OPENING OF THE NEW BOX FLUMING.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 57, 4 March 1870, Page 2

OPENING OF THE NEW BOX FLUMING.

On Saturday afternoon last the new j box fluming of the Hit or Miss Water ' Pace Company was successfully opened in presence of a number of the shareholders and others interested in the completion of this undertaking. This* company, in order to get their water to command Surface Hill workings, have to cross two saddles either by fluming in the usual way (which would have been an enormous expense —the high-' est span being about 50 feet) or in the. way now adopted. The length of the saddle now crossed is about 800 feet, and the height required to be reached is 50 feet above the lowest part. As we believe this is the first box piping or fluming used for mining purposes in this Province, if not in New Zealand, it might be well worth description: The boxes are made of 12 x 2 inch planking,! firmly strapped together with iron bolts and 3x2 hardwood battens ; they are then closely fitted, and bound together, and laid on 3 x 3 sleepers along the line of the saddle, with a fall in their entire length of about 6 feet. A small dam is constructed!jat the mouth of the box or pipe in order to give the water more pressure to force it through—the quantity discharged or carried being dependent upon the supply necessary i to keep this dam full. It was generally asserted that the strain brought to bear upon the boxes would burst them, but the trial has fortunately disproved these assertions. We believe this description of fluming is in general use in California, although hitherto not adopted in New Zealand on account of the scarcity and high price of timber— ' more particularly on the Otago Goldfields. With hardly any pressure thequantity of water flowing through the boxes was about eight Hogburn heads, which quantity, we believe, can be increased to 14 or 15 heads. It is expected that in two months this company will have the water on top of Surface Hill, when a good many new claims will be opened. Mr. Baird (one of the shareholders) congratulated the company on the result, and said that the success of the experiment was entirely due to the indomitable and unflinching perseverance of Mr. Anderson. He (Mr. Anderson) had no pattern or precedent to go by, either in design or construction. The idea, and the carrying out of that idea, entirely belonged to him. He had to feel and work his way foot by foot, meeting with many disappointments, but always overcoming them. The health of Mr. Anderson, and " Success to the new box-fluming " were drunk with a hearty three times three. Mr. Anderson briefly and suitably acknowledged the compliment.