 1000 persons are dependent on the company's operations. The original cap of tho mountain, mostly removed in the course of operations, stood at a height of 580 ft above tho River Dee, which flows past the base of the elevation' How the central mass of ore- of several distinct zones and classes was formed is one of the most interesting problems of mineral deposition. Dγ Logan Jack expressed the belief that tho deposits were duo to a geyser or hot spring which burst out in tertiary tiraes, when the valley of the Dee had been carvod out of the- desert sandstone which onco covered the side of the mountain Dr Loihcn, lectnrinsr before tho Royal Society of New South Wales in 1884, said that the mountain ridge appeared to bo the result of a t-hermal spring, which in past a"es hold quartz, iron, and gold in solution. °