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SOUVENIR-CHARTERS TOWER.S, 1872 TO JULY, 1950

few years prior to 1897, they did not expand and were no serious opposition to the pyrites works who only purchased concentrates of a value of over 1oz. per ton. In 1897, Mr. A. Sellars and Sons built a cyanide works at Millchester and entered a contract with the Papuan G.M. to purchase their tailings. This was the first tailings to be treated in Char­ters	Towers.	Results	from	the	first
clean up were good and showed the great possibilities to expand. Up to this time the crushing mills, where possible, ran their tailings into the 'creeks and depended on floods to wash them away. Much of these tailings during flood time were washed out onto the flats and in­lets of creeks leading to Millchester Creek and also along the banks of Mill­chester Creek. The only tailings that could not be put into the creeks were those of the Excelsior Defence and En­terprise Mills some 2,000,000 tons, which had to be stacked. The exact boom in cyaniding	commenced	when	Sellars'
took up 4 miles of Millchester Creek and purchased a large tonnage of the Enter­prise Mill tailings. A great rush set in

and every creek leading into Millchester Creek and Millchester Creek itself right to the banks of the Burdekin River was pegged out. Cyanide works sprang up like mushrooms, gold produced in­creased enormously the cyanide process added to the value of the production of all the mines and in 1900 Charters Tow- .
ers was the most prosperous town in Australia. A tribute paid to Mr. A. Sellars was, he was named the "Cyanide King." Now as to the pyrites works, by 1899 low cost of cyaniding (about 5/­per ton) against the pyrites works of not less than 25/- per ton meant they were finished and at a meeting of the Directors, held at Alan B. Bright's of­fices, Mosman Street, arguments de­veloped and the Manager, Brown, shot dead the Chairman, Mr. Graham Hag­garth. A terrible finish to a once prosper­ous treatment works.
It would be interesting to know just what was the value of tailings washed down the creeks previous to 1897, con­sidering the gold content of the tailings ranged from say 2 dwts. to several ounces per ton.

CHARTERS TOWERS

Worn from her yielded Treasure, Brooding alone of the past. Dreaming her dreams in the shadows, That ever her grey mounds cast. Weaving her spell still upon me
As always a mother must,
Breathing her spirit of grandeur, From the lips of her voiceless dust.
Scene after scene comes chasing, As fog from the fog bank clears And the pointed arrows of memory, Sw'eep down the curving years. Wisps from her smoke-stacks curling, Thicken and folds and fly.
The phantom relics of power,
That live but a moment and die.

The trampling stamp of her stampers,
That marched to the golden goal
Though faded now in the distance,
Are tramping yet in my soul.
Still the boom of her whistles surround me, That startled the midnight air,
And her mine-heads again are blazing,
In the darkness that settled there.


Mid the clash and clatter of engines, Her song once again rises clear
Calling her sons to give battle, Touching her daughters with fear. Strength to a mighty strength matching, Muscle and blood against stone,
1I1 a world apart from their loved Ones, Clawing their fight out alone.

This is the song that she sung me,
The Visions her memories fed,
But the bars of her yellow treasure, Are stained- with the richest red.
For memories, like skies that we gaze on, Gave clouds they must ever retain­
The alloy of life that time mixes,
Seems made up of pleasure and pain.
She gave to me none of her treasure,
I gave her nothing of fame
But still I have worshipped her glory, And lived in the shade of her name,
As ever she seems to me calling,
With her golden voice of the past
To dream her dreams in the shadows That ever her grey moulds cast.

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