In 1851 the miners, attracted by the new gold of the next colony, rushed away to the Victorian gold-diggings, and the Burra Burra were almost deserted. But after a time the men returned, and English miners were got over from Cornwall, and the success was continued. In 1859, 1,170 persons were employed there. But gradually the surface copper was worked out, and the great attraction of other and still richer mines at Wallaroo and Moonta paled the ineffectual fire of Burra Burra. For a time the works were almost ceased. When I visited the place in 1872 new operations under a new management had commenced, and many in the colony believed that a complete resuscitation would take place. There were, however, not a great number of hands employed, and the works going on,--which were on a large scale,--seemed to be preparatory to copper production rather than themselves productive. There are three towns adjacent to these mines, Kooringa, which I have already named, Redruth, and Aberdeen. Thrown together they make one broken, meandering, unfinished street, which is by no means tempting to the ordinary traveller. It is hard to say how these things arrange themselves; but the wealth of the great Burra Burra mine certainly has not succeeded in making a great Burra Burra city. But Wallaroo is now the greatest name in South Australian copper-mines, and Moonta is second to it. Between Gulf St. Vincent and Spencer’s Gulf there lies a large outstretching territory, bearing nearly as close a semblance to a man’s leg as does Italy, called Yorke’s Peninsula. At the top of this, at the part of the leg farthest from the foot, close on the shore of Spencer’s Gulf, and therefore on the outside of the leg, is Wallaroo. Here, previous to 1860, a squatter held a station for sheep, which even for that purpose was by no means encouraging. As a spot to be inhabited by men and women nothing could be more dreary or unfortunate. There was no water, and even the wells when dug gave forth water so brackish that it could not be used. The vegetation was stunted and miserable. The ground was sandy and barren. Here, on 17th December, 1859, a shepherd, named Boor, found a piece of copper, and brought the tidings to his master. Within a few months £80,000 had been advanced for working copper-mines by a mercantile firm in Adelaide. The squatter was in the way to become a very rich man, and the shepherd had become a mining hero. In the very next year another shepherd, named Ryan, found another piece of copper at a place called Moonta, about ten miles from Wallaroo, on the same sheep station,--and this was at once worked by the same persons. This other shepherd was also enriched, and the squatter became a millionaire. Perhaps few mines were ever opened in which there has been a quicker, and at the same time a steadier, mercantile progress than in those of Wallaroo and Moonta.