BUSINESS ABROAD: Mary Kathleen

Returning from a uranium-prospecting jaunt in the barren countryside of Queens land, Australia one day last month a jeepload of weekend prospectors bogged down in a creek. Four got out to push while a fifth, Timberman Norman McConachie, idly strolled along the creek bank with a Geiger counter. He spotted a promising rock and put his counter to it. The needle jiggled up to 2,500 on the dial. With darkness falling, the five went home to the little mining town of Mount Isa. Three days later they were back, with three others, to check thoroughly on nearby rocks.

One boulder gave them a Geiger count of 10,000. Then they noticed that a landslide ^ from a 200-ft. hill had pushed the “hot” uranium rocks down toward the creek. Said Cab Driver Clem Walton: Nature has done a remarkable thing for us.” Working up the hillside, with Geigers clicking, they got counts up to a fantastic 48,000. The prospectors promptly staked out a mile-square claim, named it Mary Kathleen after McConachie’s wife, who had died ten days before. As word of the strike hit the newspapers, 14 companies began bidding for the lease. It looked like Australia’s richest strike to date, with an estimated 1,350,000 tons of ore worth upwards of $20 million.

Last week the syndicate of amateur prospectors closed a deal, sold out to Australasian Oil Exploration, Ltd. for a reported $562,500 in cash, plus a 20% interest in a new company formed to mine the area, and 5% of the gross proceeds of the ore.