this district there was not a white man within a hundred miles and great tracts of country lay in every direction, unpopulated save by a few tribes of savages. At the present moment it would be difficult to find a patch of available land that has not been secured by squatters. Hitherto they have been cattlemen, but now the southern capitalists are turning their attention to our northern prairies and are introducing sheep. Sheep have always been the harbingers of prosperity to all good grazing districts. In 1883 Tarsis Copper Smelting Company began work on the Great Australian mine. A furnace, rail tracks, rail trucks and other mining equipment were dragged from Normanton. But the mine soon closed and the furnace on the bank of the Coppermine Creek decayed into a rusty Cloncurry landmark. Final years Henry disposed of his various mining leases over the years, and by 1913 the last of his holdings, Mount Oxide, had been sold for £40,000. He lived alone at the Grange on the outskirts of Cloncurry. His wife, whom he had married in 1870 and by whom he had two children, died in 1888. Henry died at Epping, New South Wales, on 26 March 1919. Legacy To commemorate Henry's importance to the Cloncurry area, the Ernest Henry mine, 38 kilometres north-east of Cloncurry, was named in his honour and began commercial production in 1998 as an open-pit copper mine. References Burns, Guy: Tanksinker, pp 92–109. Henry, Ernest: The True Story of the Finding and Opening Mount Oxide Copper Mine, HEN T2, James Cook University. Henry, Ernest: Extracts from early letters of Ernest Henry, HEN V2, V3, V4, JCU. Henry, Ernest: Account of Exploration by Ernest Henry: Including the First Discovery of Copper at Cloncurry, HEN T4, JCU. Henry, Ernest: An Account by Ernest Henry of an Exploring Trip Resulting in the Taking Up of Hughenden Station, HEN T5, JCU. Henry, Ernest: Journal 28 November 1880 through 11 October 1881, 994.37031 HEN T6, JCU. Henry, Ernest: Portion of diary dated 10 March through 8 October 1866, HEN T7, JCU. Henry, Ernest: Diary and Field Notes of Some Exploratory Journeys in the Cloncurry District by the Late Ernest Henry…, HEN, JCU. Pearson, S.E.: The Prospector of Argylla: Being an Account of the Life of the Late Ernest Henry, 994.37031092 HEN/PEA C.A. Pearson, S.E.: The Prospector of Argylla: Being an Account of the Life of the Late