"For in them you shall see the living fire of ruby, the glorious purpose of the amethyst, the sea green of the emerald, all glittering together in an incredible mixture of light". - Pliny, 1st Century A.D.

To view a table scattered with the finest opals in an abrupt awakening to their almost mystical beauty. In contrast to a similar spread of rubies, diamonds or sapphires where the differences between individual stones come down to size and slight colour variations, every single opal is visibly unique and so irreplaceable. They possess a fascination in their lucid depths that is shared by no other commodity.

The word opal is from the Greek 'Opals' meaning "to see a change of colour". Two thousand years ago the Romans treasured opal as a stone of good fortune and used to carry it as a talisman. Shakespeare described the opal as the "Queen of Gems". A curious belief evolved in Poland, where in 1075 the brilliant stone was attributed with powers to make the wearer invisible. Opals were named "Thief Stones" as criminals could use the gem to commit their thieving deeds unseen. In stories from the 'Dreamtime', the aboriginals described how [God] 'took the colours down out of the rainbow and put them in a stone".

The first references to a romance with opals dates back to 250 B.C. It is probable that these stones came from mines in Hungary (now Eastern Slovakia) and Mt. Simonka where modern production ceased in 1932 when the mines could not longer compete with the supply and far superior quality of the Australian gems. While some minor mining operations are still underway in Mexico, 95% of the world's fine opal is now produced in Australia.

While the first commercial mining of opal in Australia began in 1875 at Listowel Downs in Queensland, in a sense opal is still a cottage industry that is still very much in its infancy and by its nature very fragmented. A lot of the miners are out in the fields because they want to get away from city life and red tape and would rather store their profits in biscuit tins and jam jars than get too familiar with the tax man. It's mostly cash buying so it's difficult to get an accurate measure of what each field is producing.

"The reaction of the average Australian to opal is 'I don't like it', but it's mainly lack of familiarity with quality stones", says Peter Landon, Director of Bentine Gems. "I myself knew nothing about it until I became involved in the business and now it's very much a love affair I guess. People ask why the Japanese go for opal, but most don't realise that the Japanese have an appreciation for all gemstones. Their buying history has been relatively short, really only since the 1950s, but now Japan forms a major market for all gemstone".

For most of the miners in Australia, the story is a little different. The name "Coober Pedy", until recently our largest producing area and one of the most desolate places on the continent, means "white man in a hole" in aboriginal - describing the way the miners dug burrows into the scarp to escape the soaring temperatures of the day and the freezing winds at night. But the term might well have had plural meanings....

"It's like gold fever, it's a disease", says John Mules, a veteran of over thirty years mining around Coober Pedy. "I've seen the Italians and Greeks sell up everything they own and go back overseas and they're back in six months mining again. Even when some get the opportunity to quit they decide to stay. If they do leave, you can bet they'll be back in under twelve months. But you have to remember that you can hit the bloody jackpot. The unfortunate part of it is that 90% of the people I know have ended up putting it all back into the ground".

The kind of existence for the miners is pretty mean: the extreme climate is complemented perfectly by the scorpions, a number of very venomous snakes and the clouds of flies, ever present except during the occasional dust storms. The towns now have most modern facilities and a burly nightlife during which countless stories of bravery and luck are told. All the miners are hooked on the adrenalin buzz when after working alone in a hole for hours, the pick makes a chinking sound like scraping china and traces of flashing colours are seen in the light.

John Mules went up to Coober Pedy in the heart of South Australia "just to have a look" in 1956, went mining and stayed for six months digging shafts and finding a lot of nothing, but liked the way of life.

"Coober Pedy was all underground living when I first went there, but now it's very cosmopolitan and has been transformed into quite a big town with seven thousand people and a very good underground hotel. The mining industry is the one that keeps it all alive. There's currently fifteen hundred miners actively working there. I haven't tried to expand too much - the mining is my interest, it's a way of life with me more than anything.

"The retail store has financed it and I'm in other business as well, but mining is what I like. The next door neighbour makes big money and you think it's got to happen to me one day and you get so heavily involved and keep going. There's not much to offer in the city on a similar plain. It's a fantastic way of life - the Greeks, Italians and Croatians are the main nationalities and they just plain love it. The Italians were the first to drift down from the mica fields in around 1960 to mine at Coober Pedy. That's when we learnt to eat spaghetti and drink wine. They were pretty jovial people and then the Greeks arrived and were the first to live above ground.

"While I love it I can't recommend anyone else to go into the mining side of the opal industry, but it's what I grew up in and I don't know a hell of a lot else. There's profit all along the line from the cutters, the manufacturers, the retail stores - the profits on the retail side aren't even a reflection of what the miner gets. It's very much like putting it all on the line in a Tattslotto draw: You can go to work today absolutely broke and dig out a very big parcel and it's immediately saleable. Although it's an enormous gamble, one day I'm sure we'll find one. You can go from kangaroo meat to caviar in one day".

It's not uncommon when a new field is found with good sandstone and traces of opal that 200 claims re worked in a very short time. Each claim is limited to only fifty by fifty metres and must be mined by the owner of the claim. A good hard worker may go up there and find a partner who'll give him a percentage of the find for working, usually about 10 to 15%. A number of years ago a large public company moved into Lightning Ridge and tried recruiting local miners to work for them, but the miners worked on the basis of 'one opal for the company and two for me', so of course things didn't go quite as planned by the company. Today the whole operation is made up of individual teams with an average partnership of three people. That's about as many as can do the work in the one claim, but they may have three adjoining claims and move from one to the next. Most fields are not very big in expanse, usually only ten square kilometres, but they can last for many years.

Mintabie lies in the harsh desert country north of Coober Pedy and although the fields were discovered in 1931, a lack of water and extremely hard ground prevented much activity until 1976 when modern mining equipment and better communications allowed production to go ahead. Mintabie is now surrendering very attractive light opals, large quantities of dark opal and some very fine black opal.

Only about half of the people on the fields are making a good living; the other half are on the bread line, going broke fast with thirsty machinery to feed. On the Mintable fields there are sixty-five bulldozers of the standard of a D9 or a Komatsu 355 which is a very big machine with the very big price tag of about $600,000, so you can imagine the interest payments to service that kind of loan for a start, then the amount of fuel that it uses, somewhere in the vicinity of $3000 a week.

The miners move from claim to claim looking for a good area, slicing through the sandstone in the hope of finding layers of opal. They might go for twelve months to three years before they find anything at all. If they have a breakdown, they face a long waiting time because of where they are or if the part is not in stock, then they have to fly in a mechanic. In the end the breakdown can cost them $30,000. They have to find big money and if they don't, they're out very quickly. There are very, very few rich miners mainly due to the expenses in running costs and the risks involved.

The Mintabie fields lie in the middle of aboriginal land and the last of the fields where they have been allowed to mine are nearing their end of their productive life. Industry members are confident that additional land will be available for mining, but there is no sure fire method of determining whether there is going to be opal under the ground. At Coober Pedy the tablelands stretch for 50 kilometres one way and 20 km the other and mining is likely to continue for many years to come, propped up by the tourism in the area. On all the opal fields in the country, there is an enormous amount of prospecting to be done.

Lightning Ridge is now roughly ninety years old and is also a limited area. Due to a number of new fields being found in the vicinity, mining activity is increasing but is not producing the very fine qualities that made the area famous for the best opals in the world. It's a little hard to predict how long the field will continue and indeed how long fine quality opals will continue to come onto the market.

"There's going to be a long time continuing production of diamonds but with opal we're not quite sure", says Andrew Cody, an opal buyer and exporter based in Melbourne and one of the few remaining opal cutters in Australia. "While it's a big country we might have found the best opal producing areas already, we can't be sure. The fact is that the quality of stones being found has gone down a bit. What's regarded as a top gem today wasn't twenty-five years ago. The top of the line used to be black opal, high dome and full colour. Now it's low dome with a thin bar of colour and not really black. There just isn't the material available. The best gun claims have been worked out and the best material doesn't come up with much any more, and if it does, the prices are unbelievable.

"The market is stronger than ever and tourism is going to help it increase three-fold. I think the industry has a good future as long as certain things happen. If we can get prospecting subsidies going there will be more areas found and getting stock is our biggest worry at the moment. The industry association must lobby state and federal governments to help subsidise the prospecting mining is a very difficult thing: those guys have to spend a lot of money and often they don't find anything and the machine has to be sold and that's the end of that. The South Australian Mines Department did spend thirty thousand dollars some years ago and discovered a field which has produced millions of dollars of opal and it's still going today. We have a truly rare product but none of us will have an industry without stock".

One area where Andrew Cody believes the industry may find an untapped strength is by placing more emphasis on intermediate processing and wholesaling where there are big profits to be made if we can compete with the labour costs overseas. While all the Lightning Ridge and Queensland opal is cut in Australia before exporting, the bulk of the low to medium quality material from South Australia is bought on the fields by overseas buyers and is then cut in Hong Kong and China and shipped all around the world, including back into Australia. Again, one can't blame the miner: he digs out a big parcel of stones that's going to ward off the repo man for another month and so he doesn't care whether the buyer is Chinese or Australian.

There has been a lot of talk about cutting all the opal in Australia but many people don't believe it is viable at this stage due to high labour and training costs and the fact that any disruption to the industry is likely to put the miners at further risk. However, Andrew Cody is one amongst a number of companies who are looking at automation using robotics for cutting opals and indeed have already cut some stones using these methods at the CSIRO in N.S.W.

"A lot of people in the industry will say you can't cut opal using an automatic system", says Cody. "That's okay, I accept what they're saying, but I'm still in business while most aren't around anymore. I've been an opal cutter for twenty years so I think I know what I'm doing.

"We haven't even tapped the overseas market, it really could be only just starting. There are companies overseas that have product lines like you wouldn't believe and they have thousands of jewellery stores. Can you imagine what their appetite would be? The jewellery industry worldwide works on mass production but so far opal isn't presented in the way that they require. But only we can supply stones which fit the component sizes of mass jewellery we'll be in command of our own industry and not have companies abroad who haven't done anything for the marketing of the gem and who have been taking most of the profits.

"I really do think the industry is coming of age. There are a number of companies who are putting money into research, the government becoming interested and prepared to perhaps look kindly on the industry where before it was misunderstood. They are not giving the industry a status it didn't have three years ago. In five years time we should see a totally different industry to the one we have today".

Opal itself is already being granted a better status as more and more countries are discovering the magic that it holds, trapped and shimmering beneath its translucent surface. The Medieval English writer Bataman said that amongst its many virtues, opal held the Power of Foresight. With an appreciation of this wondrous treasure gouged from the barren land of the outback, we may find that our struggling industry has finally come of age.