MINING INTELLIGENCE.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 270, 29 November 1865, Page 3

MINING INTELLIGENCE.

Some excellent gold, of a fine grain and good quality, has recently come in from the Moonlight district—a locality supposed by some to be almost deserted. There cannot be a doubt that, with passable bridle tracks, this north-western region will yet become extremely valuable, as reduction in the cost of living follows. What folly would it be to offer special inducements to an alien and inferior race of people to come and mine in such a region—only one of many in the Province—which will doubtless for many years amply reward the exertioDS of our own kith and kin. At the Twelve-mile (Lake) Beer and party (sluicers) have struck a run of gold in a terrace which is paying them about £ls a man per week. At the Big Beach (Shotover) the large company are obtaining some excellent returns, as is also the smaller company. Johnston, of Tucker Beach, is about using the copper-plates silvered. This claim is yielding steadily, and along these terraces there is an immense quantity of ground requiring only water and systematic working to give large yieMs. The Scandinavian will retort their crushing on the Ist December, and expect a fine cake, though the machinery has not worked by any means well.

A correspondent writing from the Twelvemile, Arrow, says: —" Mining affairs here are in a healthy state and assume an appearance of permanence and stability. Burr and Co's tramway tunnel claim is now in full working order, and the ingenious method they adopt in working reflects great credit upon the proprietors. The claim was christened to-day by the name of the 4 Enterprise.' The ceremony came off with great eclat, winding up with an excellent spread at Host Hay ward's. This claim is situated on a terrace 60 feet above the Arrow river. The main tunnel being driven 300 or 400 feet from the northern side of the terrace, it there meets Rudd and Fisher's main tunnel, which is taken in about an equal distance from the southern side of the same ledge. Thus is proved a payable lead of gold through the hill. The claim knonn as the Italian's is paying splendidly, and is still further corroborative evidence of this. Most of the sluicing parties here are doing well, and have plenty of water." The escort takes down from Queenstown 928 ounces, but we have not ascertained what quantity went from the Arrow. The yield is very good considering the few miners actually getting gold. The high state of the rivers still impedes river workings. # IMPORTANT MINING DISCOVERY. An eminent metallurgist, Mr Crooks, has just discovered a method of keeping quicksilver perfectly clean, and the result of his invention is that all the gold in quartz may be recovered. Two-and-a-half grains of gold were triturated for two hours with 10,000 grains of silver sand, 100 grains of mercury, and 1,000 grains of copper pyrites. The amount of gold recovered was less than 50 per cent. The same experiment was repeated, with the addition of sodium to the mercury, which increased the percentage of gold recovered from 50 to 90 per cent. The importance of this in relation to gold miuing can hardly be over-estimated. In different parts of the wotld, the British Isles included, there exists millions of tons of gold quartz, utterly unworkable on account of the presence of iron pyrites in one form or another. In Wales alone it is estimated that at the present time there are lying waste no less than three million tons of gold oie that may be profitably worked by Mr Crook's process, to say nothing of mountains of the same material still remaining untouched. One of the other experiments tried was this quicksiver " shaken up with water strongly impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen, when the metal broke up into particles the size of a pin's head, and refused to coalesce. The addition of a piece'of sodium amalgam, the size of a pin's point, caused them to run together into masses the size of peas ; and a second portion of the same size completed the purification of the mercury, the globules rushing together instantaneously, the dirty cloud clearing away from the snrface of the metal as if by magic." Here then both to the alluvial miner and the quartzcrasher has come the long desired and earnestly sought for panacea. No more dirty quicksitver f but vastly improved on the other hand by an agent at a small cost. The mercury can now be kept pure without retorting and waste, and to its value is added the fact that it will " sop " up the finest of flour gold. The discovery is more than opportune ; it will establish confidence in many classes of gold mining, and even, perhaps, revolutionise tha system of working now pursued by sluicers, for it will keep the silver pure on copper plates.

The appointed meeting for receiving a report of the Committee for collecting subscription in aid of Mrs Malonej and family, was held at Powell's Family Hotel; Mr Dalgleish in the chair. In consequence of some of the lists not being sent in, the meeting adjourned until that day week at 8 o'clock (Friday next). Considerable disappointment has been felt at the non-arrival of the English mail, which is again overdue about ten days.