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BID TO BUILD A TRAMLINE

Stroud Shire Council Report.

February 12, 1924.

** Alum Co., Bullahdelah, wrote that it is prepared to pay £10 per year for permission to run a tramline over Council's property. Re compensation for taking material from company's land, shire engineer advised that an area of, say an acre, be resumed and vested in the Council for quarry purpose for the Council's use. The president said that the council was asking for the use only of material for the shire and that the material was excellent for the purpose.

PANORAMIC VIEWS WITHOUT PEER

The Dungog Chronicle.

November 21, 1924.

J. H. M. A., writes in the 'Bulletin': -

"Like the Burning Mountain at Wingen (N. S. W.), the Alum Mountain, on the Upper Myall River, is a geological freak. It is a ridge of alunite 3 miles long and reaching a height of just under 1000ft, formed by the folding of a series of sandstone and lava sheets.

The subsequent chemical action of steam and sulphurous vapours, caused by the intrusion of dolorite dykes, has converted the rhyolites to alunite, and the softer sandstone's have been removed by denudation, leaving the anticlinal arch of harder alunite to form the summit of the range.

A great quantity of the picturesque crags has been exported to England - generally as ballast for wool ships - where it is first put through dehydrating furnaces, then treated with weak sulphuric acid in lead lined vats heated to boiling point, and run off into crystallizing tanks. The crystal alum is finally washed and refined.

For some time past a company has exploited the mountain, and there has been a considerable quantity of stone on grass on the east bank of the Myall, but at present, owing to the state of the market, operations are slack.

From a scenic point of view the surroundings of Bullahdelah are magnificent. The writer has looked out from many high summits in Australia and elsewhere but cannot recall any that gave a more beautiful panoramas than that which may be seen from the top of the Alum Mountain on a clear day."