QUARTZ CLAIMS.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 73, 1 July 1870, Page 3

QUARTZ CLAIMS.

That quartz milling can be made to pay fair wages, and allow reasonable interest on mining investments, at a comparatively sma.ll return of gold per ton, is now placed beyond a doubt. It is usually after the alluvial ground has been pretty well disposed of by the miner that he turps his attention to the more permanent, although, perhaps, equally speculative and hazardous occupation of reefing. Machinery and capital—as distinguished from the more physical efforts oi men—can alone pierce the gloomy rock, and bear its auriferous fragments to the surface in such quantities as to pay satisfactory returns by the smallest Mendings of the precious metal. The Thames quartz reefs have presented, and even now exhibit, perhaps the richest stone which the earth has yet produced ; and it is remarkable that, under such circumstances, the anomalous cry of poverty, failure, and ruin, has sent an echo all over the land. And thus we find that a dread of possible disaster in the reefs of Otago has a tendency to prevent the investments of the capitalists here, who probably over, lodk the dire irregularities, wholesale

j robberies, and inefficient " systemif/ ; -of working on the claims of the" NortF when their richness was first discovered. Was it any wonder that Warden Broad resigned his appointment on tne Thames, with the moderate salary attached to his office there, when by a mere wave of his taiismanic pen he could, as it were, break down the barriers which usually fetter uninvested capital, and render an astute and careful people a really simple, liberal, and credulous one. .At ono time that gentleman, associated with others, had succeeded in wafting on the community company prospectuses whose united represented capital amounted to nearly a quarter of a million sterling, when, at" the same time, many ox the so-called claims had scarcely been probed by pi ik or shovel. It will, doubtless be some time yet ere mining matters there assume a liealthier aspect than they now present, but that the buoyancy of this great goldlield has only been partially checked, and not materially injured, there can be- no dispute.

We are glad to learn, therefore, that with their ususl firmness in the face of surrounding obstacles, tne shareholders o? the Aurora and other reefs in the neighborhood oi Cromwell, are pushing on their works with that energy, system, and general economy, without w.aieh tne best of rock might better rest undisturbed. The Aurora is busy laying a tramway to their mill, when two batteries will be employed on completion of the works. At a depth of feet the reef is five feet wide, and yields throughout an average of thirteen peimyweights tc. the ton, with excellent prospects from patches and adjacent leaders. From the eighty feet level of the Cromwell Company some capital stone is being obtained, and as tne reef dips it seems to improve in excellence. It is very generally allowed that as yet we have only entered the confines of quartz niiuiiic iu Otago, and only partially opened the hitherto sealed book of those auriferous; resources which will yet be discovered in the' gullies and on the ranges in pur own immediate locality. Tne : eports ot mining surveyors in Victoria for the last quarter represent 57,697 tons 15 cwt. of quartz having been Crushed- in the Ballarat mining districts, yielding 29,5270z5. 16dwts! being an average of ,7dwts. 2;77gfs. per ton'; ; and in the Sandhurst division, 46,11G tons were crushed, jaelding 32,5690z5. of gold, averaging 14dvvts. 3grs. of gold. Thus, if the world-renowned mines of Australia, with their registered returns as above, eari pay, as they do, good dividends to their numerous shareholders, what may we riot expect of compact and energetic companies in our own midst. If the patent atmospheric stamp and quartz crusher, recently introduced from England by Mr. W. C. Smith, Melbourne, and tested satisfactorily in presence of about one hundred practical men in Ballarat, but half achieve the work which it is said io be capable of performing, a complete revolution will take place in the present method of crushing quartz. Easy of transit; cheap in price, inexpensive in operation, and powerful in results, are the chief features in this machine—a description of which we give in another column.