Racing Up-Country.

Cromwell Argus, Volume IV, Issue 161, 10 December 1872, Page 6

Racing Up-Country.

Under this bonding a well-written article lately appeared in the Fancc Herald, from which we make the following extract: — “ The hotel where I boarded was their very head-quarters. The landlord, as jolly a fellow as ever lived, was their “ head centre”; he had, or has, a fine taste for fun and general devilment, and so far as Bell's Life and the sporting articles of the Australasian went, a taste for literature ; in fact, I believe it to be his honest opinion that the sporting editor of the Australasian is the greatest character of ancient or modern times; a sporting butcher, a sporting baker, a sporting blacksmith, with two sporting agriculturists, were the lesser lights that revolved round the central sun of mine host. They were each and all pre-eminently conspicuous members of the racing world—owners of race horses, and possessed of vast knowledge in racing matters. They could out-drink, out-swear, out-bounce, and to the extent of twenty shillings, out-bet all my previous acquaintances ; and for general filthy conversation, could far and away lick the heads off anything anywhere. Each one of the secondary suns had an assortment of private planets, from the age of six to sixteen—apprentices to the noble art of horse racing. Little grooms and jockeys in different stages of ‘ horse’ and blasphemy. Featherweights who could discourse horses and women in a way to make the bones of their ancestors rattle ; perennial little fountains of awful profanity, where the freshness and vigour of flow, compared to the size of the orifice, was tremendous. They talked of Derby winners, strains of blood, Melbourne, Dunedin, Christchurch Cups, Consolations, and handicaps. Smooth little chubby faces smoking pipes, and talking the talk of homy iniquity, was not refreshing at first, but I got used to it. The sporting baker owned a trotting horse, the blacksmith a hurdle racer, the sporting butcher, the two agriculturists, and my friend of the Jehu hotel made up an assorted lot of eight or nine, and their ‘ spinning,’ ‘staying,’ and weight-carrying powers Avere discussed with a quantity of fancy blasphemy that must have smelt to any wandering Satanic angel like a whiff from his own plains.”

Hew Mode of Drilling Upwards. Many miners will be surprised to learn that a new manner of striking drills upwards had made all the difference between a payable and a nonpayable claim. A description of the process appears in a recent number of the Engineering and Mining Journal, and is as follows :• —

The drill face has two cutting edges in the shape of an X, but the real peculiarity is the hammer and the method of using it. This hammer has a handle about nine inches long, curved at the end, like the handle of a cane, and it is grasped at the curve, so that the hammer, in position for striking, hangs domiwards, while the arm is in its natural position. The whole arm is then swung backward, and the hammer is brought forward, striking an upward blow r . This is one of those few' cases in which improvement follows the line of scientific teaching. The great arc through which the hammer-head swings, an arc having a radius of 2 feet G inches, gives to the hammer-head a much greater velocity than it has when the blow is given from the shoulder, provided the blow is given in the same time. This is ensured by making the head very light and with a small face, hardly more than suflicient to cover a| or |-inch drill. Inasmuch as the force of a blow increases as the square of the velocity, but only directly as the mass, the superior value of the blow by this method of manipulation is as the square of the difference between the velocity of the hammer-head by the two methods of striking.

The introduction of this system has been attended with the happiest results. The mine at Klausen had been condemned by the Austrian Government, but the mining superintendent of Kitzbiichel being sent for, the new method of striking was introduced, and gave such good results that the intended sale of the mine was given up. These results are, a much greater production of ore per man, a smaller use of powder and steel in consequence of the lighter drills. The rock at Klausen is a hard trap.