The Dunstan Times. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1874.

Dunstan Times, Issue 658, 27 November 1874, Page 2

The Dunstan Times.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1874.

Bsneaththeßiiloo t Men entirely l ust the PKKia uiohtiee than thcawom

It is with considerable pleasure we learn that the Banks have at last adopted the recommendations of the Dunedin press to exhibit cakes of retorted gold coming from the reefs, so that people might really satisfy themselves in the belief that golden quartz reefs are not quite a myth in Otago. The sight of the shining lump of precious metal weighing twelve hundred ounces, the result of the last crushing of the Cromwell Company, as exhibited in Mr Ilis’op’s window in Princes Street, Dunedin, must have deen sufficiently convincing that the newspaners were not drawing upon the imagination of the public, when they told of buried up treasures in the auriferous quartz lodes to bo found almost everywhere in the Province, and only requiring skill and perseverance to develop them. The one rich reef at Bendigo cannot possibly exist alone, even if it is not traced beyond the Cromwell Company’s boundary, we believe, however, and experience justifies this assumption, that other claims will stiike the run of stone on the same line. What has been alreadydiscovered is merely a beginning, Bendigo iu Otago may possibly not rival Bendigo in Victoria, but still the 10. cality presents every indication of becoming an extensive quartz raining distiict—because top vuna of stone have been worked out, and claims abandoned, it is only that their owners have not searched deep enough to find more, even the operations of the now magnificently remunerative Cromwell Company has proved this, and wo feci assured that it only wants the will and the means to prospect, to develop, and prove the riches of the many claims row abandoned, principally more through mismanagement than otherwise. This same reasoning will hold good with respect to the reefs at Butcher’s and Conroy’s, even after payable stone was obtained and machinery erected. In the one caso the gold fell off, while in the other a little water had made its appearance iu the mine, each were abandoned, and expensive machinery sacrificed, because the shareholders were fainthearted at a difficulty which inevitably besets every quartz miner. We would ask where would the Victorian quartz miner be now, provided every one there was so devoid of enterprise, such a proceeding is foolish in the extreme, and we may rest assured that if desirous to find gold, we must not be failing in sufficient courage to look for it. We infer, and we believe rightly so, that the commotion caused by this little incident of exhibiting the cake of gold, has aroused public attention to the fact that we possess a very valuable, but yet comparatively unproductive industry, and we should not wonder but that with some further indication of success in quartz mining any bona fill undertaking in respect to this will not fail through want of support. Dunedin people are chary because they have been so seriously bitten in their mining speculations, and we cannot wonder at tho reluctance of people there to assist the miners with the disastrous effects of the Shoiovcr Terrace Company fresh in their memories A mining venture ushered in with such a flourish of trumpets, and of which so many failpromises arc made, seldom realises expectations formed of it. It is

quiet plodding scheme that pays in the end, and from what we find that is al-

ready doing in the district, this goldfield will yet preserve to itself the name it possessed from the first, as the most valuable and extensive in Otago.