Maps on endpapers.

"'If you haven't been to Moonta, you haven't travelled,' was one of the saying of the Cornishmen who worked the copper mines of Moonta. Brought out from England in the 1860s, they became a close-knit community which wedded their own traditions and customs to a new way of life which included a fierce loyalty to Moonta and its surroundings. The author, Oswald Pryor, was born at Moonta, and began work in the mines when he was thirteen. He became Surface Manager in 1911, and held that position until the mines closed in 1923. In 'Australia's Little Cornwall', he tells the story of the discovery, growth, and eventual decay of the Moonta mining field, and especially of the Cornish men and women who lived and worked there. Writing with the same flair for comedy that brought him fame as a cartoonist, he tells many anecdotes of the Cousin Jacks and Jennies whose sturdy self-reliance and deep religious feeling were leavened with a quaint sense of humour." -- Back cover