NOTES FROM NELSON.

Lyell Times and Central Buller Gazette, Volume VI, Issue 269, 17 April 1886, Page 2

NOTES FROM NELSON.

(from our own correspondent.) a special visit. '..lt.was not in response to a pressing invitation from tho directors of the ; Copper Mining Company, nor "Was it" in compliance with a hankering the American manager had to show us round the works; but from a morbid desire to see for ourselves what sort of a li'ld for the investment of a few spare thousands we had that another unbelieving gentlile and myself started on Sunday morning last for the mountains on which some i;00,0(X) of Nelson money has been j scattered. Description of the road is out of place, and has beenso frequently done before by amateurs and yoyageurs in our local luminaries that Immodestly shrink describing the beauties of nature jj|ypse literary .gentlemen say they viewed. we saw was the usual stunted birch treks, which meet the eye of the weary traveller on any part of the province fate or curiosity leads, him to. It is described j by the anxious prompters of railway schemes as " magnificent forest." Perhaps the horse who drew ray friend and myself to the mine and back would, if he had the faculty of speech-, 'pronounce the road- capable of some improvement regarding tb"e v gradejß«on the hills an I the pebbles-invth|i,> , rver. But we got there, and althqngli' no American manager of reputation v Smet us, although no flags were 'flying in honor of our arrival, we met -with.a he-arty welcpme\from an old friend whoni<Thftyie,i#g£ Wore on other mining works, and who has a pretty fair notion of what work is. Time being limited, and our knowledge of " high grade ore" and "strikes" and other ■scientificate phrases limited, we confined our tour of inspection to the works near at hand, and with considerable profit to ourselves. The first imposing structure which strikes.one is the manager's mansion. The oiitsiJe appearance (we did not go

inside; for reasons) is elaborate; in fact with £I2OO a-ye>ir I think I could man ige to exist in tolerable comfort there ; that i is with ao occasional visit to Sleepy Hollow. The next thing strikes the olfactory organs in a very decided way. This was due. we found, to the roasting of the ore to drive out the sulphur. There is no doubt about the sulphur being there. ■ I expect on my visit to Sheol to find I the climate impregnated with the same kuid of perfume. It is pungent but not nice, and I should say that it the wind was blowing "down the creek very often that it woull take more than £I2OO a-yea- to induce me to reside in the manager's mansion. The ro isting of the ore proves the presence of sulphides, but competent authorities inform me that this is by no means an indication that it, is " too rich " in copper. The ovens, in which the roasting is performed, are buili something on the same principle as a German brick kiln, the heat circulating through various chambers, so that a charge can be drawn as it is baked, or done, or roasted, sr wh itever the proper term may be. But I am going ahead too fast. Let me first describe how it gets to the oven. As I did not go to the drives let us suppose that the ore lias reached the outsde of the mine. The trucks, winch are to convey it to the smelter, hold about a ton. But, shades of tin immortal Stephen! What a tram ! It is of a very narrow gauge; the rails art 4x2 birch, and protected with flat bar iron fastened to the rails with clout nails, and the line is mostly curves of various radii; in fact where there was a chance of getting a bit of straight line the engineer seemed to prefer a curve, aud, on a bridge about 80 feet long he has two, where it would have been easier to have kept a straight line. And, as was discovered in the darkages of tram-oaking, these flat iron bars, when the trucks roll over them, the clout nails draw out or break their heads off, and then the iron gently curls np with a sort of defiant keep-me-down-if-you-can look and refuses to perform the office expected of it. Then the manifold sharp cnrveß, not being constructed with a proper appreciation of the laws of cohesion, and centrifugal force, are not calculated to canse the truck to keep the road. They occasionally therefore leave it, and, having left it, it is sometimes difficult for the manager to find what unexpected direction they have taken. There is, t am informed, a prospector kept on the property whose duty it is to explore the gullies below the tramway to search for the debris of trucks snd ore. When successful, the ironwork is reserved and a new truck is built to lit the old wheels ; the timber of the old truck is left there till it is wanted; tiie ore is left there too, but that will come in some day to start a new company with. Well, to get on; they somHti ues get a truck down ; it is on record that one day last week a man succeeded in bringing down two trucks at once in 4£ honis, the whole distance of two miles; but he was lucky, lie was off the line only fonr times, and had to unload to get on again each time, and the two trucks ha I one and a-quirter tons of ore in on arrival at the machine site. When the ore gets there it first goes through a crushing process, then it is taken to the roaster, and then to the water-jacket furnace, and there it is smelted ; at least that is what they intend to do with it when they find out how. Their first attempt was, as I told yon, a failure, but they have since dynamited the ore out, which was ** too rich," and will be ready about the middle of next week to make another trial. They have a lot of necessary appliances about here. I noticed with pleasure the number of castiron barrows, for moulds, which are to receive the metal as it flows from the blast fi irn.i ce. The provisions for receiviug the metal are on the most extensive scale; all that is necessary is to persuade the metal to flow, but, as the American manager exp-ained, (to the directors, not to me) the ore is " refractory." Close by there is the 100 horse-power turbine, specially imported from America for driving the fan and other motive power for the works in general. So far it has not done any work; as a matter of fact | since ti was erected it was found necessary to take a 16 horse-power steam engine up to do the work. Water power is cheaper than steam, but then it is necessary to have the water first. At the Champion mine there is not enough for a 10 horse turbine with the fall they have, but it looked big to get a 100 horse machiue. The American manager's method of building dams may be suitable . for the Mississippi or the Ohio, but New Zealand streams are not as yet sufficiently civilized to be kept within bounds by i Yankpe structures. This dam cost £B9O. It was built of three rows of logs about j 1G feet apart, with cross ties notched into the longitudinals. It is usual with comI mon diggers to treenail the ties to the logs, so as to hold the separate pieces | together; the American system dispenses j with anything in that way. The material ; usually put into dams in this colony is well pugged clay. The Yaukees seem to shoot in loads of rock and any kind of dirt that comes handy. This kind of filling is not watertight, neither is it adhesive. They have also different ideas as to how to caulk the upper side of a dam; in my time we used to construct a long apron on the upstream side, which t both strengthened the structure and kept the water back. The new system appears to be to build the face perpeudicular with logs, and then take some barrels of cement and tip them into the stream. In Mew Zealand the current carries away cement; it perhaps don't in America. So it came about that when a small fresh'came down this barbarous creek one morning, the dam burst and found its way to a bridge a few chains down stream and burst that too ; all owing to American

notions not being understood by our native rivers. To give an idea of the amount of foresight which h.is Wen exercised over this dam and turbine biuines-; the wheel is fed Ivy two 9-inch pipes ; these load from a reservoir some 30 feet above the wheel, so that to kc-p these full a large body of water is nectary. This reservoir is supplied by a flume 33 inches wide, about six feet high near the reservoir, gradully red icin»to 23 inches in high: by the same wi Ith, giving a superficial area of 000 inches at the dam, the flume being about 15 chains in leugth altogether. At the dam it is fed by a 10 inch pipe, which, although it was carrying all the witer in the creek, was not one third full; in f:*ct a 4£ or 5 iuch pipe would cany all the water without any pressure. Yet this was what was to diive a turbine r. quiring two 9-inch pipes full under pressure; practically twenty times as much as was available. This d tin, flume, reservoir and turbine, are all useless. I don't know what they cost, but should say between £ 5000 and £IOOO.

Another thing surprised me. The works are built on the side of the mountain All the ore has to be handled at least four times after reaching the sre. A common New Zealand digger would have utilized the slope of the hill, so as to have his material flu 1 its way by gravitation in its progress from one procees to another. This simple and labor saving method does not seem to find favor with American Engineers of reputation. They prefer having a big crowd of men about with shovels and wheelbarrows to make the scene look lively. It iucreases the pay sheet, but it makes the manager look iiuportaut to have a lot of men to boss. At a rouirh calculation the ove has to bo shovellel n;i about eight times from leivingthe drives to reaching the blast furnace ; this do -s not iuclude the number of times it is spilt and picked up again, on its way down the tram. To use" the language of our city surveyor, "I am willing to stake my professional reputation " that the handling of the ore, from the time the miner has put it outside the mine, till it is ready for the furnace, is not less than £k per ton. With good roads, and the utiliz ittion of the natural advantages of the site. I will nndertake to do the same work and make it pay m-3 at eight shillings. Your space will not allow me to dilate further on all the wrinkles I got in engineering at the Champion, but the directors are so well satisfied with the progress mule and the prospects before them, that they have entered into another agreement for 12 months with the American Engineer of rep-.it-;, at i'l'iOJ per annum. Other people have not, s) much faith ; for I unformattedv cashed a ! couple of cheques on Situ.day night; and B.N.Z. his .since sent a not ce of disl hoiior. JJ.M.Z. wasn't cruel enough to ; say ,the:-e were no funds but advised mo :to "present agiiu." Faith is a virtue I | almire. Faith on the part oi Ii.X.Z. i* solid aud com oriang, but when LI.WZ. I seu Is those kin Is of billet donx toconli ling j depositors, then my conn lence in copper j iniues, American managers. " too rich " ! ores anil clever financiers, <rets sluky. J LIABILITIES 0? COMPANIES. ; A very objectionable practice has obtahie I in mining companies :—that of hypothecating their calls. It may be within the four corners of the Act for the directors to give acceptances for accounts due Immaterial, machinery, &c; it may be quite ; compatible with their ideas of forwarding the interests ot the shareholders thev reI' present, to discount fuiure calls ; and it is very laudable for them to endeavour to foster the mining industries of the colony : but I would venture to observe, that there is such a thing as discretion, in pledgiug the credit of an incoqnrate 1 company, or when that is considered necessary or expedient, in fore tailing their calls beyond the amount they may legitimately call up during the currency of their bills. Independent of keeping these liabilities in view, the expeuses of the company, which have., to be met with hard cash, such as wages, payments and contracts, &c, must necessarily be provided for, so that it is manifestly imprudent and culpable for the directors of any joint stock company to get out of their depth in financing. Yet that such things are done ; that mining companies incur liabilities they have only a remote chance of meeting is a fact; and there is only too much reasou to believe that the consequences to creditors will be disastrous. It is all very well for the directors of a company to endorse a bill of exchange, and pass it over to a creditor as pavruent of his account; but if the bill is dishonored what resource has the creditor ! The directors shield themselves by the precautionary measure of aflixing the seal of the company to the document, and if the company goes into liquidation, the creditor gets what he can after the court and liquidators charges are taken out; these of coarse are on the usual liberal scale. But there is a still more dangerous practice in vogue than the giving of b lis by a company, and that is the taking of them as paymeut of calls due. This may be almost looked upon as a'crim?, for the Act assume > that calls shall be paid in cash. During the Terawhiti Reefs boom in Wellington, two or three years ago, bills were frequently given for calls, the sh ires being held in most cases for speculative purposes; and when the bubble burst ruin fell on many a shareholder. In cases where a company has been compelled to call all its capital up; the last p tyments tell heavily on the less wealthy shareholders, and, as is too i ftm the case, shares are unmarketable at an> price, and the unfortunate holder of scrip finds himself burdened with an incubus he camot shake off, or give away, but the ever recurring calls are made and the victi u has to finance to meet his payments; and disaster is usually the outcome. Koiiari.