previous
surveyors—Mr. Lavelle in particular—had given currency, that emery,
asbestos and kaolin existed of a quality and in quantities such as
would warrant the investment of capital for their exploitation.
THE OPAL' KING AND HIS COUNTRY.
Queensland Opals, and how they are Found.—The
other day we printed a ten-line paragraph taken from an American paper
concerning some sham opals which were being extensively manufactured in
Mexico. Now, these few lines chanced to fall into the hands of his
Majesty the Opal King, who is at present in London. He wished it to be
known that bis opals could not be imitated. This gentleman—a king can
be no more—it was who discovered the existence of the brilliant jewel
in Queensland, and after seven long years of working in the opal
country he left the torrid skies of Queensland for the old country. The
history of that discovery his Majesty related to me, together with many
graphic stories of his adventures, and of these I propose to give a
brief epitome. I may mention that the King is also known as Mr. H.
W.Bond; his palace is at Torrington, Toowoomba; and his visit to
England was undertaken partly for financial reasons. He found his
territory too extensive to work alone; so he has put the opal country
in the market, and floated an Opal Company, with ;£ 100,000 capital,
just as Mr. Allan Quatermain would have floated King Solomon's
treasure. He himself goes back in a week or two to superintend the
working of the mines. *
Fifteen Thousand Pounds' Worth of Opals.—I
called upon Mr. Bond at the Bank of Queensland, in Lombard-street, and
with Sir Seton Gordon and another gentleman, was taken upstairs to see
the opals. After some little delay, a smalt cardboard cabinet, about
eight inches high and as many wide, was brought into the room, by two
officials, who broke the seal and untied the red tape with which it was
bound. Mr." Bond then pulled out each of the three drawers, in which
were little black paper packages—opals wrapped up lik e seidlitz
powders! Each of these was opened, and the table was soon covered with
a brilliant collection of beautiful stones, each flashing with a
thousand prismatic lights. Another and larger parcel was also opened,
containing, perhaps, five or six hundred smaller stones; and, as Mr.
Bond, carefully turning them over in his hand to show their brilliant
hues, told me, the contents of the box were worth about £15,000 in the
market. They were then carefully put to bed again, sealed up, and taken
away to the safes below by their two grim guardians.
The Green Lustre of the Queensland Opal.—lam
told that hitherto the opal market has been chiefly supplied from the
mines of Hungary, which produce the well-known milk-hued gem. The
stones which come from South America are milky but less fiery than
their Hungarian rivals. The Queensland opals may beat these out of the
market, because of their greater brilliancy and the presence of a vivid
green lustre in the gems from one of the three mines now conducting
operations in Queensland. Mr. Bond informed me that the opal was
vomited out by geysers in remote epochs, and produced from the
cavernous depths of a well-worn black bag a number of specimens of the
raw materials. Without going into geological details, it may be said
that the opal is found enclosed in little round stones, like a kernel
in a nut, and also in another formation, which runs in layers. The nut
is cracked with a tomahawk, and there is the opal stone.
The Opals in the Old Beef Bag.—Mr.
Bond has the tanned face of a man who has been exposed for many'years
to the burning sun of the tropics, and as for his prospecting advei/.,.
jj, I dare say he could fill
a book with ^them. He first came on the track of opals about seven
years ago, when working far away from his own station, 800 miles west
of Toowoomba. He was driving cattle to some station near Cooper's
Creek, when one night he fell in with a
