The Cobar Copper Field

Abstract

COBAR, on the western plains of New South Wales, 464 miles by railway from Sydney, is one of the most important, though not most profitable, of the copper fields in Australia; it yielded 6500 tons of copper in 1911, and has produced more than 90,000 tons since its discovery in 1869. The development of the field was hampered by its remote position and its semi-arid climate, for with a rainfall of only 15 in. it is surrounded in dry seasons by a wide, waterless tract. In its early days, however, the export of ore was once stopped by floods, which inundated the plains beside the Darling- River for a width of fifty miles. Another trouble was an invasion in 1890 by millions of rabbits, which destroyed the vegetation by devouring the shrubs and ring-barking the trees.