mining

Illustration from a prospectus of the Brilliant Gold Mining Company, Charters Towers, 1899. Collection of John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland

Collection of John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland image 33797

Gympie goldfields, 1909

Gympie, QLD

Australia

See map: Google Maps

1 January 1909

21 October 2010

Location

Gympie, QLD

Australia

See map: Google Maps

21 October 2010

Queensland Geological Survey

Collection of the State Library of New South Wales

Topographical map of Gympie and environs, Queensland Geological Survey, 1909. Illustrating report on Gympie Goldfield by B Dunstan, Government Geologist, sheets 9 and 10. Collection of the State Library of New South Wales

The Geological Survey of Queensland commenced in 1868 at the suggestion of Richard Daintree. Daintree, a geologist and photographer from Huntingdonshire in England, had arrived in Queensland in 1864, having spent time on the gold fields of Victoria. Daintree travelled through the north of the state finding several indications of gold, copper and coal and his prospecting work in North Queensland is recognised as a catalyst in the early development of gold in that area.

Gold

Gold symbolises wealth. It transformed Queensland’s history and landscape.

The coal miners

The coal miners

by Eric MacKenzie

They shuffle out, darkened by need,

a minstrel show of faces, fake.

Location

Australia

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19 October 2010

Rodney Hall (ed), Poems from prison, St Lucia, UQP, 1973

Australia

See map: Google Maps

Coal

Queensland is the world’s third biggest coal exporter.

Mount Isa, single men's accommodation, 1932. Collection of John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland

Collection of John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland image API-094-0001-0093

Mount Morgan, 1890-93. Photographs (Richardson Collection), Fryer Library, University of Queensland Collection.

Mungana, c1909. Collection of the Cairns Historical Society

Collection of the Cairns Historical Society

Proclaimed gold fields and mining districts, Queensland

8 October 2010

Proclaimed gold fields and mining districts of Queensland, no date. Map identifes 68 gold fields and 13 proclaimed mining districts. Collection of Jan Wegner

Out where the dead towns lie

Scattered across the tropical north of Queensland are hundreds of dead towns. Called into being by mining, they were abandoned when the minerals ran out or proved to be unprofitable.