The Guardian (And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times.) THURSDAY, MAY 31st, 1923. GOLD-MINE WONDERS

Hokitika Guardian, 31 May 1923, Page 2

The Guardian (And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times.) THURSDAY, MAY 31st, 1923. GOLD-MINE WONDERS

The greatest gold mine in the world lies in Timmins, 5(X> miles north of Toronto. Thirteen years ago, an outcropping of rock lay unknown in the heart of u wild bush country. It had been there in solitude for untold years. A man came struggling through the hush, his belongings packed on Ids back. He saw the rock. Ilis eyes said ‘‘Gold.” The man (says tho “Pall Mull Gazette”) was a young prospector named Ben Ilollinger. To-day the Hollinger mine covers more than 400 acres; below its surface run 4.1 miles of tunnels and nil electric railway system ; its great mills rear ceaselessly; and £200,000 in gold leaves its refinery every month. Tile Ilollinger mine lias become tHo greatest in the world. For two years it has been running neck and neck with its nearest rival, tho great New Modderfontein of the Rand, South Africa. The most recent figures, however, show that while the output of the Transvaal mine has declined, the Hollinger is steadily forging ahead. What does the world’s richest treasure chest look like? To be truthful, it looks like anything on earth hut a gold mine. It looks like a boiler factory, or a pork-packing plant or anything uui'cmantic. Closer inspection shows ore comes down through a series of crushings, fed to a car-rier-belt, hurried in endless round to tho mill. Followed there, one found moro crushing mills with water introduced. until the coarse o r e had become thin grey soup. And the thin grey soup finally became black paste, which went to the furnace in the refinery, and there liecaino a yellow gold. Ail this messiness and ugliness and noise, alter all, was making gold from meaningless grey rock, which held no hint of beauty. In that lay compensation. Tho manager, Air A. F. Brigham, who had mined gold in every country where gold is found, states that:—“ln no place in the world is there such a concentration of riches in so small an area.” Hollinger produced £2,400,000 in 1922. This year it is planned to mill 7000 tons of ore a day, instead of 4300, the present daily average. Yet for years to come Hollinger will be. using only a fraction of its resources. Its milling thus far has been chiefly from above tho 400 ft level, and of its 400 acres only" a fraction has been ever developed. It is calculated that Hollinger holds wealth at £30,000 for every foot of shaft. Its nearest neighbour, the Mclntyre, is prepared to mine to 5000 feet depth. io a similar depth Hollinger holds something like £150,000,000 of gold. Hollinger, - at present Is employing 2300 men, of whom 1800 work underground. They are arranged in three shifts. For eight hours each day they work in a cavern of gold—millions overhead, millions underfoot—and never see it, f\r the greatest gold mine in the world displays no yellow metal until the refinery has done its work.