VICTORIAN SILVER MINES.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume I, Issue 45, 3 October 1863, Page 2 (Supplement)

VICTORIAN SILVER MINES.

We have this month the great satisfaction of recording practical results from the St. Arnaud Mines Association. Some years since, the attention of the firm of which Mr. Clarke is a member was directed to the existence of silver in payable quantities in the St. Arnaud district, and after numerous experiments to place the matter beyond doubt, leases of land in suitable situations were obtained. Fifteen men were at once placed on the gold lands of the association, and have been mining with satisfactory results. A mining captain, who has had considerable experience in the mines of Brazil, was appointed to take the control of the party of miners in uncovering and working the silver lodes. Up to this time little has been done in opening up the mine beyond preliminary work that has been somewhat costly, owing to the lodes being of great breadth. The mine has been followed down to a depth of 100 ft., and a cross cut driven fully thirty-five feet without determining the extent of the lodes to the west. Whilst pursuing this course some £OO tons of stone were raised of all classes, and trials made with fourteen tons and twenty-five tons by merely treating for the gold contained the.ein. These trials resulted in obtaining 480oz from the first lot, and 750 from the second; the retort will probably reduce this again to about 400oz of solid metal, that is computed should be of the value of £1 per ounce by reason of the proportion of gold in it. The tailings are then passed on to be submitted to the process employed for extracting the silver, an entirely different operation fromth at of saving the gold. Judging from the quantity of silver already won, there is every probability of an excellent yield from the same stone in addition to that mentioned above. The facts here stated are very important. We believe applications have been made for ground for miles contiguous to the pioneer company The circumstance just stated has necessitated the application from the association for laud immediately adjoining on the east and west of the lodes, in order to connect the blocks already the property of the association, to give them an area for the carchement of fresh water that is scarce in the district, and held by the chemist engaged to be of the utmost importance to them. It may be of interest to many of our readers to mention some of the principal metals and their several conditions, met with in the lodes now being wrought by this company. They are—-chloro-bromide of silver, in crystals and concretions, and graphitic slate with infused chlorobromide of silver; sulphide of silver ; metallic gold, carbonate of copper, oxide of manganese, iron pyrites, arsenical iron pyrites, hydrate of oxide of iron, and brown iron pyrites. The stuff now being crushed has given in trials at the rate of fifty ounces of silver to the ton. besides one ounce of gold. In about a month from now the proprietors anticipate, by crushing sixty tons weekly, to turn out a daily average ot 500 ounces of silver, besides an average of one ounce of gold to the ton. Twenty-five tons crushed with five head of stamps, and amalgamated in five barrels, have given 7500z of amalgam from blanket sand alone. The accumulations in the buddle and the tailings have yet to be treated for the silver. Th 9 company, by purchase or otherwise, is in possession oi three-quarters of a mile in length of the reef. The St. Arnaud United Company, to the south, has struck a lode of argentiferous galena with pyrites. This lode is nine feet thick, and the silver lead ore runs in a band through it. In this same property, metallic copper has also been met with, in the form of red oxide, and occasionally ruby copper. These discoveries are significant and very encouraging. — Dicker's Mining Record.