INANGAHUA ITEMS.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1488, 12 May 1873, Page 2

INANGAHUA ITEMS.

[herald, may 10.] Energetic. — Willing and partjrare the successful tenderers for. the proposed new tunnel 1 50 ft in length, price per foot LI 8s ; lenders as low as Ll & ; tenders as low as LI 43 per foot are said to nave been rejocted by the mining manager and directors. The cause of this can only tave been the presumed intligibility'of the lower tenderers. The new drive will open a passage on to the, .shaft, now going down, 100 ft below the surface and only 30ft from the east boundaryof the claim. The contractors have the shaft down 85ft with 15ft more to go before completing the work. The reef is so hard as to almost defy the efforts of the workman to force a passage with the hammer and drills, this difficulty together with the astonishing thickness — probably 30ft — of the reef will entail considerable . loss to the workmen employed in completing their contract. ; Wealth of Nations. — Work ceased in this claim on Saturday last, and will not be re-commenced until the machine is set in motion by a rainfall. The race extension has been decided upon and tenders called for the execntion of the work. Victoria. — Welsh and party have taken a contract to raise 200 tons of stone on tribute, and the first truck load was dumped into number one paddock on Saturday. The whole of the stone Uto be taken from the middle tunnel, 125 ft below the outcrop, and 300 ft above the lower drive. Where the reef is being worked in the face of tunnel it has an incline to the west of about fifty degrees, and is three feet thick in the clear, that is from the overlay or casing to the underlay, or 'inside the hanging; wall, and is gold-bearing throughout. United Band of Hope.— Anderson and party have completed their drtve of 200 ft and have discontinued work. It is understood that tenders will be immediately called for driving other 400 ft, the distance yet to be covered before reaching the supposed underlay of the reef. North British. — Work has been suspended in consequence of the completion of Mitchell and party's contract. Previous to this work having been let it was the opinion of many miners acquainted with the locality that the reef would be met by driving to the east, and, after a shaft had been sunk 135 feet, driving to the east was commenced and continued tor 165 ft.^ without, however, meeting with any indications of the reef. The. failure caused great dissatisfaction among ' the shareholders, and some of them— the less t^e'ral minded, perhaps — began to doubt th« competecy of the mining manager, and scrip which had previously been held at a premium fell to a ruinous figure, notwithstanding that the reef in the adjoining claim (Golden Fleece) had been proved to be the richest in the district. Still the plucky directors resolved to continue prospecting the claim, and, inconsequence of certain discoveries, the reef is believed to be to the west, and not to the eastern:, the shaft as at first supposed. Acting 'bu 11 this belief, nine weeks ago a contract was let to Mitchell and party for driving from the bottom of the shaft 50 feet to the west. The work was completed on Saturday last without any favorable result other than a strengthened belief in the minds of the directors that the reef is still before them'; in confirmation of this belief, immediately after the completion of^ this first contract a second was let, at Ll2.]os per foot, for, driving other 50 feet, and work proceeded with.