A DRIVE TO THE BURRA BURRA.
The Burra Burra Mine is distant about a hundred miles from Adelaide, and reached by a road which, although low and dusty, is good in the summer months. The transit was recently performed by the mail, an open four-horse omnibus, at a charge of £l, in fifteen hours' travelling, halting for the night on the road. "A party is frequently conveyed to the Burra in a spring cart, driven tandem fashion, and supplied with fresh horses from the stations along the road, belonging to Mr. Chambers. A trip of this sort, to and from the Burra mine, costs about £12 or £13. The road from Adelaide to Gawler Town traverses a flat open country along the coast line of St. Vincent's Gulf. On each side of the road the country is subdivided into small farms reaching on one side to the gulf, and on the other extending to the long range of hills which intersects the province of South Australia. The country in February last presented a brown parched appearance owing to a long and unprecedented drought. Very few objects of interest are met on the road, being limited to the teams of the German farmers, and the bullock drays, laden with bars of refined copper, en route from the smelting works to Adelaide. At Gawler Town—a rapidly improving township—there are two large inns with excellent accommodation. About thirty miles from Gawler Town you reach the Kapunda, the property of Captain Bagot, M.L.C., and some proprietors in England. The North Kapunda and the South Kapunda mines adjoin the Kapunda. They are mineral sections of land which were purchased in the expectation of their containing a continuation of the rich lodes found in the Kapunda; but although much had in 1851 been done with the scrip of the North Kapunda and South Kapunda Companies, but little profit or success had attended the working of the mines themselves. The road from the Kapunda passes through an undulating park-like country and an extensive plain, across which, in the distance, the mirage is often plainly distinguishable. About eight miles before arriving at the Burra the country becomes remarkably barren and hilly, and the eye is at once attracted by the peculiar appearance of ridges which run north and south along the ground at what seem to be regular intervals of distance, suggesting the natural inference of lodes of some kind or other. This inference is fortified by the multitudinous out-croppings of lime and other descriptions of stone which appear at the base and along the brow of the hills. As you approach towards the Burra, a tall white chimney, rising from the summit of one of the hills before you, announces that the mine is not far off, and then your eye fixes upon a congeries of bald rounded hills towards the north, looking like so many tents crowded together upon raised ground.
"The Burra Hotel, situated at the commencement of the Burra Burra township, is a fine spacious stone building, furnishing every accommodation to visitors, and unsurpassed by any house of the kind, either in the province or New South Wales. The township of Kooringa is well laid out, comprising several very handsome stone buildings, and contained, in 1851, a population of 5,000 inhabitants. Five years ago the whole of this place was a barren wilderness: now stores, and shops, and offices line the High-street. Several ministers of religion are located here. Excellent accommodation is afforded to the wives and families of miners, and workmen belonging to the smelting-works, in several well laid out squares of comfortable cottages, chiefly built of stone, and let at low rents. The whole of the township is the freehold of the Burra Company, who have let some
