WHAT QUEENSLAND PRODUCES.

Press, Volume XLIII, Issue 6545, 14 September 1886, Page 3

WHAT QUEENSLAND PRODUCES.

[BT O-B SPECIAL OOHBXSFOND-NT.]

LONDON, July 16.

If the Queensland Court at tbe Indian and Colonial Exhibition is in some respects

less attractive than come ot its Australian rivals, the blame cannot be fairly laid at the dcors of Mr Garrick, the Executive Commissioner for that colony. He certainly haß made tbe most of the exhibits at his disposal, and has made a very effective display of the fauna and flora of North Australia. The conservatory contains specimens of all the ornamental trees and plan—i which flourish in Queensland, and the trophy of animals which has been, prepared by Mr Rowland Ward, include a fine collection of marsupials, wingless birds and birds of fiight, and several specimens of the duck-tilled platypus. In one part of the Court are two gigantic dugongs, and in another is a huge sword fiib. with a long and jagged sword proceeding from his jaw. The collection of woods, although varied, is not generally of veiy good quality, and I am quite euro that much finer specimens could have been procured. The Commissioners excuse the shortcomings of their specimens of wood as follows:—"The exhibition oompri.es an extensive collection of 4.7 exhibits in baulk, block, veneer and plank. Some few remarks are necessary to account for what might be considered defects in some of the samples. The defects are principally n iticeable in the plank exhibits, several of whioh will be found to have slightly split or crscked at the ende, for this alio wane j will readily be made by practical men when informed that in no case has time ten allowed for seasoning, neither ould advantage be taken of the proper moment for felling the trees. It must be borne in mind that the collection haa been got together hurriedly, leaving no time for selecting the most suitable trees; thus the first to hand was felled, and a few foot-lengths of the stem forwarded to the establishment at Brisbane, where all the exhibits were immediately prepared. This will account also for some of the stains observable in some of the softer woods, which being full of sap when cut, becime discolored before reaching their destination—in some cases nearly 2000 miles from their original habitat." But if the wood does not do full justice to the forests of Queensland I can speak more highly of the collection of minerals which are 1047 in number, and comprise gold, silver, silver lead, tin, copper, iron, coal, plumbago, manganese, malachite, cobalt, agates, amethysts, building stone, marble, shale, and clay. Amongst the minerals is a very fine display of opals exhibired by Mr —£. WBondfepf Conington. One neoklace of opalawnd diamonds is the very best thing of the kind I have ever seen. It literally flashes fire in the rays of the san. I could never understand why opals were considered unlucky, and now less than ever. The Queensland Commissioners claim that the auriferous quarts of Queensland is much richer than that of any of the ot*>er Australian colonies, and that while 98,460 tons of New Zealand yielded 84,184 ot*, or an average of 17dwts 12 grain* to the ton; 52.769 tons of New South Wales yielded 32,979 oz;, or 14 dwts 10grains to tbe ton; 879,691 in Victoria yielded 43?,997 o_s, or only 9 dwts 21 grains to the ton; 148,552 tons in Queensland yielded 259,254 oza, or 1 oz 14 dwts 21 grains t j the ton. If these figures are fairly given,aad does not mean that it co6ta so much to crusn quartz in Queensland that only rich .oil can b j made to pay, it follows that the reefs in North Australia are very much richer than in the South, and that Charters Powers, Gympie, and Herbert on have immense futures before them. A pyra_ud in the Court shows that the total piodnotio-k of gold, -to date 4e valued at _J17,6_3,234. Tire 'topper mines of Cloncurry are said to be the richest in the world, only unfortunately they are 230 miles from the nearest seaport, which would b. ia the Gulf of Carpentaria. Tin is found in localities which are more accessible, and the yield in 1889 was 3383 tone, valued at the port of shipment at__S_B,_s7. C jal has beea.pro-tably worked at Ipswich aad Maryborough. The introductory remarks of the Queensland catalogue touch at some length upon the Queensland debt and the purposes for whicn it has been incurred, and a table is given whim divides the revenue under three head, in a somewhat ingenious manner. Then the total revenue being £8 18s 7d per head, it is divided into the receipts from taxation, which are £3 12a 7d; from services rendered. Government railways, post office and telegraph, which yield -3 „Sd per head; and from rents, £1 18j 91. It would be interesting to extend this comparison to the other Australian colonies. But the compiler admits that the taxation proper in Queensland is 75 per cent, higher than in the United Kingdom. It ia admitted that the debt in Queensland averages —60 per head of the population, but it is claimed that the whole of it has been expended upon reproductive public works, and in fulfilling the duties of the ground landlord. Ihe present length of railway opened is 1407 miles, and there are 11,636 miles of telegraph open. Other statistics ahow that while the popu-l»-im of Queensland is not one-tenth that of London she has sheep and cattle sufficient to feed two Londons, the former being 9.300,000, while the cattle are 4 250,000, a larger number than all the other Australian colonies put together. I was very much pleased with the appearance ot the wools, some of which, although grown inside the tropics, is of quality quite as good as that of the majority of samples from New South Wales.

The Queensland Court contains a fair collection of furs and Bkins, although, as may be supposed from the elevated temperature ot that portion of Australia, they areiofenor to the furs and skins of Vicr_^.* ad r eno ' New T-ales,and there are two magnificent cedar logs, the _f- S bo aa to eho- the fine grain 2™ woo f- /• portrait of Mr Griffiths, aieQaeenalttd Premier, portrays a very tier*^ U1 t0 *-" c ■*«*»•* ««* * Potion. There are besides some pearl s_e_mblin « thoee edited by We-tern Auetralia, and the space between S___SS_i_- M,d tt A * 2-35 __tii y .^« UP *_* »*«_* collectioTof motevejeepons and curiositie. frem New

# Jfe. t ? le _ moat interesting exhihita *!_? "• thoße »Sahowthe mode of extracting gold from q__rtV and from the whi-Tare placed of Mr P. W.Longdai vx the south iromenade. In one portion of the abed*, which hare a decidedly oolonial aspect, a Queensland digger, clad _a the> orthodox red shirt, moleskms, end with hia jack-knife in sheath, ia to be seen m_nip-la__K washdirt out of an o_i--___-tted cradle, and his wash-dirt, of which there is altogether about fifty tons, was obtained atNuggety Gully

wore -omspe-weirTiaa" several hnßdrejforeighfc we w»|hed »p ia .the presence of an admiring crowd, who see with their own eyes the gold separated from the gray el. The digger working away with his primitive apparatus reminded many an Australian visitor of an episode in hie own life, and has carried him back to the days of '51, when the forests of Ballarat and the valley of Forest Creek were made musical with the rockings of thousands of cradles, and tens of thousands of men worked on steadily and merrily, their hearts made light with hopes rarely if ever fulfilled. On one side of the annexe the visitor can see the old-fashioned method of gold mining—on the ether side i* to be seen the present method of extracting gold from quartz Mr Longden has under hie charge about j 500 tons of auriferous quartz contributed from all parts of Queensland, and he calculates that it will yield from 2oz to 3oz of gold per ton. The crushing plaat consists ofaSetamp battery by Joan Walker, of Maryborough, driven by an β-hone engine, together with all the appliances necessary for crushing and amalgamating. The battery is at work for about two hours

every day and crushe3 about two tons. The operation of retorting, that is, separating the gold frcm the quicksilver takes place at the end ot each parcel of quartz, that is, the quartz contributed by one mine is kept distinct from that contributed by another. It 1b to be regretted very much that tbe whole of Australia did not co-operate and sendto England quartz machinery upon a large scale. Bug in the absence of anything better, the mining exhibit of Queensland is interesting and important. T_e annexe contains many plans and pictures of mines and goldfields sceneiy. One granite rock in .the Gregory range, between the Woolgar and the Etheridge goldfields, resembles the Sphinx.