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Rose Rigley and Pamela Kusabs
Resource Removal 2019
Paper, mixed media, copper wire
Art Gallery. Fortitude Valley
twitter.com/MikeRicciPhoto/status/1597962605607686144
This photo is posted for design inspiration. The design content and photos posted in this album are not my own, but posts from external sources around the web. For use in commercial and personal projects contact the original source of the content posted in the Album "Web Graphic Design Resources".
The Menindee Lakes is a natural series of lakes that fill with water when the Darling-Baaka River floods. In the 1960s, a series of engineering projects augmented the Menindee Lakes, allowing water to be directed into the lakes and held back or released. This ensured a reliable water supply for the city of Broken Hill, the township of Menindee and secure supply of water for the Lower Darling River and supply to South Australia.
The Menindee Lakes system provides important habitat, nursery and recruitment for native fish, such as the Murray Cod and Golden Perch. It is important habitat for a huge variety of native and migratory bird species. The Menindee Lakes system is vital to the communities of the Far West, providing recreation and amenity, as well as attracting tourism, recreational fishing, horticulture and viticulture.
The Darling-Baaka River is central to the cultural, spiritual and economic lives of the Barkindji people.
The health of the Menindee Lakes and the Darling-Baaka River are intimately linked. The lakes fill from the Darling-Baaka River and water stored in the Menindee Lakes keeps the Lower Darling flowing during dry times. The Great Darling Anabranch is a series of ephemeral creeks, billabongs and lakes that wind their way to the Murray River to the west of the main Darling-Baaka River Channel.
Irrigation expands:
There has been a rapid expansion of irrigation along the rivers in the Northern Basin of the Murray Darling Basin, particularly cotton. Irrigation of cotton has expanded by 4,000% since the 1970s. In 1971 Australia grew 81,000 bales of cotton. By 2012 Australia grew 5.3 million bales. Irrigation dams - Wee Waa
Much of the cotton is grown along the rivers of the Murray Darling in very large irrigation enterprises, with most of the cotton grown on tributaries of the Darling-Baaka River.
Large private storages were built to hold water and other structures were built to capture flood waters. Water licences and water sharing plans allow irrigators to suck huge quantities from the tributaries of the Darling-Baaka even when flows are modest.
The result has been that low and medium flows have virtually stopped flowing down the Darling-Baaka River. Only the largest floods that cannot be captured upstream, or specially protected environmental flows, now make it down to the Menindee Lakes and Lower Darling-Baaka River.
An easy target?
After the Millennium Drought exposed just how over-allocated the river systems of the Murray-Darling Basin were, the Murray-Darling Basin Plan was agreed between the Commonwealth and the states. The Plan aimed to make the Murray-Darling Basin system more sustainable by returning more water to the rivers through buying back water licences and other measures to recover water for the environment.
Menindee Slogan Bus:
The irrigation industry views the water flowing into the Menindee Lakes as wasteful and unproductive (not growing crops). They would prefer water to be taken from the Menindee Lakes to meet the targets under the Basin Plan rather than for the irrigation industry to be compelled to use less water. The industry points to the volume of water that evaporates from the Menindee Lakes each year as a key reason to reduce the amount of water flowing into and being stored in the lakes. The amount of water that evaporates from shallow private storages in equally hot and dry climates is rarely mentioned.
Scientists and environmentalists view the water that flows down our rivers, fills wetland and billabongs, and spills over floodplains as highly productive for nature and vital for sustaining complex ecosystems that have evolved over eons. These flows are also vital for replenishing underground aquifers and for sustaining downstream communities and Indigenous cultures.
Some politicians view the Menindee Lakes as an easy target. The population around Menindee is sparse, without much economic or political clout. The birds, fish and wildlife can not vote, lobby or protest. Taking water from the Menindee Lakes system is seen as politically easier than seeking to recover water from loud, well-connected and politically savvy irrigators. The location of the Menindee Lakes in a remote part of NSW that is out of sight and out of mind for many citizens located on the eastern seaboard also makes it hard for the issue to gain political traction.
A plan to decommission the Menindee Lakes:
After the Menindee Lakes filled from a major flood event in Queensland and NSW 2012, they were rapidly emptied by the Murray Darling Basin Authority and the NSW Government. Usually the lakes would hold water for many years after they filled, but by 2014 they were emptied. As a consequence, Broken Hill was in danger of running out of water and the government announced a plan to drill bores to supply the city with low-quality bore water. Locals were outraged at this plan and were concerned that the Menindee Lakes had been deliberately drained so quickly as part of a plan to justify the decommissioning of the lakes.RIP Menindee Lakes
Another flood filled the Menindee Lakes in late 2016, but again they were rapidly drained, almost inexplicably into a flooding river. By then end of 2017 they were again dry just as drought started to bite and Broken Hill was facing another artificial water shortage.
Flush with cash from privatising the electricity networks, the NSW Government spent $500 million building a 270 kilometres water pipeline from the Murray River at Wentworth to Broken Hill. This ended the city’s reliance on the Darling-Baaka River and Menindee Lakes for water supply. Cotton Australia applauded the construction of the pipeline saying in their Annual Report, "The pipeline is a win for the community, the environment and irrigating farmers, and a solution Cotton Australia and its allies have long lobbied for." Meanwhile the local community was concerned that the pipeline would allow the NSW Government to decommission the Menindee Lakes without worrying about Broken Hill's water supply.
Sure enough, plans to reconfigure the Menindee Lakes are back on the table as a project to 'recover water from the environment' under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan's Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment Mechanism. The NSW Government wants to save up to 100 gigalitres of water each year by reducing the volume water stored in Menindee Lakes by up to 80%. A range of proposals have been put forward for consultation.
The Darling River Action Group has labelled the plans as 'ecological genocide.' They strongly oppose the huge reduction in habitat that will occur if reconfiguration plans go ahead. They worry that changing the times between and length of inundation in the lakes will have a major impact on fish breeding and birdlife. The Barkindji native title holders are also strongly opposed to the plans, with significant concerns about the impact on their culture, community, environment and sacred sites.
Fish kills and dry rivers and lakes:
Fish Kill Menindee In the teeth severe drought, predictions of environmental catastrophe on the Darling River came true as millions of fish floated dead on the surface. Hot weather and a lack of flows led to a blue-green algae bloom that stripped the water of oxygen when it died, suffocating many millions of fish along a length of the Darling-Baaka River. Images of giant Murray Cod many decades old floating on the surface of a stagnant, bright green river shocked Australians. If water had been stored in the Menindee Lakes, a flow of water in the Darling-Baaka River could have been maintained and millions of fish and other creatures would have survived. It was noted that the very large mature Murray Cod that had died would have survived numerous previous droughts, so what had changed?
A report by the Australian Academy of Science concluded:
The conditions leading to this event are an interaction between a severe (but not unprecedented) drought and, more significantly, excess upstream diversion of water for irrigation. Prior releases of water from Menindee Lakes contributed to lack of local reserves.
A small flow in mid-2019 led to a partial revival of the Darling-Baaka River and water in the upper lakes of the Menindee Lakes system. However, the Menindee Lakes and Darling-Baaka River face three major threats:
1) The proposed re-configuration of the Menindee Lakes system;
2) The continuing overallocation of water extraction licences in the Northern Basin of the Murray-Darling system;
3) The extent and proposed licencing of floodplain harvesting, which is capturing huge quantities of water before it can even reach the waterways of the Darling-Baaka River.
Source: Save Menindee Lakes (www.savemenindeelakes.org.au/the_history)
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Happy Facetown Tuesday!! It's been a long day and I am going to do a little Flickring from bed then get to sleep early. Goodnight friends!!
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For We're Here! - In the Negative
and for Face-down Tuesday, of course!
and for Our Daily Challenge - relax
276/366
Library of Congress Blanche Satchel
I claim no rights other than colorizing this image if you wish to use let me know
Title
Blanche Satchel
Contributor Names
Bain News Service, publisher
Created / Published
[no date recorded on caption card]
Format Headings
Glass negatives.
Notes
- Title from unverified data provided by the Bain News Service on the negatives or caption cards.
- Forms part of: George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress).
- General information about the Bain Collection is available at hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.ggbain
Medium
1 negative : glass ; 5 x 7 in. or smaller.
Call Number/Physical Location
LC-B2- 6431-5 [P&P]
Repository
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print
Digital Id
ggbain 38624 //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ggbain.38624
Control Number
ggb2006014029
Reproduction Number
LC-DIG-ggbain-38624 (digital file from original negative)
Rights Advisory
No known restrictions on publication.
Online Format
image
Description
1 negative : glass ; 5 x 7 in. or smaller.
Portrait by Heesco of Malcolm Fraser; a PM who was a champion of multiculturalism. Painted in 2015, it has aged well.
www.smh.com.au/entertainment/asylum-seeker-resource-centr...
Cusworth Hall is an 18th-century Grade I listed country house in Cusworth, near Doncaster, South Yorkshire in the north of England. Set in the landscaped parklands of Cusworth Park, Cusworth Hall is a good example of a Georgian country house. It is now a country house museum.
The house is constructed of ashlar with slate roofs. The rectangular 6 x 5 bay plan main block is linked to 5 x 2 bay service wings.
The Wrightson family had held the lordship of Cusworth since 1669.
The present house was built in 1740–1745 by George Platt for William Wrightson to replace a previous house and was further altered in 1749–1753 by James Paine. On William's death in 1760 the property passed to his daughter Isabella, who had married John Battie, who took the additional name of Wrightson in 1766. He employed the landscape designer Richard Woods to remodel the park. Woods was one of a group of respected landscape designers working across the country during the 18th century and Cusworth was one of his most important commissions in South Yorkshire, another being at Cannon Hall. Woods created a park of 250 acres with a hanging and a serpentine river consisting of three lakes embellished with decorative features such as the Rock Arch and the Cascade.
The estate afterwards passed to John and Isabella's son, William Wrightson (1752–1827), who was the MP for Aylesbury from 1784 to 1790 and High Sheriff of Yorkshire for 1819–1820. He was succeeded by his son William Battie-Wrightson (1789–1879), who at various times was MP for East Retford, Kingston upon Hull and Northallerton. He died childless and Cusworth Hall passed to his brother Richard Heber Wrightson, who died in 1891.
The property was then inherited by his nephew William Henry Thomas, who took the surname Battie-Wrightson by Royal Licence and died in 1903. He had married Lady Isabella Cecil, eldest daughter of the 3rd Marquess of Exeter. Between 1903 and 1909 Lady Isabella made further alterations to the house. She died in 1917, leaving an only son Robert Cecil Battie-Wrightson (1888–1952). On his death in 1952, the estate descended to his sister, a nurse who had married a Major Oswald Parker but later was variously known as Miss Maureen Pearse-Brown and as Mrs Pearce. She was obliged to sell the contents of Cusworth Hall in October 1952 to meet the death duties levied at Robert Cecil's death. She subsequently sold the hall to Doncaster Council.
Cusworth Estate Cusworth was first mentioned as ‘Cuzeuuorde’ in the domesday survey of 1086 but there has been a settlement here for centuries dating back to the Anglo-Saxon period. Many different families had held the lands and manor but they did not always live at Cusworth.
‘Old Hall’ A large house is first mentioned in 1327. Robert Wrightson bought the lands and manor of Cusworth in 1669 from Sir Christopher Wray. The first surviving map of Cusworth is that of Joseph Dickinson's 1719 plan which shows the hall and gardens covered only 1 acre with the orchards a further 2 acres. What is most significant at this time was the ‘Parke’ of some 25 acres. The ‘Old Hall’ was next to the walled gardens in the centre of Cusworth village. In 1726 the ‘Old Hall’ was expanded including altering the gardens between 1726 and 1735. This expanded the kitchen garden into the size and form we know today with the Bowling Green and Pavilion.
In the period 1740–1745 William Wrightson employed George Platt, a mason architect from Rotherham, to build a new hall – the current Cusworth Hall – high on a scarp slope on the Magnesian Limestone removing the Hall, and the family, from the village of Cusworth. The ‘Old Hall’ was largely demolished in the process, many components from the old building re-used in the new.
Cusworth Hall Cusworth Hall itself and its outbuildings are at the centre of the park enjoying ‘prospect’ over the town of Doncaster. The Grade I-listed eighteenth century hall was designed by George Platt in the Palladian style. Cusworth Hall is handsome, well proportioned, with wings consisting of a stable block and great kitchen. Later additions by James Paine include a chapel and library. It has decorative outbuildings including a Brew House, Stable Block and Lodge. In addition it has a decorative garden called Lady Isabella's Garden on the west side adjacent to the chapel. On its eastern flank the stable block and gardeners' bothy. Attached to the bothy is a decorative iron enclosure known as the Peacock Pen.
Cusworth Park Cusworth Park is an historic designed landscape with a Grade II listing in the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens. It was designed and created by the nationally known landscape architect Richard Woods to ‘improve’ the park in the style made famous by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown now termed ‘The English Landscape Park’. Work started in 1761 laying out the ‘grounds and the serpentine river’.
The land forming the existing park is 60 acres (25 hectares) – 250,000m, and was part of the much larger parkland (250 acres) and estates (20,000 acres) of the Battie-Wrightson family who owned Cusworth Hall.
The walled garden The earliest description of the layout of the park and walled gardens is that shown on Joseph Dickinson's 1719 plan. In 1761 Richard Woods altered areas within the walled gardens. Together ‘woods’ Kitchen Garden and Green House Garden occupy the site of the orchard shown on Dickinson's plan.
The purchase of bricks from Epworth for the construction of the walled gardens is recorded in the New House Accounts.
The garden was a compartmentalised space, however with focus on domestic production in some sections, exotics in another, an orchard, and formal flower gardens in the rest.
The kitchen gardens included pine pits (pineapple house), later to become stove houses and mushroom houses.
The Entrance Terrace (Upper Terrace) Old plans show a narrow walled enclosure or ‘entrance terrace' running east–west. The walls of this enclosure may well have been of stone or stoned faced and still, in part survives. To the south are the main components of the walled garden. Access from the terrace down to the bowling green is via a flight of stone steps.
Bowling Green Described on Richard Woods plans of 1760. This is a roughly square, walled enclosure where the bowling green is surrounded by an earthed banked terraced walk. The enclosure is defined by a brick wall, which was lowered along its western side to give a view over to the Green House Garden.
Summerhouse / Bowling Pavilion Built 1726. The summerhouse is the main architectural feature of the walled garden. It is of two stories with the upper storey accessed from the Bowling Green. There is an impression of more carefully shaped quoins at the corners but it is probable that the walls were originally rendered and lime washed externally. There are windows giving views across the Bowling Green from the upper chamber and across the Flower Garden from the lower chamber.
During restoration in the 1990s the upper chamber was decorated with Trompe-l'œil. showing views of imagined walled gardens at Cusworth.
Flower Garden The garden was designed to be viewed principally from the higher position of the bowling green. It was subdivided by cross-paths and furnished with four formal beds. Although one of the smallest compartments, the flower garden was the most highly ornamental and tightly designed. It would have created a formal, colourful architectural space contrasting with the simplicity of the bowling green
Hall Garden The function of the Hall Garden is not clear but appears to have been an extension of the decorative scheme of the flower garden. The Hall Garden has a perimeter walk and is then divided into two plots by a further, central path.
Peach House This whitewash wall indicates the position of the peach house.
Melon Pits Melon pits ran east–west along this area.
Orchard Through the 18th century the orchard was not enclosed and remained open until the late 19th century. It was double its current size extending back up to Cusworth Lane until the northern half was sold off for housing in the 1960s.
Kitchen Garden (No longer existing) The west, south and this east boundary wall(s) of the garden still exist but the plot of land was sold off for housing in the 1960s. There was an access gate between the Hall Garden and the kitchen garden (this can be seen bricked up in the northwest corner). This garden had a perimeter walk and was planted with trees arranged in parallel lines orchestrated around a small building at the northern end of the compartment.
Green House Garden (No longer existing) The kitchen garden represents the greater part of the area occupied by the original orchard shown on Dickinson's 1719 plan. The remaining area was described on Woods’ plan as the Green House Garden and was shown divided into two unequal parts. Both parts of the garden appear to have been planted with trees, probably fruit trees. A building abuts the bowling green in roughly the position as the one shown on the Dickinson plan but there is an additional building, roughly square in plan, to the northwest corner of the enclosure. This was probably the Dovecote for which Wrightson paid £9 15s 0d in 1736.
The west boundary wall still exists and this low (east) wall that runs along the length of the bowling green but the plot of land was sold off for housing in the 1960s.
In 1961 Doncaster Rural District Council purchased Cusworth Hall and the adjoining parkland from the Battie-Wrightson family. The Council undertook an initial restoration of the grounds and also recreated what is now the tearooms within the former stable block. The former reception rooms and spacious galleries now house the Museum of South Yorkshire life, officially opened on 30 September 1967.
Cusworth Hall and Park underwent an extensive £7.5 million renovation between 2002 and 2005, involving essential conservation repairs to the Hall and extensive restoration of the landscape gardens. Within the hall external repairs to the stonework and roof were undertaken to ensure that the exterior was watertight, whilst internal works upgraded internal services and enabled new displays to be installed.
The restoration of the designed landscape have been greatly influenced by a comprehensive analysis of available archive material, among which are the original written memoranda and sketches produced by Richard Woods for his site forman Thomas Coalie. An integrated archaeological programme also formed a key aspect of the restorations, recording in detail landscape features such as the Rock Arch, Cascade, and Bridge. This restoration has not 'recreated' the 18th century scheme, although elements are still incorporated within a 'living' amenity garden that is now thriving as a result of the recent work undertaken in partnership with the Friends of Cusworth Park.
The Hall reopened to the public on 23 May 2007 and the new displays document the history of South Yorkshire and it is a valued resource for local residents, students and school groups alike.
Cusworth Hall Museum and Park is the venue for a varied program of seasonal exhibitions, events and activities linked to the history of the area. including Country Fairs, vintage vehicle rallies, historic re-enactments, wildlife sessions and a range of seasonally themed events. A free, weekly, 5 km parkrun takes place every Saturday at 9 am in the grounds of Cusworth Hall. The first event was held on Saturday 5 October 2019 and was hosted by the staff at Cusworth in collaboration with the local community.
Additionally, Doncaster Museums' Education Service offers a range of learning sessions to schools and educational establishments. Specialist and experienced Education Officers deliver learning workshops to schools across a broad range of topics as well as out-of-school-hours activities for families and local communities.
Hello all! I have returned from a long leave of absence with some photos I will be uploading for your enjoyment. Back in January, I had a tech issue and lost a couple thousand photos, (taken over a year's worth of travelling around the state) that I had planned to upload and it was a discouraging loss that felt hard to bounce back from. I've built up a decent amount of photos since then and plan to share them in the coming weeks! Thank you for understanding.
As of early 2019, the Flagler County Sheriff's Office has taken all of their Caprice PPVs from the road fleet and given them unique wraps for the School Resource Deputy team. Before the 2018 - 2019 school year, there were not enough deputies on the SRD team to put at least one in each school, but now there are at least 2 or 3 deputies assigned to each of the county's 5 elementary schools, both middle schools and both high schools. In addition to the Caprices being wrapped, a few older Chevy Tahoes were as well. This wrap was the winning design in a contest held by the Matanzas High School Digital Design class at the beginning of the 2018 - 2019 school year.
Photo taken August 5th, 2019.
i spend my life in this place. my brain is going to explode. oh and just wait for finals week i seriously dont know what i am going to do.
oh and i had to go to the 6th tier to take this picture bc there were people studying in the other ones, it was like 100 degrees in there.
I've only got a few butterflies shots so far this this year and when I have seen them, it was just the odd one. I do hope we get some more before summer is over for this year.
NASA's Lockheed ER-2 Earth Resource from the Armstrong Flight Research Center at the 2017 Los Angeles County Air Show held at General William J. Fox Airfield, Lancaster, California, March 25-26, 2017.
Announcing the eBook version of Sky Crystals, THE resource for photographing and studying snowflakes!
skycrystals.ca/product/sky-crystals-unraveling-the-myster...
For the first time ever, Sky Crystals is introduced as a digital download and at a special sale price of $14.99. If you’ve ever wanted to reveal the magic of winter macro photography with your camera, this 304-page book reveals every technique I use for photographing snowflakes. No secrets held back!
As a FREE BONUS, you’ll also get a water droplet refraction primer to download, showing you how to turn water droplets into tiny lenses and reveal the hidden beauty of simple physics. If you have the equipment for snowflake photography, you’ve got almost everything you need for this additional photographic adventure!
The culmination of years of photography and study of snowflakes, this 304-page hardcover book will detail the science, photography and techniques, and even delve into why we find snowflakes beautiful. I keep the explanations easy to understand and graphic, but the science is fascinating and there are still many unanswered questions.
Considering this eBook is only one-third the cost of the hardcover version, this is an exceptional deal. Traveling some place remote with a good chance of snow? Load this PDF into iBooks / Google Play Books and keep it with you always. Originally written around a two-page spread design, you’ll be given links to download a single-page or spread-page layout, whichever works best for you.
Why Snowflakes?
Snowflakes: These tiny creations of winter have been a curiosity during most childhoods spent in Canada. As I grew up, I became less and less interested in these “trivial” curiosities, and only recently reconnected with them through the lens of my camera. As with most macro subjects, when photographing snowflakes there are many “what the heck is that?” moments as something mysterious is captured, and that childhood curiosity is reborn.
Using a steady hand, an old mitten, and freshly falling snow, you can produce an image worthy of sparking that childhood wonder in even the most jaded onlookers. Some people don’t believe my images are real, and that’s when I know I’ve created something worth talking about. Of course, some people simply think I’m crazy watching me take pictures of an old mitten in a snow storm.
Standing in frigid temperatures a meter away from comfort and warmth can be a daunting task. Using macro equipment that gives you incredibly little focus, it can be hard to even find a snowflake in the viewfinder. Freezing hands and shivering arms can make the situation worse. However, once you’ve got your first snowflake, you’ll smile at every snowfall from then on. But until you succeed, people will think you’re crazy for trying.
Forecasts predict an abundance of snow this year – I know I’ll be shooting every single snowfall. How about you?
An old-generation Ford Explorer of the FCSO parked at the station in Palm Coast, Florida. The vehicle and its extremely bright and colorful markings are part of the Community Outreach division as a recruiting tool, the car itself belonging to the School Resource Deputies throughout the county.
Pictures taken July 2017.
The Fall 2010 issue of Resource Magazine (hitting newsstands now) contains a 3 page interview with me. Their format has me talking about a single image and what was involved with me shooting it. The piece also covers a few questions I've never been asked before, so make sure you follow this link to the PDF of the article. Apologies for the heavy-handed cloning (and flipping) of the image, I had nothing to do with that.
twitter.com/yousrymostafa13/status/1608882724370251776 This photo is posted for design inspiration. The design content and photos posted in this album are not my own, but posts from external sources around the web. For use in commercial and personal projects contact the original source of the content posted in the Album "Web Graphic Design Resources".
twitter.com/AnnaBellaPics/status/1577262800556109824
This photo is posted for design inspiration. The design content and photos posted in this album are not my own, but posts from external sources around the web. For use in commercial and personal projects contact the original source of the content posted in the Album "Web Graphic Design Resources".
The Mount Elliott Mining Complex is an aggregation of the remnants of copper mining and smelting operations from the early 20th century and the associated former mining township of Selwyn. The earliest copper mining at Mount Elliott was in 1906 with smelting operations commencing shortly after. Significant upgrades to the mining and smelting operations occurred under the management of W.R. Corbould during 1909 - 1910. Following these upgrades and increases in production, the Selwyn Township grew quickly and had 1500 residents by 1918. The Mount Elliott Company took over other companies on the Cloncurry field in the 1920s, including the Mount Cuthbert and Kuridala smelters. Mount Elliott operations were taken over by Mount Isa Mines in 1943 to ensure the supply of copper during World War Two. The Mount Elliott Company was eventually liquidated in 1953.
The Mount Elliott Smelter:
The existence of copper in the Leichhardt River area of north western Queensland had been known since Ernest Henry discovered the Great Australia Mine in 1867 at Cloncurry. In 1899 James Elliott discovered copper on the conical hill that became Mount Elliott, but having no capital to develop the mine, he sold an interest to James Morphett, a pastoralist of Fort Constantine station near Cloncurry. Morphett, being drought stricken, in turn sold out to John Moffat of Irvinebank, the most successful mining promoter in Queensland at the time.
Plentiful capital and cheap transport were prerequisites for developing the Cloncurry field, which had stagnated for forty years. Without capital it was impossible to explore and prove ore-bodies; without proof of large reserves of wealth it was futile to build a railway; and without a railway it was hazardous to invest capital in finding large reserves of ore. The mining investor or the railway builder had to break the impasse.
In 1906 - 1907 copper averaged £87 a ton on the London market, the highest price for thirty years, and the Cloncurry field grew. The railway was extended west of Richmond in 1905 - 1906 by the Government and mines were floated on the Melbourne Stock Exchange. At Mount Elliott a prospecting shaft had been sunk and on the 1st of August 1906 a Cornish boiler and winding plant were installed on the site.
Mount Elliott Limited was floated in Melbourne on the 13th of July 1906. In 1907 it was taken over by British and French interests and restructured. Combining with its competitor, Hampden Cloncurry Copper Mines Limited, Mount Elliott formed a special company to finance and construct the railway from Cloncurry to Malbon, Kuridala (then Friezeland) and Mount Elliott (later Selwyn). This new company then entered into an agreement with the Queensland Railways Department in July 1908.
The railway, which was known as the 'Syndicate Railway', aroused opposition in 1908 from the trade unions and Labor movement generally, who contended that railways should be State-owned. However, the Hampden-Mount Elliott Railway Bill was passed by the Queensland Parliament and assented to on the 21st of April 1908; construction finished in December 1910. The railway terminated at the Mount Elliott smelter.
By 1907 the main underlie shaft had been sunk and construction of the smelters was underway using a second-hand water-jacket blast furnace and converters. At this time, W.H. Corbould was appointed general manager of Mount Elliott Limited.
The second-hand blast furnace and converters were commissioned or 'blown in' in May 1909, but were problematic causing hold-ups. Corbould referred to the equipment in use as being the 'worst collection of worn-out junk he had ever come across'. Corbould soon convinced his directors to scrap the plant and let him design new works.
Corbould was a metallurgist and geologist as well as mine/smelter manager. He foresaw a need to obtain control and thereby ensure a reliable supply of ore from a cross-section of mines in the region. He also saw a need to implement an effective strategy to manage the economies of smelting low-grade ore. Smelting operations in the region were made difficult by the technical and economic problems posed by the deterioration in the grade of ore. Corbould resolved the issue by a process of blending ores with different chemical properties, increasing the throughput capacity of the smelter and by championing the unification of smelting operations in the region. In 1912, Corbould acquired Hampden Consols Mine at Kuridala for Mount Elliott Limited, followed with the purchases of other small mines in the district.
Walkers Limited of Maryborough was commissioned to manufacture a new 200 ton water jacket furnace for the smelters. An air compressor and blower for the smelters were constructed in the powerhouse and an electric motor and dynamo provided power for the crane and lighting for the smelter and mine.
The new smelter was blown in September 1910, a month after the first train arrived, and it ran well, producing 2040 tons of blister copper by the end of the year. The new smelting plant made it possible to cope with low-grade sulphide ores at Mount Elliott. The use of 1000 tons of low-grade sulphide ores bought from the Hampden Consols Mine in 1911 made it clear that if a supply of higher sulphur ore could be obtained and blended, performance, and economy would improve. Accordingly, the company bought a number of smaller mines in the district in 1912.
Corbould mined with cut and fill stoping but a young Mines Inspector condemned the system, ordered it dismantled and replaced with square set timbering. In 1911, after gradual movement in stopes on the No. 3 level, the smelter was closed for two months. Nevertheless, 5447 tons of blister copper was produced in 1911, rising to 6690 tons in 1912 - the company's best year. Many of the surviving structures at the site were built at this time.
Troubles for Mount Elliott started in 1913. In February, a fire at the Consols Mine closed it for months. In June, a thirteen week strike closed the whole operation, severely depleting the workforce. The year 1913 was also bad for industrial accidents in the area, possibly due to inexperienced people replacing the strikers. Nevertheless, the company paid generous dividends that year.
At the end of 1914 smelting ceased for more than a year due to shortage of ore. Although 3200 tons of blister copper was produced in 1913, production fell to 1840 tons in 1914 and the workforce dwindled to only 40 men. For the second half of 1915 and early 1916 the smelter treated ore railed south from Mount Cuthbert. At the end of July 1916 the smelting plant at Selwyn was dismantled except for the flue chambers and stacks. A new furnace with a capacity of 500 tons per day was built, a large amount of second-hand equipment was obtained and the converters were increased in size.
After the enlarged furnace was commissioned in June 1917, continuing industrial unrest retarded production which amounted to only 1000 tons of copper that year. The point of contention was the efficiency of the new smelter which processed twice as much ore while employing fewer men. The company decided to close down the smelter in October and reduce the size of the furnace, the largest in Australia, from 6.5m to 5.5m. In the meantime the price of copper had almost doubled from 1916 due to wartime consumption of munitions.
The new furnace commenced on the 16th of January 1918 and 77,482 tons of ore were smelted yielding 3580 tons of blister copper which were sent to the Bowen refinery before export to Britain. Local coal and coke supply was a problem and materials were being sourced from the distant Bowen Colliery. The smelter had a good run for almost a year except for a strike in July and another in December, which caused Corbould to close down the plant until New Year. In 1919, following relaxation of wartime controls by the British Metal Corporation, the copper price plunged from about £110 per ton at the start of the year to £75 per ton in April, dashing the company's optimism regarding treatment of low grade ores. The smelter finally closed after two months operation and most employees were laid off.
For much of the period 1919 to 1922, Corbould was in England trying to raise capital to reorganise the company's operations but he failed and resigned from the company in 1922. The Mount Elliott Company took over the assets of the other companies on the Cloncurry field in the 1920s - Mount Cuthbert in 1925 and Kuridala in 1926. Mount Isa Mines bought the Mount Elliott plant and machinery, including the three smelters, in 1943 for £2,300, enabling them to start copper production in the middle of the Second World War. The Mount Elliott Company was finally liquidated in 1953.
In 1950 A.E. Powell took up the Mount Elliott Reward Claim at Selwyn and worked close to the old smelter buildings. An open cut mine commenced at Starra, south of Mount Elliott and Selwyn, in 1988 and is Australia's third largest copper producer producing copper-gold concentrates from flotation and gold bullion from carbon-in-leach processing.
Profitable copper-gold ore bodies were recently proved at depth beneath the Mount Elliott smelter and old underground workings by Cyprus Gold Australia Pty Ltd. These deposits were subsequently acquired by Arimco Mining Pty Ltd for underground development which commenced in July 1993. A decline tunnel portal, ore and overburden dumps now occupy a large area of the Maggie Creek valley south-west of the smelter which was formerly the site of early miner's camps.
The Old Selwyn Township:
In 1907, the first hotel, run by H. Williams, was opened at the site. The township was surveyed later, around 1910, by the Mines Department. The town was to be situated north of the mine and smelter operations adjacent the railway, about 1.5km distant. It took its name from the nearby Selwyn Ranges which were named, during Burke's expedition, after the Victorian Government Geologist, A.R. Selwyn. The town has also been known by the name of Mount Elliott, after the nearby mines and smelter.
Many of the residents either worked at the Mount Elliott Mine and Smelter or worked in the service industries which grew around the mining and smelting operations. Little documentation exists about the everyday life of the town's residents. Surrounding sheep and cattle stations, however, meant that meat was available cheaply and vegetables grown in the area were delivered to the township by horse and cart. Imported commodities were, however, expensive.
By 1910 the town had four hotels. There was also an aerated water manufacturer, three stores, four fruiterers, a butcher, baker, saddler, garage, police, hospital, banks, post office (officially from 1906 to 1928, then unofficially until 1975) and a railway station. There was even an orchestra of ten players in 1912. The population of Selwyn rose from 1000 in 1911 to 1500 in 1918, before gradually declining.
Source: Queensland Heritage Register.
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