ROCKHAMPTON, situated about thirty miles from the mouth of the Fitzroy, is the principal town and port of central Queensland. It serves as an entrepot for a vast tract of interior country, and is the coastal terminus of one of the main lilies of railway, which extends already three hundred and fifty-eight miles westward to a place called Barcaldine, on the Alice, and is still being continued inland. This line taps the Belyando and the famed Barcoo country. A branch line diverges at a place called Emerald, and running northward, terminates at the town of Clermont, the capital of the Peak Downs district, discovered by Leichhardt, and since even more celebrated for its copper mine than for its rich and open grazing country.

The mine is no longer worked, and with its closure the progress of the place has been suspended. Situated on low ground adjoining, Sandy Creek, the town is subject to disastrous inundations in seasons of flood. A population of a little over a thousand cling to it in hope of a revival of prosperity. Some alluvial gold-digging has been done in the neighbourhood, and at Copperfield, a village four miles distant, gold-bearing quartz reefs have been tested, although without encouraging results. The immediate neighbourhood of Rockhampton comprises much auriferous country, including the renowned Mount Morgan, the most prolific gold mine which the world has known, and which is distant about twenty-eight miles from the town. The unprecedented value which the shares in the company owning this mine have attained in the market, and the unusual matrix in which the gold occurs, justify some prolixity of description. On these accounts, the property can scarcely fail to have interest even for future generations, whether it present to them the aspect of the early history, of a magnificent reality or the importance which was attained by a splendid illusion. The nominal capital of the Mount Morgan company is one million pounds sterling, in one pound shares, sales of which have recently been made at as high a figure as eight pounds per share, but are at the moment of writing, a few shillings below that sum. It is generally considered in Australia that an investment in mining should yield, in view of the uncertainty which attaches to the persistence of metal in all veins or lodes, not less than thirty per cent. per annum. On that basis, the Mount Morgan should distribute annual dividends of at least two millions sterling. It is represented, however, that owing to the exceptional character of the matrix, the element of chance has less applicability to the splendid property of Mount Morgan than to the ordinary type of gold mines.

As the distinctive features of this mine cannot be understood unless there be first a comprehension of the ordinary characteristics of an Australian gold mine, we may preface our account of the former by a rapid outline of the latter. Apart from alluvial deposits of gold, with which we are not at present concerned, the precious metal had, until Mount Morgan broke the record, been invariably extracted from a matrix of quartz. This siliceous stone is found in veins generally perpendicular, or approximately so, cleaving the prevailing strata. Various theories have at different times been promulgated with respect to the occurrence of these veins of quartz and the presence of gold therein. The question cannot be regarded as even yet settled by conclusive reasoning or demonstration. The prevailing theory of to-day, however, hypothecates a cleavage of the strata by volcanic action, or contraction on cooling, and subsequent deposition of silica, taking the form of quartz, by liquid infiltration. The presence of gold in the quartz presents a separate problem, even more recondite, and opinions vacillate between the conception of soluble auriferous chlorides blended with the liquid silica and yielding their gold by deposition, and the conveyance of gold from unknown sources by electrical currents. The practical miner was at least sure of this fact: that quartz occurred in veins of uncertain continuity and of variable degrees of auriferous impregnation —sometimes totally barren, and almost always of unequal richness in different parts of the vein. The "prospector" kept a brisk lookout for indication of a quartz vein. On discovering one —and such veins are innumerable —he broke a few stones, and looked for visible gold in the fractures. If encouraged, he crushed some fragments in a mortar, if one were available, and washed the powdered result to separate any gold by gravitation. According to the "prospects" thus rudely ascertained, he passed on to renew his search, or he attacked the reef, and laid it open to such depth as he could afford. Then he addressed himself to capitalists, and bartered part of his interest in the claim for as much cash in hand as he could persuade them to pay him as the reward of his discovery, and for funds to work the mine and provide machinery for extracting the gold by crushing the stone.

The surface appearances on Mount Morgan correspond but little with the ordinary aspects of a quartz vein. The mount is a prominent eminence overtopping a jumble of rugged hills. It rises to a height of about five hundred feet above a stream named the Dee, which laves its base, and its altitude above the sea level is twelve hundred and twenty-five feet. The entire crown of the hill is composed of an outcrop in which ironstone in the form of hematite predominates. Cornish miners would recognise this at a glance as a mass of what they call "gossan." There is a proverb among them that "gossan rides a good horse," signifying that a prolific lode of metal may be expected to underlie an outcrop of gossan but the metal would in Cornwall be copper or tin. At Mount organ there is an intermixture of quartz with the ironstone —not an unusual circumstance. To the presence of this quartz, and the singularly immense mass of ironstone, the first prospecting of Mount Morgan may be attributed. But for the presence of the quartz, few miners would have been likely to suspect the presence of gold; but even a tyro must have been impressed with the evidences that a deposit of some metal lay below the stupendous signal of this mass of ironstone. The presence of gold in an encouraging quantity was early ascertained, but how to extract it was a complicated problem. The ordinary machinery yielded but fair returns, and assays of the "tailings" —as the waste, delivered from the batteries after passing over the quicksilvered plates, is styled —disclosed that more gold was left in the powdered ironstone than was extracted from the quartz by the quicksilver. The, adventurers looked around for extrication from this difficulty. They found it in a process little in vogue, but employed in one or two places for extracting gold from ores which proved refractory to ordinary treatment. This process consisted in the exposure of the stone, after crushing to powder, to the influence of chlorine gas, which, forming a chemical combination with the gold, converted it into a soluble salt —chloride of gold. This proved the "open sesame" to the riches of Mount Morgan. Various adaptations and modifications of the process as first employed were wrought out until the system was practically perfected so that no particle of gold went to waste. Extensive works were gradually created, and these are at present being supplemented by others much more capacious.

The crest of the mount is being rapidly quarried away. A tunnel perforates the hill from side to side some three hundred an fifty feet below the crest, and has exposed the mass of gold-bearing stone persisting downward towards the bowels of the earth without contraction in its lateral spread. How far it will continue without contracting to a regular lode cannot be guessed. The auriferous matrix consists of brown hematite iron, red hematite, and a singular siliceous sinter, which is traversed by a dyke of kaolin. The mass of stone is said to give an average yield of about five ounces of gold to the ton. Mount Morgan has become a name associated with the idea of unbounded wealth, and throughout Australia hematite outcrops are receiving at the hands of prospectors a degree of respectful and critical attention not hitherto accorded to them. Geological experts are engaged in intricate disputation respecting the nature of the sources and origin of the gold, and its immense body of matrix at Mount Morgan —a discussion into which we hive no qualifications to intrude. In the Rockhampton district, one or two other massive outcrops of similar ironstone have, since Mount Morgan became famous, been discovered. The evidence of comprehensive operations is, however, still lacking to establish the correctness of the claims of the different proprietors that they have hit upon "another Mount Morgan."

Rockhampton itself is a well laid out town, extending along and back from the south bank of the river, with a suburb on the north bank, to which communication is provided by an iron suspension bridge of considerable pretensions. The main street of the city runs parallel with the course of the river, and is, like all the streets of Rockhampton, of generous width. In a number of instances these liberal dimensions have been availed of for tree-planting, and rows of promising young foliage-trees line several of the chief avenues. The buildings in East Street are still somewhat heterogeneous, but the progressive advance in style and solidity of the more recent, as compared with the earlier structures, accentuates the prosperity of the place. The frontage to the river has, by the sagacious foresight of the early government of Queensland, been withheld from alienation. A fine esplanade has thus been preserved, and should in days to come develop into a noble feature, when buildings worthy of the situation shall replace those now facing the stream. Already some not ignoble have been placed here, notably the premises of the Queensland National Bank. The hotel buildings of the town are not attractive. The Criterion, which faces the river and the street leading to the bridge, divides with the Leichhardt, farther back, the honours of leading. In both of these the table and accommodation considerably surpass the expectations which might be formed from observation of the exterior aspect of the rambling wooden structures which pretend to the dignity of the first hotels of an important commercial centre.

Rockhampton bears an ill-repute in respect of climate. Interposed between the town and the coast, a lofty range of hills rears its head, and intercepts the sea breezes which otherwise would temper the heats of summer. At the back of the town a series of lesser elevations emerges from the flats upon which the business quarters are built. On these swelling ridges the well-to-do citizens have their villas and cottages, which are fanned by some of the breezes which the town proper should enjoy. The loftier ranges are styled the Berserkers, and the minor hills, the Athelstan Ranges —Scandinavian designations be stowed by the Archers of Gracemere station, which was formed before Rockhampton was founded, and on part of which "run," as originally defined, the present town stands. Government has recently endowed the town with a hand some stone courthouse, where the circuit sittings of the Supreme and of the District Court judges are held. The population numbers fully eleven thousand. The municipal annual revenue exceeds eighteen thousand pounds, derived from ratable property valued at about one hundred and ten thousand. The modern conveniences of water supply and gas are enjoyed by the citizens, who are served likewise by an adequate proportion of banks and churches; besides a makeshift theatre and an excellent school of arts. Two daily newspapers compete in supplying news, and there are numerous associations for athletic and other sports, and no less than four companies of volunteers, including a band of heroes of Scottish origin in the national kilts, armed with rifles and those still more formidable weapons, the bagpipes. Prosperous citizens of Rockhampton escape from the excessive heats of summer to beautiful watering places on the coast north of Keppel Bay, where nature has lavished a multitude of attractions. Emu Park is a charmingly picturesque spot, fanned by constant breezes, and its attractions are in a measure shared by Yeppoon, a few miles farther to the north. In each locality villas and cottages dot the knolls which overlook the ocean marge with its alternations of rugged cliffs and silvery strand.

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