In its thirty-six years of existence Charters Towers has turned out over 5,800,000 ounces--more than L24,600,000 worth of gold; last year's output was of the value of L700,000; and to-day the indications in the deeper ground of the field are such that there is reason to expect that both the term of its existence and the volume of its output will be greatly extended. At Mount Morgan--the show mine of Queensland, and one of the greatest in the world--there has been quarried out of the hill and dug from the depths beneath stone that, under treatment by works in every way worthy of such a mine, has, in a little over twenty-two years, yielded gold to the value of over L13,760,000; has paid in wages and other expenditure about L7,000,000; and has given to the fortunate holders of its 1,000,000 shares some L7,230,000 in dividends. That is what the big mine has done. What is it doing now? True, the phenomenal yields of gold and the high grade of its auriferous ores that characterised the earlier years of its history showed signs of diminishing as time went on; but diminishing yields were counterbalanced by improved methods of mining and treatment, with consequent reduction of costs; and a few years since copper as well as gold was found in the lower levels, with the result that the mine has become at once the most productive copper and the most productive gold mine of the State. It has already turned out copper to the value of about L1,500,000, which has to be added to the gold yield, given above, to arrive at its total product; while the value of the mine's aggregate output for 1908 (over L1,017,000) was greater, with perhaps one exception, than that of any previous year in its history. Though for some years gold was the only string to the bow of Queensland's mining industry, that state of things has long since changed. In the early sixties copper was mined in the State, but then and for many years afterwards only to a limited extent. Tin came on the scene in 1872. During the first forty years of Queensland's existence the gold won within her borders was four times the worth of all other minerals and coal produced; but so rapid has been the increase during the past ten years in the production of the industrial metals--or "other minerals," as they are officially termed, to distinguish them from gold--that in 1907 their value exceeded that of the gold yield by over L170,000. Indeed, during the five years ending with that year there was an almost phenomenal expansion. The output of 1902 was of the value of only L589,960. In the following year it increased to L846,280, and then for four years jumped up by leaps and bounds, until in 1907 the yield was worth no less than L2,153,226.