MOUNT MORGAN MINE

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 May 1931, Page 8

MOUNT MORGAN MINE

HISTORY OF UNDERTAKING Gold and copper worth £30,000,000 have been won from the mining property of the Mount Morgan Goldmin-, ing Company, Ltd.; regarding which, it was announced this week that the. last stage of the liquidation agreed to in 1927 had been reached. • t About the Mount Morgan mine as woven one of the most romantic storiesin the history of Australian mining (records the “N.Z. Herald”). At Mount Morgan gold was found in stone which no one had ever imagined to be. auriferous. The presence of gold in the ore, in fact, was contrary to all the theories held as to the nature of gold-bearing stone. For many years: the hill was avoided by fossickers and prospectors as being merely a “mountain of iron.”

Mount Morgan, originally a hill 1267 feet high, is situated in the Dee Ranges: of Queensland, 20 miles from Rockhampton. For many years the great’: wealth of the hill was hidden under the name of “Ironside Mountain?’ In 1870 John Gordon selected 640 acres in the locality, one of his boundary fences crossing the summit of the mountain. In 1870 he transferred the selection to his own son Donald, who subsequently acquired a freehold title to it.

Thomas and Edwin Morgan, who; later were joined by their brother Frederick, became aware of the wealth? of the hill. The place was renamed’ Mount Morgan and the Morgans took up as much of the land outside Gordon’s freehold as they could peg out., To raise the necessary capital to work the project a half-share in 'the' mine was sold to Thomas Tharratt f Hall, William Knox D’Arcy and William Pattison. This syndicate acquh*- s ed Gordon’s freehold for £640, or M? an acre, and erected at the fodt ofthe mountain a .battery, which recover- 1 ed only about onethird of .the .gold in the ore.

In 1896 the property, from which 59,024 q? of gold had been obtained, was floated into a limited liability company and was registered in Brisbane with a capital of £1,000,000 in £1 shares'. For some time there was tremendous gambling in the shares and, in 1888, when the mine was apparent-; ly at its best, the shares reaches £l7’ 10/- each. By the time the 'limited; liability company was formed the Morgans had sold their interest. Extensive chlorination plants vere installed in 1887 and 1888. The .diffi-. culties of treating the ore were many and by 1892 the conclusion was reached that, owing to the slow and .expensive nature of the process in opera-: tion, a new method should be introduced.

Until 1891, when stoping was (Commenced on a very small scale, the ore was mined from open quarries on the summit of the mountain. . Developmental work showed large of low-grade oxidised ore and heavy: sulphide ore. There again difficulties; were experienced. The plant was nob capable of treating the ore economic-’ ally and a new plant was installed' in 1.898. To treat the sulphide ore another method was adopted, the necessary machinery being installed 'in--1901.

Until 1904 all the underground ore came from square-set stopes, ’but in that year a flat-back chamber method of stoping was introduced in the copper body. That system was followed until 1908, when two falls of ground killed 12 men. The accidents resulted in the resumption of square-set stoping. Steam-shovels were also ihtroduced into the quarryiing operations and continued to be used until 1912,. when the open-cut was more than 400. ft( below the level of the original sum-,; mit.

It was decided it would be more pro-| fitable to discontinue chlorination and to continue developing the siliceous ore and smelt the concentrate with the more pyritic ores. That decision neeessitat id the reconstruction of the entire works.

Dark days began in 1921-22, when the difficulties of the open-cut system,' together with higher working costs, resulted in the company incurringj heavy losses. Then came a strike, foP lowed by a serious fire in the mine. The difficulties became greater and greater, the losses increased, -and forsome time before the decision to liquidate was made it became generally evident that the winding-up of rhe company was inevitable. Until the end of 1926 the mine had; yielded 5,058,0810 z of gold and 113,281 tons of copper, representing a total/ value of £30,116,549. Dividends paid to shareholders totalled £9,375,166; the wages bill during the 40 years amounted to £11,382,443 and there was paid for machinery and in Government taxation £8,445,056.