QUARTZ MINING.

Evening Star, Issue 2825, 8 March 1872, Page 2

QUARTZ MINING.

(FROM OL'R special correspondent.) There is every probability of qua; tz reefs in New Zealand coming to the fore, being the ultimate of gold mining, and ranking in the first class of legitimate and established industries. From the Col"ille Peninsula to Stewart’s Island f qnartz dykes are known to exist in the gold bearing strata, only waiting the touch of the magician Labour to become fruitful sources of general prosperity, and a means of employment for numbers of skilled workmen. Nelson, so rich in mineral wealth bids fair to rival the Thames, with her Inangahua reefs : and auriferous stone has been brought down from the head waters of the Upper Wanganui, by Colonel M‘Donnell, giving Wellington a hope of the possession of a future goldfield, an easy means of opening up the Western Taupo country, and putting a quietus on King Tawhio and his following. Every month in our own Province witnesses the discovery of fresh auriferous lodes in every direction from the head of Lake Wakatip to Portobollo, from Shag Valley to OrepukL and the Longwood Range. Some of the finds are valuable, others reported valueless ; but sufficient incentives to work and combination have already been manifest in our midst by these discoveries to induce seriously to consider what steps should be taken to develops our hidden reefing resources, and what duties devolve on us in consequence of this new and confirmed manifestation of our mineral wealth.

Our position is not by any means singular —that of awakening to new responsibilities. From the northern regions of Queensland to the Glenelg, and through a wide portion of California, men are seriously settling down, and making it the business of their lives to pound away at the reefs. It was considered years since by many of the. best informed that gold mining would only be of an ephemeral character, a kind or premium or bonus offered by nature, to induce emigrants to first overrun, and then settle our Polynesian waste lands. When gold was found in piyable quantities in lodes, we were told, by those who should have known better, that thesesources of supply were also limited, and that a few hundred feet in depth, and a few years working, would witness their extinction. Twenty years experience have brought to nought the sayings of savant; and we are at present only imperfectly informed as to the general diffusion of gold, the best appliances for its collection, and the different conditions under wlrch it may be expected to be found in different localities. Some few facts of grave import are placed, however, on record. r fhe Amador quartz mine in California, has found its best stone at a depth of 1400 feet. Half the people in Victoria have become frenzied with the knowledge that at Sandhurst the reefs at half this depth—or some of them at all events, are as payable as when nearer the sod. At a depth of over 200 feet, the Caledonia reef produced perhaps the richest specimens that ever gladdened the miner’s heart; and on the Shotover more than 320 feet from the surface, the Scandnnavian Co. have found their stone thicken and improve. We have learned beside, that reefs continue in length as well as depth that the abrasion of gullies affect not their continuity, and mining in parallel lines, their extension may be expected to be almost indefinitely protracted. Further, that the rude appliances adopted for gold-saving in vogue amongst us are utterly incompetent for the process ; and that our quartz-crushing machinery, as a rule, resembles the early mode of working our alluvial deposits—obtaining half the gold from the material operated on. It has been the custom hitherto to ignore the existence of reefs in Otago, or to declare how utterly dissimilar they were to reefs in Australia ; and every man calling himself “a practical miner,” or having once seen a quartz reef, has helped to bruit this rumor abroad—from Dr Hector, iu his report on “ Colonial Industries,” to the last imported Cumberland or Cornish miner. Now a constant iteration of opinions tends to make them widely believed, however monstrous or absurd they may appear, or unfounded in theory or practice they may prove. A liar by constant repetition of the same statement ultimately believes it himself. The safest thing seems to be to have faith' in Nature’s uniformity. Quartz dykes being of common origin, it is only reasonable to suppose that the laws regulating their formation. and strike should be- analagous, -if not identical, iu one country to those in another. We do not find in any part of the world coal cropping from granite or gneiss, lignite underlying anthracite, or oolitic deposits under the Silurian strata. The same causes under similar conditions generally produce the same results. Like begets its likeness. Handsaws are not bred from poodles; and woolly-headed, full-blooded negrohood is generally regarded with suspicion when observed as the offspring of those through whose veins is supposed to course the sangre azul of the Caucasian race. Throwing aside, then, all our preconceived opinions, as true students of nature, we should carefully ascertain what experience can teach us in other and older mining districts relative to greater working, and how we should best utilise the great trust reposed in our bauds. Unlike alluvial deposits, which may be characterised as the calico age of gold mining, reefing affords permanent employment, and induces settlement. When a man gets a payable reef he is like one who gets a good wife—he gets* a good thing. What he hopes will suffice for a life time. His path in the future is marked out for him; and, with ordinary prudence, easy to travel. There is not that eternal migration about reefing that there is about alluvial mining; and, without giving up their wonted mode of life, men may in this wise obtain a resting place. Quartz mining Las been, and by many persons still is, considered a hazardous speculation. So to scores of retired tailors, grocers, and half-pay officers, coal and tin mining have proved themselves to be in Great Britian. It is acknowledged to require skill and practice to cut out a dress coat to fit well, to sand sugar deftly, or to drill an awkard squad ; but mining appears to be considered like the English Church in the commencement of the present century—a means of livelihood requiring no culture, and an asylum for the incompetent. 3 When a man can obtain no employment on

the farm or station in the Colonies, he goes on the goldfields, and is annoyed because he is found not to understand the business he professes. The Crown being the landlord on which the miner has learnt his business, has been more lenient than private holders of mining property would have been, as it has allowed its occupants to work the ground as seemed best in their own eyes; the consequence being that labour and capital have been expended fruitlessly, and often to the landlord, in an injurious manner. Hence has arisen our crude and imperfect manner of mine working. In addition to the self-in-terest of the tenant of mineral property in Great Britain, the Government considers it necessary to enforce certain provisions as to the manner in which mines shall be worked, while the owner of the royalty prescribes stringent conditions as to its proper and effectual mode of working. Some glimmering of this necessity seems to have pervaded the minds of the late Mining Commission in New South Wales, though they failed to point out a remedv for the evils of which they complained. The Crown evidently neglects its duty if it allows valuablemineralestatestohe worked in an improper manner, whether coal, copper, tin, or gold be the product raised, as by so doing a vital injury is inflicted on the corpus of the estate itself. It would be easy to amplify on this head but it would be foreign to our present purpose.