be on the brink of ruin. Men's minds became
depressed when they saw no relief in the present, and no hope in the
future. But Time, with a rapid wing, brought about changes that appear
permanently to have altered the circumstances of the colony, and to have
placed it at once as one of the most flourishing of the British
possessions. The first circumstance, I have understood, which partially
cheered the drooping spirits of the settlers, was a slight rise in the
price of wool, in the year I have mentioned. The discovery of the mines
following soon upon this, the sun of prosperity burst at once upon the
province, and gladdened every heart. From this period, mine after mine of
copper and lead continued to be discovered. Every valley and hill-top was
searched for hidden treasures, and the whole energies of the colonists
seemed to be turned to this new source of wealth. I was absent in the
interior when the Burra Burra mine was secured, but the excitement it
created had not subsided when I reached Adelaide.

I do not know whether the presence of mineral veins is indicated in other
countries as in South Australia by means of surface deposits. The opinion
I formed that ores would be discovered in the Mount Lofty ranges did not
rest upon the discovery of any such deposit myself, but on the peculiar
form of the hills, which appeared to me to have settled into their
present state from one of extreme fusion. The direction of the ranges
being from north to south, these deposits lie also in the same direction.
Those of iron are greater than those of copper, and it is impossible to
describe the appearance of the huge clean masses of which they are
composed. They look indeed like immense blocks, that had only just passed
from the forge. The deposits at the Burra Burra amounted, I believe, to
some thousand tons, and led to the impression that where so great a
quantity of surface ore existed, but little would be found beneath. In
working this gigantic mine, however, it has proved otherwise. I was
informed by one of the shareholders just before I left the colony, that
it took three hours and three-quarters to go through the shafts and
galleries of the mine. Some of the latter are cut through solid blocks of
ore, which glitter like gold where the hammer or chisel has struck the
rock, as you pass with a candle along them.

It would be out of place in me, nor indeed would it interest my readers,
were I to enter into a statistical account of t