The Zillmanton Mine, situated a few kilometres west of Chillagoe in North Queensland, worked a persistent copper lode over a distance of some 900 metres. The lode comprises skarn hosted sulphide mineralisation at the contact of the Ruddygore granite with a limestone member of the Chillagoe Formation. The western faulted -off section of the lode was worked through Reid's Shaft while the main part of the orebody was worked through Nos 1 and 2 shafts. The mine commenced in 1899 and worked through to 1912, producing ca. 35,000 tones of ore grading ~4% Cu and considerable silver credits. The workings were very wet and pumping at a rate of 1.5 million gallons per day was necessary. The mine employed several beam pumps driven by geared down horizontally acting high-pressure steam engines.