44 . THE QUEENSLAND INCIDENT OF 1866 
suddenly and to such depths could colonial governments be 
plunged by the loss of their credit. 
Nor is it necessary to examine this minor crisis in statistical 
detail. It will suffice that the course of events followed strictly 
the path of most Australian crises before or since. Swollen 
imports, consisting for the most part of railway iron, rolling- 
stock, and iron piping, came into the colony; and, since the 
greater part of the loans went as wages in constructional work, 
a false prosperity was induced which, considering the circum- 
stances of the infant colony, degenerated into public and private 
extravagance of the most unwise kind. The sudden drying of 
the stream of credit proved how unproductive for immediate 
purposes was the use to which much of the borrowed capital 
had been put by the government of the day. 
The second incident to which attention was drawn at the 
beginning of this chapter happened in the next decade. In spite 
of the decline in the total yield from gold-mining this phase 
might almost be called the mineral period. In Queensland, 
however, the gold yield increased from half a million in 
1872 to 2} millions in 1888, as a result of the developments 
at Mount Morgan, Gympie, and Rockhampton. Tasmania, 
after the discoveries at Beaconsfield, Lefroy, and Mathinna 
during the same period, produced gold to the value of over 
two millions; while Western Australia by 1880 was yielding 
an annual value of nearly half a million, to be increased very 
rapidly a few years later by the discoveries at Kalgoorlie and 
Coolgardie. 
It was to the discovery and development of mineral deposits 
other than gold that the period owed its progress. Mining for 
tin and copper became of great importance in New South Wales, 
and after 1885 silver came into great prominence, a mineral that 
by 1890 was yielding a return of about £3,000,000 a year. The 
copper mines of South Australia were of increasing importance 
to that state, while both tin and copper meant much to Queens- 
land’s prosperity. The discovery of the famous Mount Bischoff 
tin deposits,! coming at a time of industrial stagnation, helped 
Tasmania in a like manner; and this was merely the prelude to 
1 This was the massive deposit which James Smith stumbled upon in 1871, and 
in the early years it yielded almost fabulous returns of tin. In 1885 alone over 
4,000 tons of the metal were obtained.