MOUNT MORGAN MINE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 4 May 1931, Page 8

MOUNT MORGAN MINE

YIELD OVER £30,000,000 ROMANTIC CAREER ENDED HISTORY OF UNDERTAKING HIDDEN WEALTH UNSUSPECTED Gold ;md copper worth £30,000,000 have liooii won from the mining property of the Mount Morgan Goldmining Company, Eld., regarding which it was announced (Ids week that the last stage of the liquidation agreed to in 1927 had been reached. About the Mount Morgan mine is woven one of the most romantic stories in 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 goldhearing slone. For many years the hill was avoided by fossickers and prospectors as being merely a “mountain of iron.” Mount Morgan, originally a hill 1267 ft 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 1878 lie transferred the selection to his 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. DIFFICULTIES OF TREATIN ORE To raise the necessary capital to work the project a half-share in the mine was sold to Thomas Tharratt Hall, William Knox D’Arcy and William Pattison. This syndicate acquired Gordon’s freehold for £640, or £1 an acre, and erected at the foot of the mountain a battery, which recovered only about , one-thircl of the gold in the ore. In 1896 the property, from • which 59,0240 z 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 gambing in the shares and in 1888, when the mine was apparently ,at its best, the shares reached £l7 10s each. By the time the limited liability company was formed the Morgans had sold their interest. Extensive chlorination plants were installed in 1887 and 1888.' The difficulties of treating the ore were many and by.lß92’the conclusion was reached that, owing to the slow and expensive nature of the. process in operation, a. new method should be introduced.

Until 1891, when stoping was commenced on a very small scale, the ore was mined from jpen quarries on the summit of the mountain. Developmental work showed large quantities of lowgrade oxidised ore and heavy sulphide ore. There again difficulties were experienced. The plant was not capable of treating the ore economically and a new plant was installed in 18~98. To treat the sulphide ore another method was adopted, the necessary machinery being installed in .1901.

NEARLY £10,000,000 IN DIVIDENDS

Until 1904 all the underground ore came from square-set stopes, but in. that year a. flat-hack chamber method of sloping 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 sloping. Steamshovels were also introduced into the quarrying operations and continued to be. used until 1912, when the open-cut was more than 400 ft below the level of the original summit. It was decided it would be more profitable to discontinue chlorination and to continue developing the siliceous ore and smelt the concentrate with the more pyritio ores. That decision necessitated 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, incurring heavy losses. Then came a strike, followed by a serious fire in the mine. The difficulties became greater and greater, the losses increased, and for some time before the decision to liquidate was made it became generally evident that the winding-up of the company was inevitable.

Until the end of 192*6 the "mine had yielded 5,058,0810 z of gold and 119,280 tons of copper, representing a total value of £30,116,549. Dividends paid to shareholders totalled £9,379.166; 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.