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Dunstan Times, Issue 378, 16 July 1869, Page 2

The success which has attended the quartz workings at Bendigo Gully is satisfactory evidence, notwithstanding all that has been said to the contrary that, the extraction of gold from what is generally understood as its matrix will eventually become a valuab’e. branch of our industry, affording employment to thousands of additional hands, besides enriching those who may have embarked their capital in the enterprise. In California and ;Australia, quartz mining was by ho

means very successful in its early days, and instead of companies making money by crushing quartz they got crushed themselves. It was the improvement in machinery and knowledge of managing these workings that made quartz mining a profitable speculation, and the better it becomes understood, the still more satisfactory will be the results. At Ida Valley, Waipora, Skippers Creek and the Arrow, payable quartz reefs have been found and crushing machines erected, but from some cause or another, the companies one and all have come to grief, and yet with stone staring them in the face that in Victoria would leave handsome dividends after payment of expenses. This unfortunate state of affairs we should imagine can result from no other cause than imperfect management; there exists great facilities for work, water power for crushing being abundant, and in some instances timber suitable for securing the mine actually obtainable upon the ground, or otherwise very readily and cheaply procurable. Such a state of affairs should not be allowed to exist any longer, some competent opinion shou'd be taken upon the matter even if it be procured at the public expense The Bendigo Gully Company have shown that quartz mining only requires patience and perseverance to ensure its being successful, and we see no reason why the same should not be similarly applicable in other cases. With this example now before us, some of our languishing companies certainly deserve resuscitating.