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completion of the submarine cable and land telegraph lines, which
have each got terminal stations at Port Darwin, where the
“ through” messages are transferred. Its subsequent progress,
such as It has been, was encouraged and fostered by the trade
m provisions and gold induced by the 'workers at the northern
territory gold-fields. There are now two submarine cables connecting
Port Darwin with Singapore, viâ Java, and thence with
Europe. The first was laid in 1872, and was found most difficult
to maintain on account of the ravages made in it by a boring
mollusc, a species of Teredo, which in an amazingly short space o^f
time pierced the galvanized iron-wire sheathing of the cable, and
destroyed the insulation of the copper core. The repairs of this
cable necessitated an outlay of ^20,000 per annum, a circumstance
contrasting strangely with the condition of a similar cable in the
China and India seas, which is not attacked by the Teredo.
Recently a duplicate cable has been laid, in the construction of
which a tape of muntz metal was wound round in a spiral fashion
between the insulating material and the twisted wire sheathing.
By this provision the new cable has been rendered proof against
the bor-ng effects of the Teredo, and has hitherto worked successfully
V ithout the slightest hitch.
The land telegraph line stretches directly from Port Darwin to
Adelaide, a distance of about 1,800 miles, and thus serves to
connect all the principal towns of Australia with the station of
the Cable Company at Port Darwin. It was at one time
thought that there would have been much difficulty in inducing
the aborigines to abstain from meddling with the overland Yvire,
but experience has not justified this impression. It appears that
the black fellows hold it sacred, looking on it as a sort of boundary
mark to separate the white man’s territory from theirs.
Palmerston contains a police magistrate, who is the chief
executive authority in the northern territory; a lands department,
with Its staff of surveyors ; a police inspector, with a detachment
of white troopers ; a government doctor ; the two telegraph
stations, with their separate staffs of telegraphists ; and, of necessity,
a jail.
Our acquaintances on shore spoke in sanguine terms of the
prospects of the settlement, and the future greatness which is in
store for the northern territory ; but to us strangers the appearance
of Port Darwin and the surrounding country was by no
means indicative of progress, or suggestive of a superabundance
of the elements of greatness. Indeed, although the settlement
has been in existence since 1872, yet the white population of the
whole northern territory does not exceed two hundred ; and if it
were not for the Chinamen, who have been attracted thither by
the “ gold-rush,” and whose numbers— including those at Port
Darwin, Southport, and the gold-fields— amount to 6,000, there
would be almost no manual labour available for the white colonists.
The auriferous quartz reefs, which here constitute what are
called the “ gold-fields,” are situated on the side of a range of
hills beginning at a distance of about one hundred miles from
Port Darwin, in a southerly direction. The usual route thither
is by steamboat for twenty-five miles to Southport, a small
settlement at the southern extremity of one of the arms of the
inlet, and thence by cart track for eighty miles. Unfortunately,
during the wet season this track is almost impassable. The gold is
obtained from the ore by crushing and amalgamating with mercury
in the usual way. In this country the crushing or stamping
machines are known as “ batteries,” and I believe in the northern
territory they are worked entirely by steam power. The average
yield of gold from the reefs ranges from one and a quarter to one
and a half ounces per ton of crushed material, although rock has
been met with containing no less than twenty ounces per ton.
The latter, however, is altogether exceptional. There are in the
same localities alluvial diggings worked in a small way by Chinamen,
but the yield of gold is insignificant compared with that
from the reefs. I find it stated in the returns furnished by the
customs officer at Port Darwin that during the year ending 31st
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