MINE FIRE.

Grey River Argus, 2 March 1927, Page 6

MINE FIRE.

1 The “Victory" Blaze. , Our Stockton correspondent writes: . In the columns of the “Argus” a few d:iys ago, 1 noticed a paragraph refer.ring to the lire in the Victory Aline Charters Towers, (Queensland. The subjoined clipping from the “North ern Miner” gives an account of the inc, also the history of the old Victor} Aline in the early days of that gold held. Somewhere about lunch time yesterday a man who was passing the locality Jot iced smoke issuing from the mouth oi. the old Victory shaft, just off York 'ireut, quite close to the Railway Sta tiou. At 5 p.m. he saw the smoke had increased, and at 5.20 the Fire Station received an alarm. Dense smoke was -hen coming out. The Fire Brigade be gan pouring water down. The only effect of this seemed to be to aggravate i the outbreak, for the clouds of smoke became much intensified, and vicioulooking tongues of flame also rhot out from the depths below, driving back the firemen ami those of the spectators, who, more interested, apparently’, than the rust, had got in to have a “close up.” JAs the smoke and flame rose from the shaft they were accompanied by an luminous roar, indicating that the shaft was acting as an upcast, this probably having been caused by the air in the shaft becoming heated, and a quantity of material that looked very’ much like blackened paper was thrown up and out. The outrush of flame continued for a long time, and at dusk great tongues were plainly discernible from Richmond Hill, over a mile away. The smoke, too continued Tn dense volumes, and it seemed, from its color, that the greas*’ from the shaft timbering must have been acting as a stimulus to the fire. The Fire Brigade kept a big stream of water playing down the shaft, and this eventually had the effect of subduing, if not quite vanquishing, the outbreak At half past eight, however, there was still much smoke being emitted, with occasional showers of sparks that indicated there was still a fire somewhere. From appearances at the mouth of the shaft it would seem there has been no covering over it, and if that has been the case it is the greatest wonder in the world that somebody has not, before this, gone tumbling down to the old Brilliant formation. 400 feet below. The shaft is only T a few yards off the road.. If, as suggested, rubbish has been tipped down the Victory, the cause of the fire could possibly be | found therein, for a couple of loose| matches and one rat would be sufficient-1 to give things a start. This fire in the Victory’ takes memory back to the days' when this mine was one of the most) prominent on the old field, and one whiefq like several others on the Bril-j liant reef, provided sensational re-1 turns. It it were possible to search the records or to find the old letter book • of the Company, there would be dis I closed that on March 19th, 1892, almost - 35 years ago, a cablegram was lodged' at Charters Towers, addressed to min-' ing interests in London, reading: “Victory reef 12 feet thick.” And this! reef be it remembered, was the Bril-] liant, one of the biggest and richest :

lenses of ore ever worked on Australian mining fields. i The Victory’ Gold Mining Co., a Sydl iiey Company, was incorporated in the lyear 18S1, for the purpose of < J he mine and working it on the Victory’, Papuan, and Maude St. Leger Reefs. I When the Brilliant, right alongside the I 1 Victory’, began to be talked about, Mr Buckland, manager of the latter, took up a spare piece of land to the south of the Victory*, lying at the back of the Brilliant. On this land a new vertical . shaft was sunk to work the Brilliant 1 Reef, which was supposed, on its higher levels, to go through the Victory * ground. It was known that along the !i?oundary of the two mines the Bril- ■ | liant had left a magnificent reef over 1 5 feet thick, which crushed between 2 j and 3ozs to the ton. In the sinking of , the Victory several formations were i passed through, in consequence of i which it was difficult to determin? [which actually’ was the Brilliant. SurI veys and estimat-os, however, indicated II that the formation struck at 403 feet ! :was the Brilliant, and an underlie shaft 'was driven on this formation. Tn Decomber 1891 the following report was ‘ issued by the management: ‘A vein a ' foot thick has been struck, believed to •be the Brilliant reef.’ On the 11th of • the next month. January 1892, it was I reported the shaft had bottomed on 12 I inches of 4 very good’ stone, and three •days later an announcement was made I that the reef was 3 feet wide. And so improvement continued to be shown, until in March of the same year, just eight weeks later, the ore body had inIcreased to the astounding size of 12 feet, with its richness unimpaired. The Victory’ was one of the really goo 1 ‘shows’ of Charters Towers, and was a block on the old Victoria Reef, which outcropped to the south. It is a remarkable* coincidence that the first crushing taken out of the new shaft, the one in which the fire occurred, was cleaned up on December 29th ami 30th, 1881, exactly 45 years ago yesterday. For over thirty’ years she was a solid producer, and at some periods in her history paid big dividends, but about ton or twelve years ago she went the way of all Charters Towers mines, remaining for a time a memory, but until yesterday’, probably forgotten by every rsoul on the field. From old records, it would seem that the last year in which I work was done in the Victory* on any scale was 1916, in which 853 tons weie treated for a gold return of £5,508.