The development of the Mount Lyell mine is one of the brightest stories in the annals of Australian mining. It reflects the highest credit on the Melbourne financiers who had the courage to undertake the task, and who, undaunted by obstacles, which would have been insuperable to weaker men carried it through to a triumphant issue. They owe their success to their perseverance, to the administrative ability with which they secured efficiency without waste, and to the judgment with which they selected men of high scientific skill to conduct their operations. (pg.2).
I am indebted to Mr. G. F. Beardsley, then the chief metallurgist of the company, for various analyses made under his supervision (pg.3).
Mount Lyell forms part of that higher range of mountains which Tasman saw to the east-north-east of him when he first discovered Tasmania, on the 24th November, 1642. (pg.4)
Gould's expeditions of 1800 and 1802-3 appear to have been the first to reach the Mount Lyell mining field. Gould crossed it in 1860, when he traversed the Linda Valley, which he named the "Chamounix Valley," probably because he recognized the glacial origin of the hills at Gormanston. He also named Mounts Murchison, Sedgwick, Lyell, and Owen. (pg.6).
The Mount Lyell mining field is on the main ridge of the Tasmanian West Coast Range. This range consists of a series of mountains' of conglomerate, resting upon a base of schists, which are exposed in the valleys between the conglomerate masses. The Mount Lyell mine occurs on one of the saddles of the West Coast Range; it is on the ridge of schists that connects Mount Lyell to Mount Owen and separates the Queen River from the Linda River, both of which are tributaries of the King River…The Mount Lyell mines are situated along the ridge which runs from the western end of Mount Lyell to Mount Owen. (pg8)
