OTAGO.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1472, 23 April 1873, Page 2

OTAGO.

Mr Warden Robinson reports as follows :— The Shag Valley Freehold Company have completed the erection of their powerful engine and battery. This machinery is the same that was originally erected at Macraes, for the.Duke of Edinburgh Company. The Shag Valley Company have already had one^ small. crijshr., ~ing;~and'_ I "believe " have fouhS the ma-; chinery to workvety well. Another company, known as the Shamrock Company, have also applied for a lease, and -will shortly be at work. The operations' of these companies must very soon test the reefs very thoroughly, although, as yet, the Perseverance Company's mine is the only one that can be said to furnish particulars respecting the several mines I have mentioned. At Rough Ridge the Energetic Company, having proved the reef to some extent, are about to erect machinery. The Maerewhenua portion of the district has suffered from the drought more severely than the other. This is not to be wondered at, when it is remembered that none of the main permanent sources of supply have been tapped, and that the miners have still nothing to depend on but the precarious and intermittent streams of the smaller tributaries of the Maerewhenua river. It is much to be regretted that difficulties should have arisen about the water of the Kakanui river,. as the waters of that stream would have afforded a large and unfailing supply for sluicing the. wide extent of good ground known to exist at the Maerewhenua diggings. One race, that of Botting and Co. , which was granted some time ago, has been constructed for 6| miles, and is still in progress. But of the"other two schemes, one (that of the Kakanui Company) has been given up ; while Cooper and Co., who have a grant for a large race, to carry twelve heads, have for the present suspended operations until they shall see what is best to be done.